Golf has always been a favorite activity for Wesley Chapel High senior Camden Battey. But it also taught him how to conquer pressure in big moments on and off the course.
With a state tournament berth on the line, Battey, then a sophomore, needed to win or tie a regional tournament playoff hole. Pressure on a golf course doesn’t get much greater than that.
He proceeded to shank his tee shot behind a bunch of trees on the par 4, 350-yard hole.
“I was not good at golf then,” said Battey, now a scratch golfer.
With the weight of his team on his shoulders, Battey hit his second shot over the trees to within three feet of the pin. He eventually putted out for par, which tied the hole with his opponent and kept his team’s chances for the state tournament alive.
“We got an at-large bid to states, which may not have happened if I lost that hole,” Battey said. “I felt like it would have been on me. That was the greatest shot of my sophomore year because I was in a slump then.”
That confidence boost carried over to the classroom, where he held a 4.0 GPA all through high school, first during a freshman year at Land O’ Lakes High, then excelling his final three years at Wesley Chapel to become valedictorian.
“That’s what I wrote my essays on for college, what happened at the golf tournament,” Battey said. “That helps me mentally get through some tough moments.”
Battey said becoming valedictorian wasn’t anything he thought about as a freshman at Land O’ Lakes High. When the school guidance counselor told him he was number one in his freshman class, he didn’t know where that could lead.
“I asked, ‘What does that mean?,’ Battey said. “So sophomore year after I transferred to Wesley Chapel that’s when I really began to believe I could become valedictorian. Junior year is when that thought really took off. At that point I would have been mad if I didn’t become valedictorian. So I took more summer classes and took all AP (Advanced Placement) classes junior and senior year. It was definitely a grind.”
With that golf course confidence propelling him forward, he plans to major in biomedical engineering at the University of Florida.
“I was going to do biochemistry to pre-med,” he said, “but I wanted to keep my options open, and I like math and science, so I wanted to find the intersection between those and the pre-med. So I figured biomedical engineering would be good for that.
“That’s the reason I want to major in pre-med, so I can help as many people as possible.”