File photo by Jeremy Behnke New Ulm Cathedral’s Kayla Goblirsch was selected as the 2021 All-Journal Girls’ Player of the Year for golf.

NEW ULM — The 2021 High School Golf season is barely over, yet New Ulm Cathedral’s Kayla Goblirsch is already thinking about how she can get better for next year.

The junior played in her fourth state tournament last week and medaled for the first time in her career as she finished eighth overall with a two-day score of 176. But she has a feeling she can do better.

“I plan on playing in a few tournaments this summer and just keep practicing and hopefully place in the Top 5 next year,” Goblirsch said.

Goblirsch’s strong finish at state helped her earn the 2021 All-Journal Girls’ Golfer of the Year.

With Goblirsch, anything is possible and it seems like a Top 5 finish is a very likely scenario. She’s been a regular at Pebble Creek in Becker at the end of the year every season, qualifying for the state meet every year on varsity. That career began in the seventh grade, and she made it as an eighth-grader and a freshman along with this past year. She never got a chance to go as a sophomore due to the COVID outbreak.

While the season was canceled last year, Goblirsch still found time to get on the course. She competed in a few tournaments last year and that helped her improve her game.

“I did a few Minnesota Junior PGA tournaments,” she said. “That went well, I only did a couple but you get to golf with some really great people so it was fun.”

She worked on a few things during the summer and she also got new clubs, which helped her with her distance, one of the rare things she may have struggled with in the past.

“In the past I’ve struggled with distance and I got new clubs last summer, so last year I worked hard at getting adjusted to my new clubs and that’s helped me with my distance,” she said. “I’ve also worked a lot on my short game because that’s how you can save a lot of strokes.”

Also a standout gymnast, Goblirsch wasn’t able to practice much in that sport last year. So she motivated herself to get on the course and try to earn a medal for this year.

“Golf is just something that I love to do so it makes it easy just to practice all the time,” Goblirsch said. “It’s an individual sport so you have to motivate yourself, so I would just go out and play every day last summer.”

All of that work paid off. She said it helped her to become a more consistent golfer and that showed this year. She said she didn’t have much pressure this past year, but she did have one goal and that was to have a medal hanging aorund her neck.

“I didn’t feel a lot of pressure going into state,” she said. “Other years I knew that I didn’t have a good chance at placing, so there was pressure just to medal, but I just wanted to enjoy the experience.”

Overall, she’s pleased with how the 2020 and 2021 seasons went and she’s ready to put in the work once again for next year.

“This year I think I played more consistent than in past years, just having extra time to practice last summer and I was able to bring my average score down because of that,” Goblirsch said. “It definitely gave me more confidence going into the state tournament and I’m happy with the results at state, because since seventh grade my goal has been to come home with a state medal so it’s great to finally see the work pay off.”