Naylor ready to roll

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/04/2022 (1424 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Marissa Naylor was faced with choosing between her love of golf and bowling, she did it her way.

She chose to multi-task.

“I’ve juggled things all my life — since I was the age of 12,” Naylor said, earlier this week. “I went to a private school — MBCI — and we had a very packed school load there and I was still playing soccer, ringette and bowling and just getting into golf all at the same time. I grew up being busy.”

Now firmly established in the working world, the 24-year-old Winnipegger always seems to find more room on her plate.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, she was wrapping up a degree in recreation studies and a five-year career as the captain of the University of Manitoba women’s golf team.

Since then, she’s overseen the growth of a wedding photography business, completed work on a marketing degree from the Asper School of Business (scheduled to graduate this spring) and will begin full-time work next month as the social-media co-ordinator for the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management.

Earlier this month, she chalked up another major athletic achievement to rival her 2017 provincial women’s amateur golf title.

Naylor came within a whisker of winning the Canadian 10-pin team trials, coming second to Jennifer Besana of Richmond Hill, Ont., in a finish that will probably qualify her to represent Canada at the world championships in Lima, Peru, in October.

She played 37 games to reach the final, losing to Besana by 30 pins.

“In the fourth frame I missed a 10 pin, and it kind of let her back in the match,” said Naylor. “None of us were striking a lot and it was a very back-and-forth match but that missed 10 pin gave her the opportunity to strike out and win. And that’s exactly what she did.”

Naylor will be among eight Canadians vying for a berth in the World Games in August or the worlds in Lima two months later.

No matter which assignment she gets, Naylor will find time to fit everything into her schedule.

A niche sport such as 10-pin bowling and a more mainstream pursuit golf have always had naturally complementary existence in Naylor’s life.

“The nice thing is bowling’s lot of the winter time here in Manitoba, even Canada — we’ll be bowling from end of August to the end of April or end of May and then golf season starts…,” she said.

“It’s kind of nice because they overlap each other and they’re super similar — balance, co-ordination, timing, all that sort of thing works in both sports. I’ve never really had to choose except for two times in my youth career in bowling where I had to give up my spot (at nationals) to go to golf nationals with the Bisons.”

Naylor also said there’s a similar mental discipline in both sports.

“(It’s) staying within yourself, not worrying about controlling others and focusing on what you can control and executing shots when it comes down to pressure, especially at the team trials,” she said. “When I was in that final match, it was just like coming down the fairway at the amateur. It was almost an identical situation. People asked me, ‘Oh, were you nervous?’ And I was like, ‘I was nervous but you learn how to turn off those nerves in both sports.’”

Long-time coach Kevin Higgins witnessed a steady growth of Naylor during her final years as a youth competitor to 2022, her first year in the adult ranks.

“It’s never been about her physical game,” said Higgins. “She’s always had a really strong game. It was her mental game — getting her to believe in herself and believe in what she can do.”

Naylor, six-times a national overall champion as a junior, admitted there have been tough times in her competitive career.

“When I was struggling in bowling in 2015, that’s where Kevin came in,” said Naylor. “My mental game was just kind of falling apart a little bit and bowling, but golf also helped that because that’s where I made my first national teams in golf. And so when I had no success in bowling, I had success in golf, which is why they come together so nicely.”

But Higgins was never concerned about Naylor’s wide range of interests.

“She’s got so much on the go but she seems to always flourish at everything she does,” said Higgins. “… I’ve always said she’s a really good bowler with a passion for golf. That’s always the vibe I’ve gotten from her. I don’t know if that’s starting to change. It’s more even now that she’s made a (national) team. She sees that she’s improving and she’s where she needs to be.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14