The roster for the University of Idaho women’s golf team is filled with names of student-athletes from all over the world. From England to Taiwan, golfers choose UI as the place to stay throughout their collegiate career.
Valeria Patino, from Coronado, Panama, and Vicky Tsai, from Taipei City, Taiwan, are two international students on the women’s golf team. Both have an extensive background in golfing.
For Patino, her dad is a professional golfer in Latin America, so golfing was a part of her life from the very beginning.
“I was five years old, and I stopped a couple of times,” Patino said. “But then I came back and got myself very serious for the sport when I was 11.”
Patino said she put a pause on playing a couple of times because she was the only girl involved in her area. She said the boys she played golf with when she was younger were not always the most welcoming and kind players.
She got back into it after seeing other golfers playing and decided she missed the sport. Her father told her if she wanted to play, she had to do just as well with her academics as she did with golf.
Tsai was originally a badminton player until she was 12 years old, then she began focusing on academics as well. She took up golf after noticing a golf range near her house a couple of years later, figuring it would be a good way to spend some time with her brother, who was invested in the sport. After honing her golf skills, she realized she could use golf to apply for scholarships to attend college in the U.S., so she stuck with it.
Both players said they dreamt of studying in the U.S. and they worked for years to get scholarships in golf. They received and reached out for many offers, but their search led them to Idaho.
Patino said she was originally looking at schools in the South because she had moved to Texas with her family two years prior, with hopes of increasing their ability to speak English, and didn’t want to be too far from her family. UI was the last university to offer her a scholarship to play with them. She said she was hesitant at first, but her father convinced her to at least look at the college before turning it down.
“Idaho was the first one I visited,” Patino said. “I just fell in love with the town, the people the teammates. Everything was just combined.”
Tsai said UI was the first college to reply to her inquiries to join a program, so she decided to check out the school. She said she had visited the U.S. previously with her former coach but had only visited California. She was surprised when she turned out to be wrong after assuming Idaho’s weather was similar.
“When the first winter came, it surprised me a little bit because, it was actually a little longer than I thought,” Tsai said.
Despite the winter, Tsai said she enjoys Moscow because of its beauty and its small-town vibes. Being from a big city like Taipei, which is very crowded, she said it’s a nice change of environment for her.
Both women said they love the team, the coach and playing golf. It has given them both opportunities to improve their golfing skills, make friends on the team, and fulfill their dreams of living and learning in the U.S.
Ryan Hill can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @RyanHil32959860