Boasting an extensive athletic career, redshirt sophomore golfer Ward Kyle opens up about his life as a multi-sport athlete.

Many athletes can proudly say they’ve played more than one sport at a time. But Ward Kyle took it a step further in his high school sports career. The Ontario, Canada native played a whopping ten sports — including hockey, alpine skiing, soccer, volleyball and baseball. 

“I’d have probably three sports going on at once … but the practices for them didn’t really end up interfering with each other,” Kyle said.

But school itself was never an issue, as he was able to set up a strict schedule and stick with it. Kyle mentioned this method of time management assisted him in college as well — especially since more of his time was taken up with classes. 

On top of competing on multiple teams, Kyle’s athletic talents were recognized by several of his coaches throughout his high school career. He was given captaincy of both his golf and hockey teams for the 2015-16 season. Kyle pinpoints something else as his biggest athletic achievement to date. 

“In high school I got recognition for the male athlete of the year for the whole city. I got that two years in a row — grade 11 and 12,” Kyle said. “It was kind of cool to get recognition for something like that.”

Regardless of the many other sports he’s taken part in, Kyle names golf as his true passion. 

“It all started when I was probably 5 or 6 years old,” Kyle said. “At the golf course where I’m from, we had free golf lessons for kids. So, I would go to the lessons once or twice a week, and then everything kind of just kicked off from there.” 

Between grades 9 and 10, Kyle chose to focus specifically on golf. He even went down to Sarasota, Florida, to play golf for a gap year after graduating high school. But his eyes were on his college athletic career. 

“I was playing in tournaments, and contacting different coaches,” Kyle said. “(The old BG coach) was at one of my tournaments … we got talking, and he ended up offering me (a spot on the team).” 

Despite the challenges that playing golf presents, Kyle wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

“I like how mental it can be. It can be very frustrating, but when you’re playing well it’s extremely rewarding,” he said. 

And his career is nowhere near over. It will be intriguing to see where golf takes Ward Kyle in the future.