Shyam Korabathina '27 Recruiting Profile

“The most certain way to succeed is to always try one more time”. This quote by one of my idols, Thomas Edison, the famous inventor, which summarizes my motivating force.  

As a freshman in high school looking to pursue higher education, my two primary goals have been to pursue academic studies concentrated in math and science and to play golf at a collegiate level.  To be clear, there was no legacy of golf in my family, but I stumbled upon it after competing in many other sports, including swimming, soccer, and tennis.  Only then did I realize how drawn I was to this unique and incredible sport with its rich history.  So I took up the “game” of golf with a motivation to start a new legacy, and my family has been supportive.

The characteristics needed to be a successful student of academics are similar to those needed to be a student of golf. I realized quickly that half of playing golf well requires a focused and balanced mindset.  I am currently a driven ninth grader who was selected to the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, where I take all Advanced Placement (AP) and IB classes, which are quite rigorous and demanding.  In spite of this, I have been able to maintain a 4.0 unweighted GPA, after “devoting” many hours a week to studies using a focused mindset.  After being selected to the varsity golf team as the only freshman, I needed to quickly find a new balance so that I could devote many hours to practicing my golf skills without sacrificing my academic studies.  Also, golf can be a high-pressure situation where it becomes hard to focus on oneself, with all the distractions around you including fellow competitors, spectators, environmental conditions, and present scorecard.  Fortunately, my focused mindset and the weekly mental and nutritional sport coaching lessons that I enrolled in have helped me to concentrate even better so that I could constantly improve my game and compete more effectively.  These are life-long tools which I plan to incorporate in all my future endeavors.

As a humbling sport, I was surprised how golf has taught me many important and hard lessons which have proven very useful in my academic studies as well, so this has been a two-way street.  The sport has taught me about consistency. I find myself always fine-tuning techniques that I thought I had already mastered.  It has taught me about patience and being an effective teacher, which became important after I started volunteering at the First Tee of St. Petersburg since 2022, where I was tasked with instructing youth about the basics of golf and rules of the game. It has shown me the value of perseverance.  In this regard, I have never withdrawn from a tournament, however difficult it might be.  Instead, I have dealt with my failures and used them to fuel future successes.  As a concrete example, if my golf game was sub-par, I would go home and keep practicing the problem techniques on my own but also readily seek guidance from online videos and my coaches so that I can remedy my mistakes.  These difficult lessons have definitely been struggles, but have been invaluable in helping me conquer challenges in both academics and sports.

The lifestyle of golf has been an amazing addition to my life bringing such balance to my academics.  I could not imagine doing either alone.  Golf has been my escape, and a great way to spend quality time either alone or with my family and friends.  It has given me a method to be creative, by having the opportunity to share my quality shots on my YouTube channel, “No Three Putts Needed”.  Nothing makes me happier than finding the middle of the clubface on an iron shot or hitting a crisp chip shot close to the pin, a profound feeling that never gets old.  I hope to experience many more opportunities as I venture forth in college.