Golf, by nature is a pressure packed sport. The pros make it look so easy on TV — Tiger Woods drives a ball 300 yards down a fairway, Vijay Singh sinks a 35 foot putt for birdie and folks at home think, ‘if I had a better driver and a bit more practice, maybe I could do that too.’

Samantha Curry knows how difficult those shots actually are. She knows how difficult every golf shot is. And she has faced down pressure that few people will ever encounter on the links.

On a sunny day in early August, she stared down the fairway on the par three 134 yard 18th hole at Royalwood Golf Club, knowing she absolutely, positively needed a birdie.

No doubt about it.

Trying to earn her pro card at a two-day qualifying tournament, the 24-year-old ex-Sardis secondary school student needed to shoot an 80 in the final round to match her 80 in the first round and reach her goal.

As she walked up to the tee box, her score card read 81. On the first hole that day, she’d recorded a triple bogey and she’d spent the entire round battling back.

Now, the girl who’s been golfing since she was 10 found her fate in the hands of cosmic forces and the seven iron clutched in her hands.

“I still can’t explain mentally what happened at that moment,” she recalled. “It went very mellow, into a zone where it was just me and the flag. I hit off the tee to within four feet of the cup and I just stood there shaking, thinking to myself ‘Oh my God, I just gave myself a chance to do this.’”

Accompanied by her caddy, dad Karl, Curry hustled up to the green to eye up the putt.

“It was a straight putt,” she said. “But my dad looks at me and says, ‘If you hit it too hard it might lip out and if you don’t hit it hard enough it may break and you may miss it low-side.’”

Then he walked off the green, leaving Curry to ponder the biggest shot of her young life.

“I was standing over it telling myself it was no big deal and I could do it,” she said. “I took the shot and I remember watching out of the corner of my eye as it fell into the cup. It was such an emotional moment for me because of the situation, and needing that putt to fall in so badly.”

Samantha turned around, beaming with an ear-to-ear grin and looked at Karl, seeing something she had never seen before. Many times in her life, he had told her he was proud of her. But in this moment, it was written all over his face.

“I know how I felt on that 18th hole but I can’t imagine how he felt watching,” she said. “Me achieving that goal and him being there to watch — I hadn’t seen that side of him before and it was nice and refreshing. Your parents tell you how proud they are, but when you see it first hand, it’s nice.”

In an odd sort of way, Curry was happy that it happened the way it did. Going into the tournament, she knew she needed a two-day score of 160. Had she blown it out of the water — perhaps shooting a lights out 150, it might not have meant so much.

“I really did fight all the way back,” she said. “That was one thing I was very proud of because a lot of people might not have been able to pull that off. I didn’t know if I was that capable, but when it was crunch time, I did it.”

Curry intentionally put off the qualifying tournament for a year, because she didn’t think she was mentally ready to tackle it 12 months ago. She was probably right.

There was a lot going on for me last year,” Curry explained. “I got married (to husband Andrew). I moved to Victoria and I was in my second year at Camosun College. I was spending Sunday through Wednesday in Victoria going to school, and then I’d commute home to work at the Cultus Lake Golf Club. Mentally, it would have been too much, and it was the right move to wait a year.”

So. Her reward for being so patient? The pro card which enables her to play on Canadian tour events and possibly the United States based Duramed Futures Tour. Several girls she used to face when she played for the Sardis secondary school golf team dot the Canadian tour ranks.

“As a player, you’re always going to have that goal to play on the tour, and if I don’t that will be a regret for me,” Curry noted. “I hope I can get my game to that calibre to give it a go. It may not be for me, but without trying, you just don’t know.”

Almost as important, if not moreso, is the opportunity to become a teaching pro — promoting the game she loves so much. Getting the pro card is the first step. She’ll be attending a CPGA beginners’ instructor seminar in February and she’ll have to attend a Golf B.C. seminar as well.

Curry currently works at Victoria’s Arbutus Ridge Golf Club, overseeing a successful junior program 34 members strong. Ideally, she’d love to work as a teaching pro at a course she’s very comfortable with.

“I am excited about teaching and promoting the game and getting more women to come out,” she said excitedly. “The industry for women is starting to grow, but there still aren’t nearly as many females working at golf clubs. That’s motivation for me.