Going into the 2022 season, Mexico senior Kennedi Rowe had personal goals she wanted to achieve.

First and foremost, Rowe was aiming for the state tournament for the second straight year. With that comes tweaks she needed to make to her own game, but that doesn’t mean she ignored her teammates.

Along with head coach Layne Ray, who led the Mexico girls golf program for the second season, Rowe took the responsibility of working with the rest of the girls, who had a combined one year of previous golfing experience. Rowe said there is an eagerness to focus on yourself, but she also cares for the growth of the other girls.

“It was kind of hard at first because I was going to focus on myself and improve, but I really wanted to help these girls,” Rowe said. “I’ve seen how much potential they have, and they have come a long way and am very proud of them.”

Rowe said it felt good to see how much the girls improved under her and Ray’s direction even though most of them were playing their first year of golf.

Ray said there are a lot of aspects of golf that need to be taught to those just starting. All of the rules of the game take time to learn through studying and encountering the situations on the course. She said it was helpful to have someone like Rowe with her to expedite that process.

“She was very helpful this year,” Ray said. “She was helping them with their swing and just helping with the basics. We tried to go over the rules a lot, and we hit the range at practice. Putting during golf is very confusing so she was trying to help them to figure out how to putt and how to read the green. I think a lot of the girls looked up to her.”

Even until the end of the year, Rowe was serving as an example after she was the only Lady Bulldog to qualify for the all-conference team in the North Central Missouri Conference and then was the lone Mexico golfer to make it to state.

A year ago at the Class 2 state tournament hosted at Columbia Country Club, Rowe finished 37th, and this year at Silo Ridge Country Club in Bolivar, she improved her placing by finishing in a three-way tie for 29th place after shooting a two-day score of 194, or 50-over par, with her second day score being a better 95.

Rowe remembers last week’s early state meet as being uncomfortable, not because of the pressures of state she felt more in her first trip but more due to the cold conditions. On that Monday and Tuesday, temperatures were in the 30s and frost was an issue that delayed the beginning of competition for 30 minutes on Day 1 and an hour and a half on Day 2, with everyone having to start at the same time on Tuesday, Rowe said.

“I think the cold, more than anything, was affecting mentally,” Ray said while Rowe verbally agreed. “There were all the layers we had to wear and keeping our hands warm.”

"It’s all about being able to swing,” Rowe said. “Having so many layers can prevent your swing motion. I refused to take my layers off because it was that cold.”

Rowe said there were some tough holes that were made more difficult because of the strong winds, and the fast greens at Silo Ridge were made even faster because of the frost. She said she was able to “make due” mostly because of a strong mindset.

Ray said this was because of Rowe being at state before and knowing what it was all about, and Rowe said she focused on the course and didn’t dwell on a bad shot.

“Mainly it is about more that I focused on the course and not like how I played,” Rowe said. “If you make a bad shot, you need to realize where to miss and where not to miss. You always have to figure out how to recover properly, and if I don’t recover, that can just hurt me more and affects your score.”

Golf isn’t a sport where you are guaranteed to do well any given day, Rowe said, and what other golfers must learn over time. For this season, Rowe said she worked a lot on her short game to try to limit the bad days as much as she could.

“I had some times where I was completely on my short game but then I was off,” Rowe said. “It’s always about the good and bad days, but I believe I have improved.”

Now her high school career has come to an end, Rowe said it will go down as the “best thing” and the thing she’ll miss the most from her time at Mexico High School. She said she is grateful for all the help she has had along the way, including from her grandfather that taught her everything she knows, as she made a lot of progress over her four years.

More progress can be and will be made, however, because Rowe said she intends on staying with the game in the future.

“I improved a little bit this year, but there’s always room for improvement,” Rowe said. “That’s what I hopefully intend to work on in years to come just for fun.”