Finding Her Way Home

Hailee Cooper stood 200 yards in the middle of the fairway, eyes fixated on the 18th green.

The ball rolled, two feet from the hole, from the putter of her teammate.

The pain, the heartbreak and everything in between rolling with it. 

The girl who had lost her game, and herself, was watching the end of one of the saddest and most triumphant chapters of her life unfold in real time.

Inch by inch, the ball moved closer to its destination. Until it was gone.

She thought, “That’s it.”

Her team rushed the green in victory and she turned to her coach to embrace him, and he said…

“They did that for you.”

Hailee's senior tribute video.

“I Will Always Be Your Coach.”

Hailee Cooper was one of the best recruits in the 2018 class out of Montgomery, Texas.

She was ranked as high as the No. 1 prospect in her class and was one of the most accomplished junior golfers in the country.

She had her sights set on staying in the Lone Star State for her collegiate career and the two main contenders were the Texas Longhorns and Houston Cougars.

In one corner was Texas, which was one of the best programs in the entire country, having come off two-consecutive top-15 finishes at NCAAs.

In the other corner, Gerrod Chadwell and the upstart Cougar program that was in its fifth year of existence.

G, as he is affectionately known, met Coop when she was in seventh grade at a tournament while he was an assistant at Oklahoma. Just a seventh grader, Coop didn’t have much to her name other than the score she was turning in at the end of each one of her rounds.

However, Chadwell was drawn to watch her play that day. Even as the sky grew dark and bottom fell out at the turn, he still watched.

“There were a couple of college coaches out there but once the rain came, they all left,” Coop said. “There was no lightning, but it was pouring. I just kept playing and was doing well. I remember we made it to the 17th hole and my dad asked G, ‘Why are you still here?’”

He stayed, because he could see Coop’s fight, even as a seventh grader. He also saw her love of the game and her skill.

A few years later, it came time for Coop to make her decision: Go to Austin or go to the coach that believed in her from the start. The decision was made, and sitting in a Sam’s parking lot, it was time to make the call.

As the phone rang and she waited for the other end to pick up, she knew what this call would mean. Once G picked up, he knew quickly that this was not going to be a happy conversation.

Coop and her father explained that she would not be coming to Houston to join him but instead would be going to Texas for her collegiate career. Both parties were moved to tears with the Cougar coach losing out on his favorite prospect, and the elite junior golfer stepping away from her dream coach.

With the call ending, G, fighting through emotions, left Coop with one lasting sentiment.

“I will always be your coach."

Life in Austin.

At Texas, she believed she could take her game to the next level and compete on the biggest stages.

Once her freshman year began, she wasted no time in making her presence felt, winning two tournament titles at the Betsy Rawls Invitational and the Bruzzy Challenge. She would compete in all 12 tournaments for the Longhorns, leading them in stroke average (72.28) and to the No. 1 seed heading into match play at the NCAA Championships. 

Texas’ season came to an end in the quarterfinals, but Hailee won her match and finished fourth at NCAAs in stroke play.

The star freshman earned All-America first-team honors and was the Big 12 Freshman of the Year. She was right where she should be and was exceeding every expectation on the golf course.

Her sophomore year didn’t start out quite as dominant. The finishes weren’t as low, and the scores were a little higher. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, shortening the 2019-20 season, and ushering in a new era for Coop and her golf career.

She lost control of the ball, and she began to fear the game, because she had no idea where her ball was going. She didn’t know where she was going either. 

Her relationship with Texas began to sour and the bubbly personality, infectious smile and selfless leadership began to fade.

Things got even lower as she was set to compete at the 2021 Augusta National Women’s Amateur, every woman’s collegiate golfer’s dream. Coop was forced to withdraw after a positive COVID test.

Her scoring average after her junior season had jumped over three stokes from her freshman All-America campaign. In her second-to-last bit of action in the burnt orange, Hailee finished last at the Big 12 Championship.

It was time for change: Either hang it up or move on from Texas.

Enter the Aggies.

During her three years at Texas, the Longhorns and Houston Cougars played in the same tournament several times. Every time Coop saw G, her mind returned to that day in the Sam’s parking lot, and she felt jealousy.

She would see his golfers and wish that could be her.

Once she entered her name in the transfer portal, G called her. From there it was easy. She finally had her chance to play for her coach.

G wasn’t going to be coach at Houston anymore. He was heading to Aggieland.

And that meant so was the former Longhorn. 

Chadwell’s pitch was simple: Come to A&M and help me build the foundation, while learning to love this game and yourself again.

“I was just coming to lay the foundation and throw some paint on the walls for the future,” Coop said. “There was no pressure. He just wanted me to come and help and find myself and the love for the game again.”

There She Is.

Coop’s first three appearances of her first season wearing the maroon and white she shot +12, +13 and +13, respectively. All three finishes outside the top 50.

Her game was still on the rocks and over spring break, G wanted her to come out to the desert for a couple more tournaments. She wasn’t ready.

“I wasn’t feeling it about playing those tournaments in Arizona,” Coop said. “G said that was OK, but that he wanted me to play at the Liz Murphey in Georgia, so I said I would be good to go.”

She went home and practiced that spring break, playing round after round. After a breakthrough with her first under-par round at Traditions, she felt like she had a little bit of confidence to go and compete at the Liz Murphey Collegiate.

Then, the craziest thing happened. 

The ball flew a little straighter. The putts were falling. Her game was there.

She finished the tournament tied for fifth, the first top-five finish for Coop since 2019. 

“Hey, that was some Hailee Cooper golf,” she thought.

She followed that with another top-five performance at the Silverado Showdown just a couple weeks later.

Although she didn’t turn in any more Hailee Cooper-esque performances the rest of the season, her team made a miracle run to the semifinals of the NCAAs for the first time ever. She proved to herself that she still had good golf left in her bag.

The Last Ride.

After the Aggies finished runner-up at the Carmel Cup to open Coop’s final college season, G and Coop had a press conference to discuss the “Mo” Morial Invitational. A reporter asked G about what she meant to the program.

“There are just some kids that you connect with,” G said. “She represents everything that you want. I am a father. She is what you want out of a daughter. I am a coach. She is what you want out of a player. You want five Hailee Coopers, and she makes my job easy.”

G, visibly emotional, had set the stage for the final year of her collegiate career. On top of that, he named her the team captain. The first time he had ever named a team captain in his nine years as a head coach.

That week, Coop was in the same field as her former team for the first time. Heading into the final nine holes, it looked like A&M would fall to Texas as it was six strokes back at the turn of round three.

However, Coop would erupt and so would the Aggies. She shot 4-under 68 in the round and a Longhorn collapse helped A&M secure the tournament championship on its home course. Coop finished tied for third and was off to the races.

Her season was highlighted by eight top-20 outings, and she was second on the team with a 72.65 stroke average. She had improved her average by over three strokes from the previous year.

Coop’s year saw her earn All-SEC second-team honors, and she was the driving force behind A&M’s SEC Championship run that saw the team win its first conference title since 2015.

Coop went 3-0 in match play at the SEC Tournament, including a victory over South Carolina’s Hannah Darling, 4&3, in the semifinals. Darling was ranked as the No. 10 amateur in the world.

The once broken golfer had helped lead her team to a No. 6 ranking and the one seed at the San Antonio regional. They were a serious contender and were set to embark on another chance at an NCAA Championship.

Finality.

A&M versus Texas is a rivalry almost as old as the sports they compete in.

Not often do the two schools get the chance to play with everything on the line, but as stroke play at Grayhawk wound down, it became a reality. It was the Aggies and Longhorns in the quarterfinals.

As Coop walked into the clubhouse after 72 holes in the desert heat, the first thing she said was, “I could go right now.”

“It was hard to sleep because we were so excited,” Coop said. “I wasn’t scared at all. I was the last match out and playing one of my good friends. I knew it was going to be fun to see how we performed at that level and under that type of pressure.”

Coop was matched up with former teammate, and great friend, Bentley Cotton in the last match out.

The Aggie jumped out early, winning the first two holes of her match. At the turn, her opponent had evened the match and the score was tied at 2-2-1 across all five matches. It appeared like this was going to be the swing match.

Coop and Cotton would tie nine-consecutive holes. One would birdie and one would match. One would hit a big putt and the other would hit an even bigger one.

On No. 17, Coop broke the tie with a birdie and was heading to 18’s tee box, 1 up.

At this point her teammate Zoe Slaughter had already put a point on the board for A&M with a 3&2 victory. Around the same moment Coop had gone up, Blanca Fernández García-Poggio had buried an emphatic birdie on No. 18 to secure the second point for the good guys.

Ahead of her was Adela Cernousek who was holding onto a one-hole lead on 18 with a two-foot putt to advance Coop and the Aggies into the semifinals for the second-consecutive year.

That junior tournament in the rain. The call in that Sam’s parking lot. The All-American season. The loss of her love for the game. The move to Aggieland. The re-discovery of her game and herself.

It all led to this.

All the work to get back to the woman she was, was sitting less than 2 feet from the hole while she stood hundreds of yards away with a seat to witness her fairytale ending.

The birds chirped and the sun beat down over the desert with a whispered intensity looming over the moment.

Adela sank the gimmie and the Longhorn season.

“I watched everyone run onto the green and thought ‘that’s it’,” Coop said. “G and I hugged for a long time, and he said to me, ‘They did that for you.’ We started crying in the fairway. Then, I went over and hugged my friend. We had a really fun match that was back and forth.”

“God Brought You Home.”

Once she finally met her team, she told them a simple thank you. They echoed G’s words and told her that was for her.

They had her back. Adela, Blanca, Jennie, Lana, Zoe and assistant coach Giovana Maymon knew what this meant for their captain.

Coop’s match went unfinished up 1 thru 17. But this chapter was done.

“I walked over, and I hugged my mom and the boys,” Coop said. “I asked my dad, ‘How cool was that?’ He was kind of holding back tears and said, ‘That’s a really cool way to finish this.’ It was an on top feeling that you can overcome anything, and it was a fitting way to end that chapter.”

To the 12th Man, it was another notch in the belt. It was bragging rights over that school to the west.

To Coop, it was a rebirth. It was a core memory cemented in her heart and soul. 

It was the full circle moment that every athlete dreams of.

It was redemption.

“I am really proud of myself,” Coop said. “I was able to admit that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I needed something different, and it was cool to say that my trust in myself led me here. The woman, friend, teammate and family member that I have become through this journey makes me proud to have gone on this ride. My golf game has gotten better since I came here, but the confidence in myself that has grown over these last two years is amazing.”

Hailee Cooper came to A&M to slap some paint on a couple of walls and pour some concrete for the future of the program.

Instead, she left a mansion that was fully furnished with a maroon Ferrari sitting out front.

The Texas A&M women’s golf program is now a national power. It is the only school in the country to have a conference title and two semifinal appearances in the past two years.

There are many reasons for that, but maybe the most important was Coop.

As G said at the end of the year banquet: “Coop, you have forever changed our program. There will not be a tear shed of sadness, but only of thankfulness. Thankfulness that God brought you home.”