BCHS Girl’s Golfer Kelly Flynn

Four years ago, Kelly Flynn joined the Boulder Creek High School Girls’ Golf Team, and demonstrated an incredible talent for the game. At times, it was difficult to believe that her tiny frame could hold her still enough to even make contact with the ball, as her club appeared to swing her rather than her the club as it made its arc, wrapping around her body in both her backswing and follow through. But the clubface found the ball squarely more often than not, and it was observed that Flynn had a knack for the game that could see her take her skill to the collegiate level. Today as a senior, Flynn is looking into Division 1 colleges to play golf, but the road that she has endured has been a far cry from the smooth highways that may transport her there.

In an interview with ImagesAZ Magazine her freshman year, Flynn emphasized the encouragement of her teammates as one of the great things about high school golf. “The best thing is knowing that even if you have a bad day, and bring in a bad score, they will still love you because there is always tomorrow,” she had said. A quote that could not be truer, yet so pitted with irony. Two months later, Flynn found herself in an emergency room given a thirty percent chance of surviving a life threatening disorder.

A bout with bronchitis as a freshman prepares for her first semester final exams is not uncommon, but Flynn’s conditioned worsened with the antibiotics. After being rushed to the emergency room by her parents, it was discovered that her kidneys were not functioning properly, and while waiting for a biopsy to be performed, they failed completely. Flynn would spend the next eight weeks in hospital, taking steroids to try to kick-start her kidneys back into gear and immune suppressants to stop her body from attacking her kidneys.

Flynn was released from hospital, only to be readmitted a few weeks later. The effects of the heavy drugs that she had been taking were too great, and the roller coaster that her body had been through had sapped her strength and destroyed her muscles to the point that she would spend time in a wheelchair.

Her physical rehabilitation would coincide with a weaning from the heavy drug dosages, and Flynn used her desire to get back out onto the golf course as her motivation through rehabilitation. She incorporated stretching with a golf club, and swinging a golf club as part of her strengthening program. She knew it was going to be a long road back, but through persistence, Flynn realized the potential she demonstrated as a freshman. She also became a teammate to rely on for the next wave of Boulder Creek High School golfers, acting as much like a team mom as a player.

“I will miss most how she brought the team together. She almost acted like an assistant coach on the range and on the course trying to get her teammates to improve so they could be better as a unit,” Boulder Creek Girls’ Golf Coach Dustin Riley stated of her graduating senior. Jointly, Coach Riley and Captain Flynn have seen an upward spike in performance by the girls’ team. While Flynn was the only Jag to compete in the state championship (qualifying as an individual and finishing 39th) the team made major advances in taking the program forward.

The team finished in the top five of every event that they entered and had a winning record of 10-7 this year in duel meets. Perhaps the greatest indicators of the teams’ improvement this year was that they recorded a state qualifying score in one of their matches (first time since the inception of qualifying) and finished second in the Deer Valley Cup, up two places from 2010.

The loss of Flynn from the top of the line up will hurt the team in 2012, but Coach Riley is hopeful the team can ride the momentum in future years, “I have a young team that is going to continue to grow and improve.  I had three sophomores, Amanda Langston, Sidney Meyer and Shayla Noorgaard; and two freshman, Morgan Smith and Brittany Watts, rotate on my varsity team this year.  I think overall next year our team will be even more competitive under the new junior leadership and we will have a great shot to take the team to the state tournament.”