Golfer Spencer Ball is starting the year off with a driving ambition

Spencer Ball didn’t start playing golf until his freshman year of high school. In his first season on the Mercer Golf Team, he has finished two tournaments in the Top 20.

“I was a little late to the game,” he said.

Ball started off at a Division II school last year, Armstrong State University, and transferred to Mercer University this fall.

He placed 14th at The Peach Belt Conference Championship before coming to Mercer and held the lowest scoring average during the season at Armstrong.

“There was a PGA Championship at a course 10 minutes from my house, and I had tickets to it every day,” he said. “Once I went out there, I realized how cool it was and that I kind of wanted to play something that I may have had a chance of going to college for.”

Ball is a freshman Marketing major from Johns Creek, Georgia. He comes from a family of athletes, and while in high school, he also played basketball.

Ball said Mercer is a lot different academically and athletically, but it was a great decision.

One determining factor: the team he joined.

“I’m looking forward to that first tournament where we all click,” he said. “It should be a lot of fun, and hopefully we’ll be able to get some wins.

Ball said the Mercer team has forced him to step his game up a little bit.

“It’s nice because it’s a little more competitive than my last school,” he said. “The fact that I made this move helped my growth a lot.”

He believes his team is good enough to get a win.

“We’ll maybe start with some top five  and top three finishes in the fall and work our way up to a win in the spring,” he said.

Ball is spending a lot of time focusing on himself as well.

He wants to make sure he is managing his time throughout this school year. He said it’s been a work in progress with the changes he’s making, but he plans to figure it out this year.

On the course, he wants to have a solid scoring average and hopefully play in all of the tournaments.

Ball looks up to a lot of people in the world of sports, but he has one role model that he has continued to look up to over the years.

“Tiger Woods is still my guy,” he said. “He was one of the reasons why I transitioned to golf.”

Ball said Woods dominated the game in a way that no one ever has before, and he’s glad he was able to witness some of it.

After graduation, Ball is interested in working for a company that allows him to merge his love for sports and marketing.

He’s interested in playing golf for a living, but if not, he’s hoping his career revolves around golf in some kind of way.