AJ Ott is the same person, he’s just at a different place in his life. He has a better relationship with himself and the game of golf. Really, with life and how he approaches it daily. Where he finds his peace, his comfort and his strength.
Trust is pervasive, and it can make one powerful.
Now Ott understands what he did not, and the senior leader of the Colorado State men’s golf team is thriving.
He was the hometown product, a nationally ranked recruit who was staying home, and he was going to excel from the first ball he hit. But he didn’t. He wasn’t bad, not at all. He just wasn’t as good as he wanted to be, so he went to his coach for guidance.
“I think the expectations for him were he would come in and play every time and have a tremendous amount of success,” CSU coach Christian Newton said. “As we’ve found, any kind of life, especially college athletics, adversity is coming for you -- we just don’t know what shape, form or fashion it’s going to come in. It came in the fashion of averaging about 75 his freshman year and him coming in for his individual meeting at the end of the year wanting to know what he had to do to get better.
“We told him he needed to keep doing what he was doing. He didn’t like that very much.”
That was not the advice Ott wanted to hear. He wanted solutions. Strokes had to be shave, and it had to happen immediately. At the time, he figured Newton had no answers for him.
As it turned out, it was the perfect response.
All it took was time. And faith. The kind that comes from the Bible, and the part which comes from the process.
In the past two tournaments Ott has played, he’s topped the field. It took a playoff at The Prestige Individual Invitational on Feb. 17 at Coral Mountain Golf Club in La Quinta, Calif. It was the first collegiate tournament title on his resume, and he claimed it by making up a seven-stroke deficit in the final round by carding a 5-undeer 67, then won the playoff with Pepperdine’s Derek Hitchner.
Ott only waited four days to add his second title, this one coming at the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate tournament at the Classic Club in Palm Desert, Calif. He entered the final round with a two-stroke lead, then shot a 4-under 68 to finish with a 54-hole total of 11-under 205.
It’s been a great run which has impressed his teammates, but not for the obvious reasons.
“The actual golf piece and the result is awesome, but if I was in his position, it’s the mental side of how you basically don’t turn the success into pressure,” teammate Davis Bryant said. “Mentally, AJ is in a great place right now, because he always has a plan. He has a plan when he’s at practice; there’s always something we’re trying to work on or he’s trying to work on. I think he’s unbelievable.”
Which was the brunt of Newton’s advice back in the day. Ott just didn’t comprehend it in the moment.
Some of it, he says, has come just from experience. A rather large component has come from his faith and trying to lead a life with represents Jesus. He’s trying to be lighter on himself and others, and just as important, golf is not the God in his life, but a gift he has been given. It can’t be the main thing, it should be fun.
He would read passages in the Bible which hit close to home. It wasn’t one, but over the course of many which built up over time. His girlfriend, soccer player Taylor Steinke, helps reinforce all which he now holds dear.
It didn’t happen overnight, like the turnaround he sought as a freshman. It happened over time. He had to learn to trust the process.
“Absolutely. I’d get caught up in it every day. It’s easy for our age group and culture, that immediate success. We want everything right now,” Ott said. “It’s hard to be patient, and that’s something I’ve had to learn, as has probably everyone now, especially in sports and at CSU in the pandemic. As long as you’re doing the right things day in and day out and staying positive, success will come. Whether that’s in athletic performance, your mental outlook on life or just your relationship in life as a whole, you just have to be patient. When things aren’t going your way, you have to trick yourself into being positive, and success will come. It could be athletic success or success in life in general. Staying patient is a huge key, and Coach was definitely right.”
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