LARAMIE, Wyoming (4/29/26) – Schools had adopted remote learning. Baseball was cancelled. Anything involving a large number of people was frowned upon, and in many cases was flat out not permitted.

It was COVID, and Brody Leid's life, like almost everybody's, was thrown upside down. The budding star of a baseball player could no longer hone his craft on the diamond. Pretty much the only thing he could do during the pandemic was golf.

"I had nothing to do," Leid said. "My parents would just drop me off at the golf course as they went to work, and I would just golf all day."

Playing golf was never Leid's favorite activity or even something he did more than a couple of times each year. The sport encompassed a handful of similar qualities when compared to baseball, but it wasn't something the Denver eighth-grader thought would play a large role in his life.

But a few months of work on the range, putting green and course transformed a catcher with a batting average into a golfer with a decreasing handicap. A family move to Phoenix, Arizona, and a couple of seasons on Corona Del Sol's High School golf team presented Leid with an avenue he didn't think was ever there. 

"I was playing in a U.S. Junior Qualifying event and (assistant coach) Blake (Isakson) came out to watch me. I met him and started talking to him, and one thing led to another. I came up for a visit to Laramie and loved it. I wanted to be somewhere else for college and try something new. Wyoming appealed to me, and here we are today."

Leid's fast-track from playing baseball to collegiate golfer began at the University of Wyoming in 2024. He was a freshman on a roster comprised of five seniors.

Many of his teammates and fellow collegiate competitors had been playing golf for a decade plus. Thus, it took Leid some time, albeit not much, to settle in and understand the lay of the land.

Leid's demeanor is one thing that's fed into his expedited improvement. Assistant coach Rick Gasser affectionately calls Leid a 'robot' for his even-keeled-ness no matter how well or challenging a round is going.

"He's a steady character," head coach Joe Jensen said. "He's consistent emotionally, which is really important in the game in golf."

Leid broke through at the 2024 Ka'anapali Classic Collegiate Invitational. He paced the team, tying for 29th with a career-best 66 (-5) in Round 2. He was named Mountain West Conference Player of the Week, an honor Leid reeled in three more times the following spring.

Leid has taken another step as a sophomore with the program. Not only is he competing near the top of the leaderboard at a more consistent clip, but he's also, pardon the pun, leading a young squad.

"He'd likely be voted best teammate by everybody," Jensen said. "And he's one of our hardest workers. He does all the little things right. And that's been contagious."

The veterans that Leid followed as a freshman are now gone and now he's someone a young crop of Cowboys can look to for guidance. It's just a six-man team in 2025-26 and Leid is one of only two who aren't in their first year of college golf.

Leid and the youthful Cowboys travel to Arizona this weekend for the Mountain West Conference Championships. Leid will be tasked with being the steady hand that he's always been in what will be the biggest tournament for many of his young teammates.

It's a calmness he found early on in golf. Even amid the hecticness and uncertainty of COVID, Leid discovered tranquility in a club choice, a little white ball and a course ready to be conquered.