Erin Sargent has three letters scrawled on her golf glove.

ITM.

Those three letters stand for "In the Moment", and are constant reminders to her not to allow the mental part of the most mental of all sports get in her way.

Sargent is a junior on the Cowgirl golf team, and she and her teammates are hosting the annual Wyoming Cowgirl Classic on Monday and Tuesday at the Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa, Ariz.

"There is such a huge mental aspect to the game of golf," Erin says. "I believe it is really 80 to 90 percent of the game. I've competed in other sports like volleyball, gymnastics, basketball and track, and they involve quicker decisions and more muscle-memory. Golf is more like a marathon.

"ITM reminds me to let the last shot go, and concentrate on the one that's up next. The mental aspect is one of the things I love most about golf. I especially love golf at the collegiate level because it is still individual, yet it's more team-based. I grew up in the sport and enjoyed working on my own. I looked at it from more of an individual perspective. At this level, we rely a lot more on each other. There's independence with the team ingredient."

It was Sargent's father (Randy) who turned her onto the game of golf because his side of the family loved golf. They still enjoy a family golf tournament, which I suspect Erin wins.

She spent her summers attending camps and working on her own. "What I really appreciate about my dad is that he did not push me. Playing golf had to be what I wanted to do, not what he wanted me to do, and I wanted to do it. I would have my parents drop me off at the course in the morning and pretty much pick me up at sundown."

Sargent was born in South Carolina, and moved with her family to Colorado when she was 10 years old. She attended Silver Creek High School in Longmont. "As a freshman, I missed qualifying for the state tournament by one stroke. I was heartbroken, and swore I would work as hard as I could to not ever have that feeling again. That flipped on a switch."

It was the catalyst for Erin's passion to improve. Between her freshman and sophomore year, she really fell in love with the game while working hard to get better.

"It was a game-changer. I was happy to put in the work, and I found the right things to work on. I was driven to get better."

Her game has continually improved since then, and still does to this day.  

As a freshman, she was one of four Cowgirls to play every tournament and finished with a stroke average of 76.7, tied for sixth-best in school history. As a sophomore, she improved that stroke average to 75.7 which was second best on the team. She heads into the Cowgirl Classic with a team-best 74.4 stroke average.

That is vintage Sargent, always improving. After not making the state tournament cut as a freshman in high school, she steadily improved and as a senior at Silver Creek High School, she won the state championship.  

For the Cowgirls this season, Sargent tied teammate Megan Knadler for the lowest individual round with a two-under 70 at the Ron Moore Intercollegiate, and again in the first round of the Pat Bradley Women's Invitational. Those efforts are tied for the ninth lowest score in Cowgirl golf history. Thus far this season she has four top-25 finishes, three top-15 finishes and two top-10 finishes.

"I have not coached a player who works as hard as Erin does," says her coach, Josey Stender. "She has a very strong conviction for her future goals, yet enjoys focusing on the process now. 

"Erin is one of the longer players I've ever coached, while being able to control it. She compresses the ball as well as anyone because she is very efficient with her swing. She has great patience and she plays with confidence.

"Her short game is much-improved because she acknowledged it was a problem and worked on it," Stender continues. "She has improved and progressed greatly over her career. I believe strongly that she has the ability and mental approach to play on the next level after college."

When talking about herself, Sargent is extremely humble.

"Right now I'd say I was competent off the tee. I'd like to hit it further, but I'm usually in the fairway. My wedge game has improved, and it really needed to. I'm most confident, though, with the six-feet-and-in putts. I feel really good about those putts. Obviously the short game is where strokes are cut. You can be an excellent ball-striker, but it's the short game that makes or breaks you. As the years go by, I think my game is maturing."

What type of course is her favorite? "I like courses out here in the West," she says, "because the greens are bigger and so are the fairways. But I would say that my game fits most courses. We have gotten a lot of experience in playing courses all over the country. Our schedule has been great for that. It prepares us for golf beyond college. The different courses have really helped our confidence in course management.

Sargent and the Cowgirls are very much at home on the Southern Dunes track where they host their Classic early next week. 
 
"We have played it so many times that we are very comfortable with it," she says. "There is hardly a pin-placement that we haven't seen. We look at it as our home course. We have the bucking horse on the tees, and we take a lot of pride playing there. We just have a special and unique feeling there."

An excellent student, Erin is majoring in finance and is a Mountain West all-academic selection. While she is absolute about pursuing the LPGA tour, she actually has thought about trying her hand at coaching. "I enjoy the business courses, and I'm pretty good with numbers. It's very stable and provides lots of options for when competitive golf is over. But I'm definitely thinking about coaching."

While in high school Sargent thought she would probably go back to South Carolina to attend college. But her brother came to school at Wyoming causing her to look seriously here.

"I always thought I'd probably go back to South Carolina," she says. "But I fell in love with this part of the country. When I came on my visit and got to know coach (Stender), well, that was it. She has made my experience here so worthwhile. She believes in me, I think more than I believe in myself. She has been amazing."

So have you Erin, and there's more to come!