The game kept calling Lindsay Aho, imploring her to keep playing.
Her career in early childhood education could wait, the game told her.
If she were to ever give the game a shot, a real shot, now was the time.
In her heart, Aho knew the game was right. She just had to convince her mind.
“I decided to just take a risk, and I didn’t know how I was going to do it,” Aho said.
Today, Aho is a professional golfer. A 2006 graduate of Prairie High School, she is not a household name. She does not play on the LPGA Tour, not even the Symetra Tour. Instead, she is focused on improving, playing in as many minor events that she can find, trying to scratch out a living.
A year ago, she won the Pepsi Northwest Women’s Open in Federal Way, earning $4,000 for her first career pro victory. Earlier this year, she was one of the players on Golf Channel’s popular reality TV series “Big Break.” This week, she will return to Federal Way to defend her Northwest title. And later this summer, she will play in Q School, hoping to qualify for the LPGA Tour or perhaps the Symetra, the official feeder series to the LPGA.
“It’s been so awesome,” said Aho, 26. “Now I feel like I can do anything.”
Aho has had an unlikely journey to the rank of professional golfer.
She recalled shooting in the 60s for nine holes as a freshman at Prairie. But she kept working at it, eventually becoming a district champion. She moved on to Concordia University in Portland, where she won 13 college tournaments.
“Every level I’ve gone to, I’ve had a little bit of success. That makes me want to keep going,” Aho said. “Until that ends, it’s going to be hard for me to stop playing.”
Still, becoming a professional golfer was not the plan after earning her degree at Concordia. She was preparing for that career in education when her college golf coach, Ronn Grove, asked her to become a graduate assistant. The next year, she was a paid assistant with the Cavaliers’ program.
“I loved it so much. I still wanted to play,” Aho said. “I got the bug again.”
Not knowing exactly what was ahead of her, Aho signed the paperwork to become a professional and entered a Cactus Tour event in the fall of 2012. Playing in an event that featured some LPGA players, Aho was tied for first after the first round, recording a 69.
“That was a big moment,” she said.
While she did not win, she did earn a paycheck in that first professional tournament. She was hooked.
In early 2013, Aho played “in every Cactus event I could play in” and also found entries in the Canadian Tour.
Have golf bag, will travel.
Then in July, she found herself in at Twin Lakes Golf and Country Club in Federal Way, a no-name ready to tee up in the Northwest Open. So much of a no-name she was not in the Pro-Am that precedes the tournament. Those spots were filled by local pros, or professionals who played at bigger colleges. Aho remembers telling one of her friends that this was going to be their week.
“Let’s make them watch us. Let’s dominate so they know who we are,” Aho recalled.
Aho is in the pro-am this year, playing the round on Monday. The tournament is Tuesday and Wednesday.
“I probably will have more pressure,” she said. “I’m excited to see how I can use that to my benefit.”
While she remembers being nervous and overwhelmed when she first turned professional, now Aho embraces that part of the game. She credits Big Break for this change in her mentality.
Aho was the fourth player eliminated of the 12 women trying to earn their big break. The experience, she said, was memorable as well as beneficial to her game.
“Talk to anyone who was on ‘Big Break,’ they’ll tell you it was the most pressure they ever felt (in golf),” Aho said.
Filmed over three weeks in Florida, all food and lodging was paid for but there were no appearance fees. Just like in real golf, a player had to earn her money with her performance. Instead of tournament play, there were challenges to conquer, closest to the pin competitions and the like.
Aho won one such challenge, then was handed $10,000 in cash. She was told she could keep all the money for herself, but then she would be have to play in another elimination challenge that day. Or, she could share the money with four other golfers and be excused — given immunity — from that next elimination game.
Much like match play in a golf tournament, the goal is to survive and advance. So she shared the money and moved on to the next day. Unfortunately for Aho, she lost the next day.
Of course, she thinks about the $10,000 she could have had rather than the $2,000 she pocketed, but she has no regrets about the experience.
“It was very awesome. I was very lucky. No one can take that away from me,” Aho said. “I was on ‘Big Break.’ I met some great people. People recognize me more. I got real positive feedback. And I don’t feel the pressure and nerves on the golf course like I did before.”
That recognition is important, too. It is costly traveling across the continent, looking for tournaments that do not pay a lot of money just in the hopes of making it to bigger and better things.
Aho does not have any sponsors. She raises funds and has a lot of support from family and friends. “Big Break” is a big thing in the golfing community, so now she can use that to her advantage. She has earned appearance fees as a “Fairway Darling” in Las Vegas, playing in corporate tournaments. She says the networking opportunities at those type of events have aided her efforts, too.
Life on the road can be a grind to those with the wrong attitude. Aho embraces it as just another challenge.
Many tournaments have host housing, where volunteers open their homes so the players don’t have to spend money on hotel rooms. At other tournaments, players chip in for one hotel room.
“We had four of us in one hotel room,” Aho remembered.
Sometimes they share the costs for one rental car. But then different tee times can cause a scheduling conflict.
It is not a burden, not with the right attitude.
“You learn how to make things work. Sometimes it’s not always going to go perfectly,” Aho said. “You have to learn how to have fun instead of wishing you were doing something else.”
Aho makes sure she does more than focus only on golf when she travels. Thanks to her golf itinerary, for example, she has visited Niagara Falls.
The ultimate destination is the LPGA Tour. Aho, though, says she is not waiting to get there before she allows herself any joy. This is not just about the destination.
“I’ve decided to be happy with everything I’m doing,” Aho said. “It’s all an adventure.”
