November 27, 2023

Sára Kousková has been passionate about both golf and the environment since her childhood in the Czech Republic. Both loves deepened through her high school and college days at the University of Texas, Austin. Now, she wants to do more when it comes with another long standing passion: climate action. A lot more. That’s why the young pro on the Ladies European Tour (LET) has become an EcoAthletes Champion.

“We are thrilled that Sára has brought her drive, curiosity, as well as her willingness to use her growing platform to the Champions roster,” said EcoAthletes founder and CEO Lew Blaustein. “She is on the rise on the course and that will translate to greater #ClimateComeback impact.”

Kousková’s golf journey — and her love for the game — began when she was five years old in the western part of her country. It accelerated when her family moved to Prague two years later.

“I love hitting the ball, watching the ball disappear in the blue sky,” she rhapsodized.  “It feels just great. That love helped me make the national team when I was 13. Yes, I was at the bottom of the pyramid, but I started to move up. When I was 16, I started to hear from friends about the possibilities of playing collegiate golf in the USA. Soon after I got some initial contacts from coaches in the states and launched my own research, too. My decision came down to this: Turning pro before going to college or to go to the states for school first, get my education and develop as a person. I chose the latter.”

She ended up selecting Texas over Florida, Arizona and Cal-Berkeley due to the quality of the coaches and especially the closeness of the team.

“Texas is such a special place; it was the right choice for me,” Kousková recalled. “That said, it was tough at the beginning. There were so many new things: The school system. Everything being taught in English. The team and everybody around. The intense practice schedule, and travel to the tournaments. And just regular everyday things things like getting a bank account or paying rent.  All of it was challenging but eventually, it started to come together.”

As a freshman, Kousková was a part of five team victories including Conference, Regionals and then also the NCAA stroke play qualifier but lost the first match in the match play[1].  She was ready to take her game to the next level as a sophomore when the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted things.

After studying remotely in the Czech Republic, she returned to Austin for the second half of her junior season. The wait was worth it when she claimed her first individual college title during the Wildcat Invitational in Tucson, Arizona. Again, she qualified for the national championship tournament and again her season ended in frustrating fashion with a playoff loss. But in the process, she grew up.

“I learned so much that season,” she asserted. “The mental aspects of the game as well as skill development. This really helped me as I headed into my senior year as I took on the ‘Team Mom’ role. Despite an injury, I had the thrill of playing at Augusta National[2] at the US Women’s Amateur. And we won the regionals as well as the Big 12 tournament again.”

As graduation approached, Kousková had a decision to make: To pursue a professional golf career in North America on the LPGA or in Europe with the Ladies European Tour (LET). In the end, she decided to go home.

“While the LPGA offers higher prize money and profile, it is also a much more difficult to get to the top, so I went with the LET,” admitted Kousková. “It just felt right. I could settle at home and be close to my family and practice on my home course. And perhaps use LET later on as a pathway back to the States.”

In 2022, she began the process to earn a LET membership by playing on the LET Access Tour — one level below the top ties. She excelled, winning three times. This year, Kousková moved up to the top tier and quickly showed she belonged.

By making the cut[3] in most of her rookie season on LET and carding two Top 10 finishes, including a 5th place recently in India, Kousková’ was able to secure full status on the LET Tour for 2024.

“This gives me the chance to play in any tournament in the 2024 regular season,” she noted. “I am very grateful to be in this position now; it was definitely a big and necessary step to establish myself on Tour coming from college golf and I am really happy it went smoothly.”

As with golf, Kousková’s climate action journey began at a very early age.

“I got a strong environmental grounding at school and at home,” she reported. “We sorted trash in kindergarten. At the same time, my family, especially my grandparents, shared their deep respect and passion for a healthy environment with me. They had a garden and I loved to eat and take care of everything that was there, from raspberries to rabbits. I ended up in charge of sorting trash at home. An environmental ethos was imprinted into my soul. It grew as I progressed through high school as I learned more about the consequences of climate change. I came to the conclusion that the way humanity was going in terms of carbon emissions was in conflict with a healthy society.”

Kousková’s climate knowledge grew at Texas thanks to courses in environmental science and geography. So too did her concern about the climate crisis — “the consumerist lifestyle in the USA is a big problem”. So, she decided she wanted to turn climate concern into positive climate action by using her profile as a pro golfer but was not sure  how to go about doing it.

Then she talked to Slovenian golfer and stellar EcoAthletes Champion Inja Fric, now completing her collegiate career in a graduate year at Wayne State in Detroit, Michigan after a strong undergraduate showing at NC State.

“Inja shared with me how EcoAthletes helps athletes improve their climate communications skills and this really appealed to me,” recalled Kousková. “I am excited to work with the organization to do that, to learn how to motivate my fans to join me in taking climate action, and to be a climate ambassador to other golfers on the tour and to the organization itself. I am ready to work with EcoAthletes to drive the #ClimateComeback!”

You can follow Sára on Instagram

NOTES

[1] “Stroke play” is the most common and arguably the simplest format in tournament golf. Whoever takes the fewest shots or strokes over the entire tournament wins. “Match play” is most often a 1-on-1 format and is based on who wins each hole of an 18-hole match – no matter by how many strokes.  Whoever wins the most holes wins the match.

[2] Augusta National is the iconic home of The Masters, the first of the four annual major championships on the men’s PGA tour.

[3] “Making the Cut” means a player finished in the top half of the entire field in the first two rounds of a four-round tournament. So only those who make the cut play the last two rounds.