Avery Struck has had a tough year, but the 18-year-old golfer from Halfmoon Bay – on scholarship in the United States – is fighting her way back to the top.
Struck was on a full-ride scholarship at West Texas A&M University last year, but things changed abruptly for her in the practice round at a tournament. Struck made a swing and missed, digging into the ground. It’s not uncommon for golfers – even pros – to miss, but Struck hit a tree root.
It stopped the club dead, badly damaging the ligament in Struck’s left arm. The ligament swelled and caused her ulnar nerve to pop out. She had surgery in January to pin the ulnar nerve to the inside of her elbow.
“My ulnar nerve died and I lost all feeling from my elbow down my arm,” Struck said. “I’m still missing from about an inch above my wrist to my ring and pinkie fingers – which have no feeling.
“The doctors said that it’s a long shot for me to get it all back, but they think that I’ll be able to get feeling around my wrist back. They said it’s probably not going to come back to my fingers – but miracles happen.”
Physically speaking, Struck had recovered enough by May to start playing again, but her confidence was shaken.
“I was scared to hit shots because I was scared for things to happen in my elbow again. It really was tough getting back,” Struck said. “A lot of people don’t understand because they see your fingers are still there, but until they experience something like that, I mean, no one is going to understand what it’s like.”
Struck began to slide into depression. She wasn’t able to play as well as she had before her injury and her university took a hard line. She was told she could play better, she could lose her scholarship, or she could leave.
“It was come back and be 100 per cent, or there will be some adjustments to your scholarship and the way we deal with things,” Struck said. “That’s not what I needed. I needed to know that I was going to be OK wherever I went.”
She decided to leave.
“She felt she needed a fresh start. It was becoming very cliquey in the group and she just wasn’t feeling that welcomed anymore,” Struck’s father, Tim Struck, said.
Struck transferred to Arkansas Tech University in Russelville, Ark.
“I don’t like to speak ill of anything, but for me to overcome an injury, I needed a fresh start,” Struck said. “I wasn’t getting what I needed from the school that I was at. I talked to a couple schools but when I talked to coach [Amy] Anderson, she was willing to take a chance on me.
“That was an awesome feeling and that’s why I was so pumped to go to a new school,” Struck said. “My old school was not willing to take the same chance with me. I didn’t want to go back somewhere where I was going to have an ultimatum.”
Struck said she understood why West Texas A&M gave her the ultimatum. It’s just business, she said.
“It’s like, when someone doesn’t do their job properly – this was under circumstances of an injury which occurred while playing for the school – so yeah, it was kind of cold, but it’s also business, and I understand where they’re coming from,” Struck said.
Struck played in the Central Region Fall Preview on Sept. 9 where she scored three over 75 in the final round for a total of 147. She came third out of 100 girls.
Struck’s new team, the Golden Suns, will be playing two more tournaments in Oklahoma in the coming weeks, then heading to Puerto Rico at the end of October.
