LOUISVILLE, Ky.--Many successful golfers attribute their success to "staying in the moment," not dwelling on negatives but concentrating on the current situation.  Bellarmine senior Margaret Brown is now using that philosophy off the course to deal with the reality that her college playing career came to an abrupt halt when the Coronavirus pandemic caused the cancellation of the spring season.
 
Little did she know that when she teed it up at Ohio Dominican's tournament in September that would be her last collegiate event.  "My parents weren't even at my last college tournament, which was hard for me," Brown said, "That was back in the fall at Columbus (Ohio), but my old teammate was there, so that was special for me."
 
But, staying in the moment, she finds the positives from her last event.  "At least I didn't shoot a 90," she said reflecting on her final performance. "I shot 82, 86.  I'm okay with that if that's my last college tournament."
 
Looking back on a college career that encompassed 49 competitive rounds of golf, Brown said there's not one shot, not one defining moment that she'll take from her Bellarmine golf experience.  Instead, it's the sense of being part of a team that she'll most cherish.
 
"The whole reason I came to Bellarmine was to be on a team, and so I don't think I have one particular memory that sticks out, because the last four years have been really good for me to just be on a team with other girls," she said.
 
"There was one tournament where we got rained out the entire practice round day," Brown recalled, "and I think Bailey Wiegandt, Savannah Trussell and I watched like four movies in a day because we had nothing else to do.  And that was so fun, and that's something I'll remember forever."
 
"I get to walk away with lifelong friends," Brown said, "which is really special because I didn't have that growing up."
 
Brown hails from Princeton, Kentucky and attended Caldwell County High School, where she was the only member of the girls' golf team for her last four years. "The last prominent golfer to come out of my county was Emma Talley, who's now on the LPGA Tour," Brown said. "She went to 'Bama and won the national title, so I had that to grow up with.  I started playing golf in like sixth grade and was kind of a natural at it."
 
College golf was never a goal for Brown, but after her senior season (golf is a fall sport in Kentucky), she started considering it. "After my senior year, I was like, 'I think I want to keep playing and keep playing competitively,' she said. "I had never been on a team really.  I was always with the boys…it was the guys' team plus Margaret."
 
Her college search was a quick process, and led to her signing with Bellarmine in November, just before the end of the fall signing period. "I found out that Bellarmine had a great nursing program and was in a bigger city; I wanted to get out of my small town," she said. "I found Art's (Coach Art Henry) email on the athletics' webpage.  I sent him an email, and that was it."
 
Once at Bellarmine, she found out relatively quickly that nursing wasn't a career that she wanted to pursue.  "I grew up on a farm, so I'm used to gross stuff, but not on the human side," Brown explained. She switched to health service administration and found success in the classroom and a passion for long term care.
 
A top-notch student, Brown has earned All-American Scholar honors twice from the National Golf Coaches Association, and the Great Lakes Valley Conference named her a Brother James Gaffney Scholar after posting a perfect 4.0 grade point average last year.
 
In addition to keeping up stellar grades, Brown has been busy prepping for a career with real world experience.  "To become a nursing home administrator in Kentucky," she explained, "you have to have a thousand hours in what's called your AIT (Administrator In Training) experience. And so I started that back in February (of 2019) in Shelbyville at the Masonic Home.  I did 500 hours there over the spring semester and summer.  Then I did the rest of my 500 hours (at the Masonic Home) on Frankfort Avenue.  I actually finished it on March 13, literally the day before everything shut down, so I got lucky."
 
Brown will finish her degree in May, and she has decided not to stay in school to compete a fifth year—an option that the NCAA is affording student-athletes whose spring seasons were canceled. She said, "(A master's degree) really wasn't on my radar since it isn't required in my profession.  If I had ever thought about getting it, I thought I'd wait until someone else was paying for it."

 
For the immediate future, Brown is going to enjoy staying in the moment.
 
"Nothing's really firm for me as far as future plans," Brown said. "I told myself I didn't really want to start looking for a job until May.  I want to enjoy my summer while I have one last summer."
 
The only certainty for Brown is that she knows she isn't finished with golf, or with her Bellarmine friendships.
 
"I'm privileged I play a sport I can play the rest of my life," she said. "I get to walk away with lifelong friends. We talked about it just the other day, we're going to be the six girls who go on a golf trip every year together."