Anna Christian Beeker

   FamilySearch ID: GV1W-FBS.

  Noted events in her life were:

1. Newspaper: Tuscaloosa News: 9-Year Old on Varsity Golf Team at Tuscaloosa Academy, 1 Apr 2018, Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa, AL. ¹ Anna Christian Beeker loves fashion.
Notebooks filled with dress designs are scattered around the Tuscaloosa Academy third-grader's home. Her favorite sketch is of a poofy, light-pink ball gown trimmed in lace.
The 9-year-old isn't skilled in drawing people; dresses are her specialty. She visualizes what a dress will look like before putting pencil to paper.
It's the same technique she uses on the golf course: Before club connects with ball, she pictures where the shot should land, then follows through.
Standing 5 feet tall, the fairway fashionista plays with the TA boys team and is believed to be the youngest athlete ever to play varsity high school athletics in state history and one of the youngest ever in the country.
The Alabama High School Athletic Association prohibits athletes from competing at the varsity level until the seventh grade, but there is no such rule in the Alabama Independent School Association, of which Tuscaloosa Academy is a member. AISA athletic director Roddie Beck said he doesn't know of anyone in the third grade or younger to ever compete in varsity competition.
Playing at the high school level in the third grade is extremely rare. J.B. Holmes, 35, who plays on the PGA Tour, earned 10 varsity letters after joining the Taylor County High School team in Kentucky as a third-grader.
TA has had elementary students join the varsity ranks in the past \endash including Beeker's older brother, William, who joined the golf team in fifth grade \endash but never one who was under age 10. When Scott Taylor, the coach, approached the school's athletics director about his third-grade prospect joining the team, Robert Johnson didn't hesitate.
"Scott said we've got a third-grader that can really hit, and she has done really well, too," Johnson said.
Her scores break 100 and Beeker can drive a ball 180 yards.
"She is playing on the level of an average high school golfer at 9 years old with what she is shooting, and for her age that is incredible," said Tom Farrell, assistant golf professional at Indian Hills Country Club.
Wearing her long, blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, Anna walked the Indian Hills Country Club course during last week's Tom Tarleton Memorial with the swagger of a seasoned veteran.
"Results demand respect," said Taylor, who played at the University of Alabama.
TA doesn't have a girls team. Anna plays with the boys, against boys from other teams.
Luke Agent, a 17-year-old junior at Madison-Ridgeland Academy in Mississippi, played in her group at the Tarleton Memorial. He knew of Anna before he arrived at Indian Hills: She was paired with one of his teammates during her TA debut at the Heritage/Oak Hill Invitational in Mississippi.
"I played a third-grader today," the teammate told him.
Agent responded, "I don't think they let third-grade girls in the tournament."
"Well, they did," the teammate said, "and she almost beat me."
After playing with her, Agent was impressed.
"She was very mature for a third-grader. I would think she was in like sixth or seventh grade if I didn't ask her," he said. "She played pretty close with me, and I think she beat the other guy in our group."
Anna rounded out TA's scoring, shooting 93-96 \endash 189 in the two-day event.
"I was kind of nervous, but then when I started playing it just felt like normal," she said.
Anna hits from tees placed about 15 percent closer to the hole than the boys tees. To compete in the AISA state championship next month and score for TA, rather than as an individual, she will have to tee off from the same spot as everyone else.
"Normally high school boys will play the second-furthest-back tee, and a 9-year-old on average \endash I coach a junior league team \endash they are teeing off way up on the fairway, like 200 yards up, because they can't play regulation golf from back here," Farrell said. "So she is breaking 100 from courses that are way, way too long for her, even at 15 percent."
Long drives aren't the hallmark of her game at this point, but she's deadly accurate closer to the pin.
"From 150 yards in, that is where she excels. Her short game is so good," Taylor said. "She is at a disadvantage from the ability to hit off the tee from a certain distance, but you get her with anyone else within 100 yards and she's as good as any of them."
Anna's best score on nine holes is 32, 4-under-par, which she shot in a youth tournament. She has increased her off-the-tee off distance since joining TA's team, and continues to adjust to the longer field.
"I just had to think about it like it was a par-4 and just play it as a par-5," she said.
Anna began playing golf at age 5. She has competed across the country on the youth circuit: Her favorite destination is San Diego, where she has twice played in the IMG Academy Junior World Championships, finishing in the top 15 both times.
She also finished in the top 25 of the U.S. Kids World championship in Pinehurst, North Carolina, won the U.S. Kids Golf Tour Holiday Classic at the PGA National in West Palm Beach, Florida, placed fourth at the Doral Publix Miami Open, and has two top-five finishes at Innisbrook Golf Resort in Tampa.
"I wouldn't have gone to any of these places if it wouldn't have been for golf," she said.
Her mother, Elizabeth, said Anna's interest in golf began after watching her older brother, now an eighth-grader, compete. Anna was inspired and kept asking to play. Her father, Inge, bought her clubs and a bucket of balls so she could hit on the driving range while William practiced.
From there, her love of the game continued to grow. So did her ability.
"She knows how to conduct herself on the course, how to stand, but she also knows how to hit the ball, and at her age to be able to hit the ball the way she does is a big advantage," Taylor said. "She doesn't hit like a third-grader, and she is willing to learn and listen."
Anna's older brother started playing varsity golf at age 11. He has an idea of the challenge she is facing.
"I was not really sure what to expect, because she is really good but she is playing with all boys and I remember how nervous I was," he said. "And I was older than she is and a guy."
The siblings spend countless hours practicing together, on the course and off. They have a putting green mat at their house and a net for hitting balls in the garage.
"He has taught me about everything I know," Anna said of her big brother.
The learning goes both ways.
"She has taught me how to be more confident in myself," William said.
The family affair with golf is ongoing. For Christmas, the Beeker children bought their 3-year-old fraternal twin brother and sister a set of toy clubs.
"Hopefully we'll have four golfers," William said.
Said Anna, "First we have to teach them how to behave on the course."
On the plane ride home from the big junior tournaments, Anna sometimes sketches dresses in her notebooks. She loves royal blues, teal and mint green. Sparkles and lace are her fabrics of choice.
Anna aspires to be a professional golfer with her own clothing line for girl golfers. Her designs would be colorful and include things like ruffled shirt collars and ruffled skirts.
For now, she'll keep designing as she watches her favorite fashion shows and PGA tournaments on television, and continue to work on her swing, one varsity letter at a time.