Laurie Gibbs was the one coach who stayed committed to Reese Guzman during the rough times.
That loyalty has paid off for the Pepperdine women’s golf coach ever since.
Guzman, now a senior with the Waves, helped her team win a tournament for the third time this season, returning home to the Valley Isle to claim the Anuenue Spring Break Classic last week in Lahaina.
Guzman, a 2019 Maui High alumna, shot a personal-best 67 on the Royal Course she has played many times at Kaanapali in Tuesday’s second round. She followed that up with a 69 on Wednesday to finish a tie for fifth place at 7-under 209 to earn her second-best career finish.
It also helped the Waves win the team title by seven strokes.
“Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better week,” Guzman said in a phone interview Friday during her one day of school between tournaments. “We did a lot of things over there (in Hawaii). It wasn’t just about golf, but it was very much a nice team-bonding experience. It was also nice to get a chance to show my coaches where I’m from.”
This special bond between player and coach goes back six years to the summer between Guzman’s sophomore and junior seasons in high school.
There were a lot of schools willing to offer her a scholarship, but she began to struggle in a few tournaments. Coaches started to pull away. Opportunities suddenly weren’t there.
Pepperdine was her dream school before she got to high school. Then she thought about wanting to go farther away to the Midwest.
When she began hearing less and less from schools, she made a call to the Pepperdine coach.
“I asked if the (scholarship) offer was still good. She had offered me early on and I wanted to make sure since a lot of schools were pulling out,” Guzman said. “She said, ‘of course.’ She told me a couple of rounds, a couple of tournaments don’t define your game like you’ve shown me. You showed me you could play and that’s all she really needed.”
Not only was it a relief, it also gave her a belief. The belief in her talent. The belief in the hard work she had put in. The belief she could be one of the best in Hawaii.
By the time summer was over, Guzman had won back-to-back AJGA tournaments. She was ranked as high as No. 74 in the AJGA rankings and was Hawaii’s top-ranked junior in 2018.
The coaches started coming back with their offers, but loyalty was something Guzman was never going to forget.
“Coach (Gibbs) stood by me when I wasn’t playing my best,” Guzman said. “That meant more than the people who were there only for my successes.”
Guzman earned All-West Coast Conference first-team honors in 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic cut her freshman season short. She helped the Waves advance to the NCAA Ann Arbor Regional after finishing 13th individually at the WCC Championships.
The stretch run of her senior season began with the tournament in Hawaii and continues this week at the Chevron Silverado Showdown in Napa, Calif.
Instead of one day of school between tournaments, the Waves will get two days off before heading to Millbrae, Calif., for the Silicon Valley Showcase next Monday. The WCC Championships are 10 days later, April 20-22.
“It was nice after playing that well in Hawaii to kind of have a confidence booster,” Guzman said. “I’m feeling pretty good about my game. I’ve just got to keep the mojo going and the momentum flowing.”
Her attention has shifted forward, but the memories of last week in Hawaii will last forever.
Her 7-under-par finish was a career-low and, including all of the times she played the Royal Course growing up, she had never shot a 67.
Her 13 birdies in the tournament were the third-most.
“It felt like redemption for me because the last time I played that course for a tournament was states, and that’s when I lost in a playoff,” Guzman said. “Even though I played well and came in second I felt like I was defeated. It’s not a good feeling to walk off the course after finishing second. But to walk off that course with a win and not just a win for me but a win for my team in college, I feel like I redeemed myself.”
REESE GUZMAN
School: Pepperdine
Class: Senior
Height: 5 feet 3
High school: Maui (2019)
