Better than par

Julie Baker enjoyed playing putt-putt as a young child. Mychael O’Berry first got on the golf course in the early days of elementary school.

Fast forward to the present, and the Hoover High School seniors recently have wrapped up their careers as Buccaneers and are preparing to play golf at the Division I level in college.

Baker is heading to the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, an area she is familiar with. O’Berry is going down to the Plains to play at Auburn, a school she has admired her whole life.

“I love that area,” Baker said of Hattiesburg. “My grandparents are from there, and my mom went to school there, so it was always one of my top schools. When I got the opportunity to play there, that’s where I wanted to go. I was really excited.”

“I’ve been an Auburn fan my whole life,” O’Berry said. “I have always wanted to play golf; the (Auburn) coaches are amazing; the practice facilities are top notch, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather play.”

Baker and O’Berry were key cogs to Hoover’s back-to-back state championships in 2014 and 2015, so it is no surprise to see the duo realizing dreams by continuing to play competitively beyond high school.

“It’s been our No. 1 goal since we started playing golf, and it’s so cool that it’s actually going to happen soon,” O’Berry said.

Baker and O’Berry said that moving up from the high school ranks into college golf does not necessarily make them nervous, but there is an understanding that the competition will be tough.

“It’ll be interesting, but I think it’ll be really fun,” Baker said.

Hoover coach Lori Elgin expressed pride after the Bucs came home with a runner-up finish at the Class 7A tournament May 15-16 at the Robert Trent Jones Grand National Golf Course in Opelika. After the back-to-back titles, Hoover finished second each of the past two seasons.

“I am proud of Julie and Mychael’s accomplishments in their high school careers,” Elgin said. “Two state championships and two runner-ups isn’t too shabby. They both are great young ladies who have very bright futures ahead of them.”

Baker was the low medalist runner-up individually after posting scores of 73 and 72 over the two-day tournament.

“I’m proud of Julie being the low medalist runner-up in the state tournament,” Elgin said.”

The key to those state championships in 2014 and 2015 was teamwork, a quality that is not always prevalent in golf, a largely individual sport. 

“You can’t rely on yourself to win,” Baker said. “You have to rely on four other people. It’s important that we all work together.”

Part of being able to trust teammates comes from chemistry, the bond perfected between members of a team throughout the season.

“We travel together a lot, and we spend a lot of time outside of practice together,” Baker said, “even though that’s not always golf. We eat out together; we go to practice rounds together, and we hang out a lot.”

Carson McKie, Neysa Dechachutinan, Emily Baker (Julie’s sister), Preeti Venkatesan, Danielle Buompastore and Helen Lunsford all have competed with the Bucs as well this season. They form a solid core that Julie Baker and O’Berry will pass the torch onto next year.

“It takes a strong team,” said O’Berry. “Having a good team atmosphere is really important in order to succeed.”

As individuals, Baker and O’Berry were fine-tuning their games last month, as the season neared its end. O’Berry was battling a back injury that forced her to miss six weeks. Even though she said she had not fully recovered, she was not going to allow the injury to make her miss the final stages of her high school career.

Each pointed to a particular facet of their game they were working to improve upon as the season entered its critical stretch. Baker stressed having more confidence overall, while O’Berry admitted her putting had not returned to its previous form since her back injury.

“A little bit lately, I’ve ben struggling with my confidence,” Baker said. “I’m hitting the ball OK, but sometimes I get nervous and don’t hit a good shot.”

Even at that rate, Baker has plenty of past experience to bank on if she ever needs proof that she knows what she’s doing. Last summer, Baker won a Southeastern Junior Golf Tour tournament, coming back from a deficit after the first round and posting a great round to charge back to the top of the leaderboard and force a playoff. She birded the first hole in the playoff to win the tournament.

“That was kind of exciting,” she said.

O’Berry said she hit the ball well all season, but that putting is a new problem for her. 

“Right now, my weakness is my putting. I don’t have a lot of confidence in my putting. I’ve been changing it around a little bit. But we’re working on it,” she said.

Baker and O’Berry are such all-around solid golfers that it almost seemed as if those current issues were minor and would disappear quickly. Much of that comes from having the mental strength to put together a solid round every time out, even when problems arise.

“When you have a bad hole, it’s so important to erase it from your memory and not let it continue to the next hole, because once you do that, you’re basically done for the whole round,” O’Berry said. “You have to stay positive through your whole round and not let one shot get to you.”

They are both talented enough to excel at the next level and have given Hoover several years of high-quality golf. The page will turn soon to a new chapter in each of their lives, but the next step is what Baker and O’Berry have been striving toward since the days on the putt-putt circuit.

“We’ve been working really hard for it,” Baker said