At age 9, Page Bowman followed along as her father Kory — who had been a professional golfer for a decade — and older brother hit the links.
“My brother and my dad would always go play golf and I’d want to go with them so I would. And it would always be us three,” she said. “When I got to the age of 13 or 14, I started going by myself.”
Long hours on the Hickory Hills Golf Course, especially the lessons from her father, paid off. She made the golf team at Glendale.
“Freshman year of high school is when I knew I wanted to do this with my future,” said Bowman, 17.
By that point, golf coach Ron Yocum was already familiar with the skilled and promising golfer.
“There was no moment too big for her,” said Yocum, who has been coaching since 1979. “I already knew Page. I’d watched her play when she was a youngster in the little junior tournaments around here and she was already a really fine player.”
As a freshman, Bowman placed first in the conference and district competitions and third at state.
She won first place in her division at the state level during her sophomore and junior years and again recently as a senior. Her scoring average over the four years at Glendale was approximately one under par for each 18 holes played, a rare feat.
“She is just phenomenal. It’s not going to happen, I’ll never have another player as good as her,” Yocum said. “If I do, I’ll play the lottery.”
Yocum said as good as Bowman is on the course, she is “an even better person, and a great teammate” who cheers on her friends and mentors younger players.
Bowman has accepted a scholarship to play golf at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she plans to major in marketing.
Seemingly unstoppable on the golf course, the teenager and her family have faced a difficult challenge away from the game.
Her dad, Kory Bowman — who played professionally and was a golf coach at Missouri State University — was leaving a fitness center in April 2024 when he collapsed. A passerby called 911 and he was rushed to a local hospital, where the family learned he suffered a debilitating stroke.
“I didn’t even know that could happen to a person who was completely healthy,” she said. “It was scary for a few weeks but he’s doing a lot better now.”
Her dad spent months in a rehabilitation facility in Colorado and worked with occupational, speech and physical therapists to gain strength, mobility and communication skills.
“I was definitely a daddy’s girl. I was definitely closer with him just because we’d golf every day and he’s taught me everything I know about golf,” she said. “It was really tough transitioning from having a coach … a person I would always play with forever, my whole life. Not having that anymore, I’m still working through that.”
Bowman’s dad has worked hard to get to the point where he can walk the course and offer pointers again. He recently started driving a car.
“It is cool to see him work so hard,” she said. “And it honestly inspires me every day, how much better he gets and how much work he puts in.”
Despite playing a lot of golf with her father and older brother Max, Bowman also loved soccer and played the sport competitively through seventh grade.
She decided to focus exclusively on golf because it provided an individual challenge.
“You can go out and practice on your own. You don’t need a coach or a team to practice,” she said. “I could go out and play nine holes by myself, with my music. I really liked that part of golf, where you can get away from everything and just play.”
Bowman said her family is highly competitive and it was clear she made the right choice focusing on golf when, as a sophomore, she beat her father for the first time.
“Still after that, I would never beat him every time,” she said. “He would mostly beat me.”
Used to playing with her brother and father, she found camaraderie on the Glendale girls golf team. She often plays with best friend Aedin Lackey, a senior also headed to the University of Missouri-Columbia.
“She (Bowman) pushes me to be a lot better. When we play, I try to take things from her and watch how mentally she plays. It is a big part of the game. She doesn’t blow up when bad things are happening,” said Lackey, who plans to study nursing or exercise science in college.
“She is always calm under pressure. I never see her falter at all. I feel like she is very locked in. She really takes her time through every shot. She thinks about it.”
Lackey said Bowman is a supportive teammate who is not judgmental and makes playing fun even on a rough day.
Bowman, who recently won her third straight state title in golf, had a support system of friends and family during the state championship.
She was solid the first day of competition but then pulled ahead. Her father, who could hardly walk after the stroke, was able to follow on the course to see every shot.
“The second day was really fun. I was trying to soak it all up because it was my last day of high school golf, which was bittersweet,” she said. “By hole 16, I was winning by four and that’s when I wanted to take it all in.”
Bowman said the months since the April 2024 stroke has made the family closer.
“I always thought my dad would be there and helping me with golf my whole entire life,” she said. “This just brought a new perspective that not everything is promised. You have to be grateful for everything you have because it could be taken away in a second.”
