Kassidy Foley is new to golf.
But she’s had the technique down for years.
Foley is a senior on the Little Flower High School golf team, and last week she took third place in the Catholic League golf championships.
Her efforts helped a lot because the Sentinels ended up winning the girls championship during the event at Blue Bell Country Club.
It’s a great accomplishment and even a bigger one when you consider where Foley and her teammates were a year ago. Or where they weren’t a year ago.
“Not many of us golf, one girl came up to us and told us we should play,” said Foley, who plays field hockey, swims and runs track at Little Flower. “We did pretty well last year, and then because this is our senior year, we really wanted to win it, so we practiced a lot more.
“We would go to the driving range and just work together. It was fun. We really were all new to it, but I kind of knew what I was doing because I would have the form down from other sports.”
One of those sports was field hockey.
The other is camogie, an Irish sport that combines field hockey, lacrosse and rugby. It’s an extremely physical sport that includes a lot of bumps and bruises, but it’s one Foley has been playing since she’s been in fifth grade and she’s become very good at it.
“I play for the Philadelphia Shamrocks, we play and practice at Northeast High School,” said Foley, who lives in Fox Chase. “We compete around North America and we’ve won championships. I love it. And it’s helped me a lot with every other sport.
“It’s like Irish field hockey I guess, and my family is really Irish, so I gave it a try and I really like it.”
She just likes staying busy, and winning.
Not only is the Little Flower golf team the best in the Catholic League, the Sentinels are enjoying a solid field hockey campaign. While competing against the best teams in the area, they have two wins, including a triumph over Archbishop Wood.
When the fall season comes to an end, she’ll jump right in the pool where she’s a captain on the swimming team. Then it’s right off to track.
“I love doing them all, and I’m really glad I started playing golf,” Foley said. “I think we showed a lot, and not just Little Flower. Archbishop Wood had two girls finish first and second (individually) and they did as well as most of the boys. I think we showed we’re pretty good golfers and can do as well as a lot of the boys.”
Foley was very proud of her efforts, but was even more proud of her team’s success.
She was quick to point out how well all of her teammates golfed, and also spoke very highly of her coach.
“Our coach is Coach (Tim) McCartney and he is such a great coach,” Foley said. “He just started coaching golf, but he’s really good and he does so much fun stuff at the school. He teaches business and he’s always doing crazy stuff to help us learn.”
Foley has been learning a lot during her time at Little Flower. And while she’s a strong student in the classroom, she’s learning in other ways as well.
She’s a member of the Student Government Ambassador club and she’s also the vice president of the Community Service Corps. For her, that might be the most rewarding of all of her extracurricular activities.
“We do a lot of things like feed the homeless,” Foley said. “I’m in charge of helping plan the visits. We also do things like peanut butter and jelly drives and breast cancer awareness events. We just try to help people. It’s very rewarding.”
When she’s not doing school events, she’s either studying or hanging out with friends and family. And just like her Little Flower career, it almost always revolves around athletics.
“I hang out a lot with my family and my cousins,” Foley said. “They play sports, so a lot of times I’m just at a game watching. Sports are a big part of my family. Everyone loves them and we all go and support (each other).”
She also hopes to stay in athletics long after high school.
Next year she hopes to attend either La Salle or St. Joe’s and she wants to major in sports marketing. In the future, she hopes she’s a member of the local teams.
“I want to work for one of the professional sports teams in Philly,” Foley said. “I want to do something with sports apparel. Maybe work with the teams. I love sports and I want to be around them.”
And when she does, she’ll do it as a Catholic League champion.
“Winning it as a senior means a lot because we really worked hard for it,” Foley said. “It means a lot because we did this together.”
