Wayne Trace golfer breaks school record in three-straight tournaments

PAYNE, Ohio (WTVG) - Kenadie Daeger already tied the nine-hole girls golf record at Wanye Trace High School during her freshman season.

In her final year, she broke the 18-hole record - in each of her last three tournaments.

“I started practicing more,” Daeger said. “I always practiced but not this much, so I just really focused on it.”

Jeremy Daeger is the head coach at Wayne Trace and also Kenadie’s father.

“That’s the biggest thing,” Jeremy Daeger said. “People want to be good at something but they don’t love practicing. She loves to come out and hit balls.”

But a few weeks ago, a simple trip to Fort Wayne for a golf lesson changed Kenadie’s game and she made the same trip again Thursday afternoon.

“I kept hitting the ball different ways and missing the greens by a little bit,” Kenadie Daeger said. “He just helped me with my swing to straighten the ball out and I started hitting a lot more greens, two putt or one putt birdie or par.”

Last fall, Kenadie did not hit many balls on the course. She had what she thought was tendinitis in her wrist and still qualified for the state tournament.

“I had carpel tunnel in both wrists,” Kenadie Daeger said. “I was born with two extra muscles so they just had to take it out and its better and its not bothering me anymore.

“Everytime I swung, like it would hurt really bad. So it just made it hard to excel through the ball and just get it to go anywhere basically.”

A January surgery and an August lesson have her ready for a fall run.

“I told her one day, I said, ‘It’s going to click for you,’” Jeremy Daeger said. “I said, ‘Just keep working hard and it’s going to click.’ And that’s the way golf is, you’ll find something and that lesson was it and it clicked for her. She loves playing with her teammates, she has a blast, she has three other seniors (and) she gets to play with her kid sister.”

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