BANDON, Ore. – Don’t let Brooke Biermann fool you.
Off the golf course, she’s an All-American girl from St. Louis, friendly and kind, with an easy way about her in conversation. But when competition starts, she transforms into something else entirely – a competitor with unrelenting tenacity.
“The kid is going to give you everything she’s got,” said Brooke’s father, Bill Biermann. “And no matter what, she never quits.”
That fighting spirit has been on full display this week at the U.S. Women’s Amateur, her final amateur event before turning pro and heading to Q-School – despite a right-wrist injury that surfaced just days before competition began.
She didn’t quit when trailing for the first 21 holes of her Round-of-32 match against Olivia Duan on Thursday morning. And she certainly didn’t back down when she found herself 2 down to Texas standout Cindy Hsu with just four holes to play that afternoon.
Instead, Biermann fought back by claiming two of the next three holes. After missing a 3-footer that would’ve won it in regulation, she simply regrouped and knocked out Hsu on the first extra hole to advance to Friday’s quarterfinals against incoming Northwestern freshman Arianna Lau.
“People are always amazed because here you have this sweet, blonde-haired kid who’s so nice, but when she gets on the golf course, the switch flips,” Michigan State head coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll said. “She’s just so tough, and her grit is unmatched.”
Well, nearly unmatched.
Inspired by Her Sister
Brooke will tell you her determination comes largely from her younger sister, who she considers the strongest person she knows.
Ashleigh Biermann was born with Jacobsen Syndrome, a chromosomal condition so rare that when she arrived two decades ago at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, doctors there had never treated such a patient. Bill Biermann still remembers the distinct, grayish color of his baby girl, who would undergo multiple surgeries, including an open-heart procedure and cardiac catheterization. She spent months in the hospital before going home with a feeding tube to a room outfitted with monitors and wires.
Those diagnosed with Jacobsen Syndrome are missing genetic material in the 11th chromosome, causing various cognitive and physical issues, and developmental delays, especially with speech and motor skills.
Yet Ashleigh, now 20, has never let her limitations affect her determination. She’ll likely never drive, but she bikes, swims and walks about five miles daily.
“She’s just so relentless,” said Bill, who points to when Ashleigh began working at a hospital through Special School District of St. Louis.
“She had this job wrapping sandwiches, and don’t ask me why, but they timed the kids, and she’s sitting there on the first day, and she’s stressing,” Bill recalled. “But what does she do? She comes home and tells us, ‘You need to buy me some bags so I can practice.'”
Brooke adds: “To see her determination and her mentality when she’s told, You can’t do that, or you can’t play this – I try to take that and run with it as much as I can out on the golf course. Being able to walk with her and see her, it’s like, you know what, I’m fortunate enough to have a healthy body and able to compete at the highest amateur level, and what a blessing that I’m able to do this.”
Brooke wasn’t even 3 years old when she first visited Ashleigh in the hospital. Since then, she’s accompanied her little sister to over a hundred doctor’s appointments. As Ashleigh’s devoted defender, Brooke once confronted a bully who was teasing her sister at school; with her right fist buried in his chest, Brooke threatened the bully with words not suitable for print.
When Brooke left for college in East Lansing, Ashleigh would call or FaceTime her big sister “probably 15 times a day,” Bill estimates. “And Brooke, so graciously, never complained.” For Ashleigh’s most recent birthday, Brooke surprised her with tickets to a Jason Aldean concert. Even Brooke’s boyfriend, Drew Barclay, who played college golf at D-II Maryville in St. Louis, buys Ashleigh gifts and takes her on dates when Brooke is away.
“Ashleigh couldn’t have gotten a better sister,” Bill said.
And vice versa.
A Special Bond Through Golf
Ever since a partial jaw removal in middle school pushed Brooke away from contact sports and toward golf, Ashleigh has been captivated by her sister’s game. She’ll spend hours on the range watching Brooke hit balls and rarely misses a tournament. When Ashleigh’s new job as a teacher’s aide at her church’s preschool kept her from attending last month’s Western Amateur, where Brooke reached the semifinals, competitors kept asking where her sister was.
For four years, as Brooke collected trophies and All-America honors, Stoll and the Michigan State players considered Ashleigh part of the team. When the squad posed for photos after advancing through the NCAA Norman Regional last spring, Ashleigh was invited into the frame.
“She’s my No. 1 fan,” Brooke said. “She leans hard on me, and I lean hard on her, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.”
Ashleigh typically travels with a small stool – though that didn’t make the flight to Oregon – and a backpack filled with snacks, raingear, towels, her lucky Sparty ball marker, and anything else she might need. Her bag on Thursday must have weighed nearly 20 pounds, but Ashleigh didn’t mind. Wearing a green Michigan State hat, she walked all 41 holes while providing constant encouragement with her favorite cheer, “Kick butt, Brooke!”
“It makes me smile,” Ashleigh said simply of watching her sister play.
A Family Legacy
Bill beams when talking about this moment. Not only are both his daughters enjoying the experience of their lives – one competing in and the other witnessing the nation’s premier women’s amateur championship – but he’s on the bag at a place his late father, also named Bill, called the “most beautiful place I’ve ever been” after visiting the coastal David McLay Kidd design just months before his death 13 years ago.
Brooke’s relationship with golf can be traced to her grandfather, a golf enthusiast who gifted 9-year-old Brooke a dozen yellow golf balls – “Goldies,” she calls them – before he passed. Playing in perhaps her third tournament after his death, Brooke made a hole-in-one with one of those yellow balls at Yorktown Golf Course, a par-3 layout in Shilo, Illinois.
“That was a sign,” Brooke said. “And that’s why to this day I always play a yellow ball. I know it’s unique, and a lot of girls, when they ask what I’m playing, I’ll go, ‘Yellow Titleist 1’, and they’re like, ‘Okay…’ But I always want to have my grandpa with me.”
He was surely with her as she placed the yellow ball back on the 18th green, poised to complete her comeback against Hsu. But after Hsu rolled her birdie try first, her ball came to rest in Brooke’s line. In hindsight, Brooke says she should’ve conceded the putt, but instead found herself adjusting her stance around Hsu’s coin. The slight change likely influenced the shocking push that missed the hole entirely.
Brooke realized it immediately, rising early and placing her hand over her face as the crowd gasped.
Ashleigh showed no reaction. Perhaps she knew how her sister would respond. She’d already seen Brooke drain a clutch par save at the par-3 15th to claw back to 1 down, and then nearly hole her pitch at the par-4 16th, her ball hanging on the lip before time ran out.
Bill was confident, telling his daughter on the first playoff tee, “Brooke, you got it.”
When Hsu’s par putt from 10 feet lipped out hard, Brooke’s marathon day had reached its conclusion. After entering the championship ranked 112th in the world, she’s now just three wins away from etching her name onto the Robert Cox Trophy, one of golf’s most beautiful prizes – at what her grandfather called “the most beautiful place.”
As competitive as she is, Biermann couldn’t help but get sentimental: “No matter what happens I’m going to be happy… That’s what I’ll probably tonight think about most, how grateful I am to be here.”
And to have an inspiration like Ashleigh.
