Chris Hatch: friend, student, golfer and this week’s campus celebrity.
As a sophomore playing on the Western Washington University Men’s Golf Team, Hatch, 19, will be making putts and hitting drives at Western for the next two and a half years. With the motivation and passion he has for this sport, he says his goal for the rest of the season is to become an All-American and possibly even get his first big college win.
Anyone who knows him would say that golf is his one and only passion, Hatch says. At the age of five-years-old, golf came into his life. Not until later in his career, at the age of 13, did Hatch begin to golf competitively.
“Living on a golf course was a big reason for what got me in to the sport,” Hatch says. “But my dad used to play in the men’s club which hooked me.”
Hatch, second from the left, at the Chico State Tournament in California with some of the team.
Playing for the Western golf team has been fun, he says. Being on the team, he has been able to travel not only all over Washington, but to different states including Texas, California, Arizona and even Hawaii. Not only does the traveling make it fun, but his team mates make it a great experience as well.
The team will be starting their spring season tournaments this month and have been busy qualifying for the next competition.
“For the spring season, I don’t know what to expect,” Hatch says. “Anything can happen, but with the kind of talent that we have on our team we can do great things.”
The team’s primary goal this season will be to make it to nationals in North Carolina.
The farthest ball that Hatch has hit to date flew 380 yards through the air on the 18th hole at Chambers Bay golf course near Seattle, Washington. Although he claims he may have had a little help from the course’s layout and the wind, we think he’s being modest.
“I had a hole-in-one in the last tournament of the fall down in California,” Hatch says. “It was my last hole and I hit with my 7-iron from 197 yards, it was funny because walking up the hole I told my coach I was going to hole-out and sure enough I did!”
When Hatch is playing at his best on the course, he says that there is no better feeling in the world. The game is easy and he knows exactly where the ball is heading.
During the school year, Hatch can be found on the golf course practicing nearly every day. Golf is the only thing that he dedicates himself to, over the summer he can spend up to ten hours at the course. When Hatch isn’t golfing however, he likes to catch up on school work and hang out with friends.
Although Hatch is majoring in Business at Western, he someday hopes to achieve his ultimate goal of becoming a professional golfer.
When asked if Hatch had any words of wisdom he replied, “I’m still young so I don’t have much, but I think the most important thing in anything you do is to just have fun. Don’t make anything harder than it already is.”
Hatch teeing off at the Cal State Stanislas Tournament.