The clubs barely reach past her knee now, but they were Sunny Wang’s first tools in her golf journey. A golfer since she was five years old, Wang’s father introduced her to the game.
“I hit a few shots with these tiny golf clubs, and it started from there,” the golfer said.
Wang, a first-year golfer for the Hawkeyes, was born in Beijing. China’s capital city lies over 6,000 miles away from the former capital of Iowa, Iowa City. Traveling between the two places requires anywhere between 19 to 30 hours.
Wang completed this trip during her recruitment, meeting with head coach Megan Menzel, who took her to the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center and Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
“When I was on my visit, everyone was so nice to me and I liked the whole sporting environment over here,” Wang said. “I was like ‘Yeah, this is the place.’”
The transition from living in Beijing to Iowa City can be shocking for anybody. For Wang, she said the biggest thing is the food, but the different tastes are made comfortable by the actions of the others around her.
“I’m not used to the food yet, but everyone has been so kind, and I think I have settled in pretty well because of how welcoming everyone around me has been,” Wang said.
Being a member of the Iowa women’s golf team is a privilege that offers many benefits, Wang said, including traveling to different places for matches, which she is particularly excited for.
“In the spring we have a lot of competitions away at really cool places like Puerto Rico and California, so I’d say I’m looking forward to that the most,” Wang said.
Much like many collegiate golfers, Wang has been keeping busy over the summer by competing in tournaments to prepare herself for the upcoming fall season. She received a confidence boost this summer, scoring under par in consecutive rounds for the first time in her career. In late July, she posted -11 for two rounds then finished in the red for her third round the next day.
Along with golf, Wang also participated in hockey and netball in the U.K. in her younger days.
“I really enjoyed hockey. I would always take the short corner because I would do this golf thing and hit it in and everyone would be like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so cool,’” Wang said.
Recruiting a player that lives all the way in Beijing from Iowa City could be very challenging, but Menzel said the process was rather simple. A recruiting contact served as an intermediary between the team and Wang, and some U.S. tournaments offered the golfer a chance to visit campus.
Besides Wang’s stellar golf game, Menzel said there are plenty of other qualities the first-year possesses that can improve the Hawkeyes as a whole.
“She’s just got a maturity about her and a strong love of the game and competition while continuing to want to elevate herself,” Menzel said. “She’s got a great sense of humor that jumped out at all of us right away. She’s always got a smile on her face, and I think she is really excited to wear the black and gold.”
