MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / June 19, 1999

LAPLACE – One characteristic of a winner is that once they experience success, they continue to work to build on it.

LaPlace’s Leisl Hasbrouck fits that description. Has-brouck has won back-to-back Maxfli Gulf State Champion-ships and has been featured in Golf Digest yet there she is every day on the range and on the course, working to get better and better.

Hasbrouck completed her second year on the Riverside Academy golf team last month, compiling a season record of 30-3 playing in the fourth spot.

She went on to place fifth in the district match and had a top 20 finish in the regionals. She also competed with the Rebels team as it qualified forthe state tournament, the second time she has gone to state.

“I had more experience this year,” Hasbrouck said. “I was still nervous onthe first tee but by the third or fourth hole, I started loosing up. The firsttime I was nervous all the time.”At the end of this month, Leisl Hasbrouck is heading to Mobile to play in the United States Golf Association’s junior girls qualifier.

In early July, she will play in the Maxfli Gulf States Championship in Mississippi, a tournament in which she has won her age group the last two years. But this year, she will be playing up, competing in the 14-year-oldage division.

From there, it’s on to the Junior Rice Planters tournament in Charleston, S.C., held at the course where her dad served as an assistant pro.”I wanted to try to get her against the best competition,” her dad, Belle Terre Country Club head pro Bob Hasbrouck said.

In the meantime, Hasbrouck is working on her conditioning program. Atypical day includes going out to the range and hitting two buckets of balls then working on her short game and putting.

Then its time to hit the course where she plays 18 holes daily. In the pasttwo years, she has picked up two clubs in yardage.

Hasbrouck’s hard work is paying off. She was recently featured in GolfDigest.

“It was pretty cool,” Hasbrouck said. “I liked it. It was an honor.”Bob Hasbrouck said while its an honor, it will also motivate her competitors so she has to stay focus and keep working to stay at the level she is at.

“I tell her it’s good for you as far as national attention but it’s also puts a bulls eye on you,” Bob Hasbrouck said.

Hasbrouck has been helping out with the clinics at the course and has become a role model for many of the other junior golfers there.

“The kids are more impressed with her and her ability,” Bob Hasbrouck said. “We had one student ask what do I have to do to be more like her.”Hasbrouck said she has fun working with the clinics.

“I see all of them as my friends,” Hasbrouck said. “My friends are alwayssaying ‘Can I come out to the club? Can you teach me to play golf?'”

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