By Ana Belac

Our team was driving to a tournament in March when we heard the season was canceled and that college sports had been suspended because of the coronavirus. Two hours later, we heard the NCAA Championship was also canceled. It was difficult to process. In just a few hours, I went from being in a pre-tournament mind-set to having my senior year end. More than that, my final season with this team, representing the university I love, defending our NCAA title, was over. I became emotional thinking about it and everything I had accomplished.

I came to Duke from Slovenia, a country in central Europe, with only a duffel bag and my clubs. When the airline lost my duffel, an assistant coach gave me some team clothes from previous seasons, so I’d have something to wear. I didn’t see it as unusual until I saw freshmen showing up with truckloads of stuff. But it didn’t bother me. I told myself I could do this. I’d made it to campus, I had my clubs, and I could speak English. I was ready.

I started playing golf in Slovenia when I was 4 or 5. My first set was meant for a teenager. The 9-iron was as tall as me. My parents got me lessons at the closest course, a public nine-holer about 45 minutes from our house. That’s where I played growing up. It isn’t maintained like courses in the United States. The range balls were old and cracked. If you got a bad one, it’d go 100 yards with a driver. If you got a really bad one, it would break apart in the air. It didn’t matter. I won the first tournament I played, at age 7 or 8, and I was hooked.