In striving to capture the essence of sports in America, I try to write about sports from as many different perspectives as I can. And today I’m focused laser-like on the core level of the sport of golf – the Golf Moms & Dads. Being the parent of an aspiring elite athlete takes true sacrifice and devotion, and nowhere is that devotion on better display then in the galleries of collegiate golfers. At tournaments across the country, hopeful parents trudge around the golf course watching their kids play from a respectful distance. They hang on every swing and quietly suffer with every pulled drive or three-putt – all while rarely setting foot themselves on the luxurious short grass of the tees, fairways and greens.

At the recent West Regional of the NCAA Women’s Golf Championships, I had the pleasure of spending time “in the rough” with a full spectrum of personalities that share a common bond of fierce pride in their daughters’ accomplishments. There were the parents of Kristin Ingram, a friendly couple from Pasadena who adopted Kristin from an orphanage in Soviet-era Uzbekistan and saw her develop a golf game good enough to earn a scholarship from the University of Arkansas. Kristin’s friend and Razorback teammate Kelli Shean is herself is a long way from her birthplace of Cape Town, South Africa, and oh by the way…is able to play at an elite level despite being deaf. I now humbly vow to never again complain about someone talking during my backswing.

I also had the pleasure of talking with the mother of Theresa Puga, a player from the University of Minnesota. Despite being ranked 57th in the country, Minnesota curiously did not draw an invitation to the 72-team national championship tournament. Fortunately however, three deserving individuals that play on teams that do not get selected are invited to each regional, and as Minnesota’s best player, Theresa was able to compete even though her team was not along for the ride. Happy to be there, but feeling bad for the other players on her daughter’s team, Mrs. Puga provided great insight into the life of the Golf Mom.

I had the good fortune to see Puga play when I sought out the threesome that included Amy Anderson, another of the individual invitees. Amy is the reigning U.S. Girl’s Junior Champion, the result of a victory so improbable last summer that it evoked John Daly at Crooked Stick comparisons. After driving from their home in Oxbow, North Dakota to the tournament site in New Jersey, Anderson’s family watched as she advanced through the draw via one improbable scenario after another until reaching the final match with 2006 U.S. Women’s Amateur Champion and two-time Curtis Cupper Kimberly Kim. Intimidated? Not very. Anderson won handily, 6&5. So it was to be expected that she’d arrive in Palo Alto to represent North Dakota State with a bit of a swagger. Again, not so much. She was so low-key and inconspicuous, you’d think she was a local kid who had snuck onto the course and somehow slipped into play. And despite following her group for several holes, I never did quite figure out which members of the small gallery were her parents. But after the round I looked up the word “unassuming” in my Merriam-Webster, and yup – there they were.

But of all the delightful people that I encountered, two vastly different personalities stick out in my mind in particular – and coincidentally I encountered them at opposite ends of the field’s draw.

While following the threesome of #1 players from the tournament’s three highest-seeded teams, I was approached by a woman with a dazzling smile and effervescent personality. “Hi, I’m Margarita’s mom”, she said, extending her hand in greeting and referring to her namesake, the University of Arizona’s Margarita Ramos. We walked the next few holes together as she shared proud stories of her daughter’s golfing career thus far – those great parental stories that had her daughter been with us would have caused her to blush and beg her to stop. Margarita is the top-rated amateur in all of Mexico, and one of those natural-born talents that picks up a club at an early age and inherently knows just how to make it work. Well before she hit her teens, mother and daughter moved to Florida and enrolled in that most prestigious of junior golf institutions, the David Leadbetter Academy.

Attending high school at the legendary Xavier College Prep in Phoenix, Margarita was a teammate of fellow golf phenom, Cheyenne Woods – the niece of you-know-who. Mama Margarita told me of a time that her daughter and Cheyenne had been invited to Isleworth to work on their short game with Tiger. Cheyenne, well past the point of being awed by her famous uncle, lobbied to decline the invitation in favor of sampling Orlando’s legendary outlet malls. Young Margarita…respectfully disagreed. The two went to Isleworth.

And then there was Stephanie Johns, who plays for Portland State, the 24th and final team to be invited to play in the West Regional. She caught my eye as being a little unconventional right from her first tee shot. Dressed like she was channeling her inner Shawn White, you’d never know whether she was an X Games athlete or a golfer – until she wound up and belted her drive. She wore knee-length shorts, a simple white polo shirt sans logo…and sneakers. One of the few players in the field not wearing a hat, she sported a long blonde ponytail, large dangling earrings, and a “let’s get to work” persona.

Early in her round, Johns had the misfortune of landing her drive in a spot that by all rights should have been a free drop area, but which had been overlooked by those marking the course. A lot of players would’ve panicked, but she had the presence of mind to invoke her right to play the rest of the hole with two balls, enabling her to plead her case in the scorer’s tent after the round. As I was observing this unfold, I got to talking with a gentleman about the situation and about golf in general, and I commented to him that this Johns girl was handling a potential round-derailing situation with a lot of poise. He silently nodded his agreement. Three holes later I discovered almost by accident that Stephanie was his daughter.

A case study for the PGA’s grow-the-game efforts, Stephanie first picked up a club at the age of 6 when her Dad took her to a driving range. Hooked from the start, she has developed a more or less self-taught swing which, while not classic, allows her to clear her hips and launch the ball impressively. On several holes, she outdrove her playing partners by more than 30 yards. And apparently she’s quite the scrambler – her Dad smiled at one point and said that he wouldn’t mind spending just one round without his heart in his throat while watching her play. When I asked him about her unique sartorial style, he laughed and said “You know, I’m not sure she even owns a pair of golf shoes”.

So on this Mother’s Day, here’s to all of you Golf Moms – oh, and you too, Golf Dads.