After a pandemic pause, university golfer Natasha Kozlowski is back in the swing of things.
Now in her sophomore season at Simon Fraser University, the 20-year-old College Heights Secondary School graduate rose to the occasion 10 days ago at the NCAA Division 2 Great Northwest Athletic Conference championships in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Kozlowski led the field with an opening-round 75 and carded a 79 on the second day to finish tied for third. Her strong showing at the conference championship, combined with her spring season results in eight tournaments that made her SFU’s second-ranked golfer this season earned Kozlowski the nod as the GNAC Newcomer of the Year - the first SFU golfer ever to win that award.
She got sick with COVID at the end of February and she finally recovered after full month of being sick. That forced her to miss the first tournament of the year but she played well and was in fine form for the conference championships, played in cold and blustery conditions.
“I played decent, I’m not super-happy with my season but I was happy I was able to go out and post some scores and win a couple awards,” said Kozlowski, after finishing a round at Predator Ridge in Kelowna, where she now lives with her parents Val and Duane.
“I’d say I’m still recovering from COVID, my stamina’s not there right now and I’m just trying to work it back up. If you Google COVID, I had every single symptom, it was bad.”
Through 18 rounds at eight GNAC tournaments, Kozlowski averaged 78.44 strokes per round, which was 6.56 over par. Ranked second among the five SFU women who traveled this spring, she was also named to the GNAC first all-star team.
“Natasha was a player on our radar as a junior, and we're fortunate that she decided to transfer to SFU after her first year at UFV,” said SFU head coach Matthew Steinbach. “She's a great athlete who is on the cusp of breaking through to the next level on the golf course. I'm excited to see Natasha's growth and development next season.”
A two-sports star in volleyball and golf at College Heights Secondary School, Kozlowski started her post-secondary career at University of Fraser Valley in Abbotsford. She transferred to SFU in the summer of 2020 but the 2020-21 season was canceled due to the threat of COVID and she did not compete in any university tournaments.
“We had nothing last year and it was tougher this year to get back into it,” she said. “We had a young team this year and a lot of us had gone from really not playing any tournaments to going back into a full season. We’re not as used to traveling and school and competing and it was definitely a good learning year for all of us. We didn’t perform to the level we wanted but I think we learned a lot and I think we’ll be really prepared for next year.”
Her second season at SFU began with a fall schedule that took her to tournaments in Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Hawaii and California. Kozlowski is majoring in criminology and hopes to turn that into a law-related career. She finished tied for 11th at the Saint Martins Invitational in DuPont, Wash., and ended up tied for 15th at the Westminster Wasatch Inivitational in South Jordan, Utah
“It’s my second year at SFU and my first full year of university competition ever and I really like the school and the team, we get to go to a lot of really cool tournaments and travel a lot and they have a great criminology program there,” she said.
“I had a really good first year at Fraser Valley, I liked the school and got pretty much a normal semester-and-a-half of in-person classes and traveling and competing and I got to play on that team. I went to every tournament and we got to play in the States on that team as well.”
Working harder at her game than she ever has, Kozlowski is starting to see the results in her practice round scores, which are only two or three strokes above par. She’s been especially happy making use of her irons and her wedges, which she says have been her saving grace.
“I’m playing OK, really close to playing well, just a couple tweaks I need to get worked into my game but I feel pretty good about it,” she said. “I’ve been playing a lot.
“It’s trending in the right direction for sure and I’m pretty excited for the next couple years to see what happens.”
Kozlowski has two major tournaments coming up this summer – the 117th annual BC Amateur Women’s Championship in Pitt Meadows, June 20-24, and the Alberta Ladies Amateur Championship, July 5-7. Her schedule won’t allow her to play in the Ladies Simon Fraser Open, Aug. 13-14, on her former home course at Prince George Golf and Curling Club, where she first started playing golf as a six year old. The Canadian Amateur Championship is in Quebec and she won’t be making that trip either.
