Olympia's Jonah Leach goes into last season swinging

Standing in his own backyard, a 7-year-old Jonah Leach lines up a shot that he has taken a million times before.

The putting green in the back was put in before he was even born, but he’s been studying it since he was old enough to walk and swing a golf club. 

He knows the lay of the land and the best lines to take — regardless of the angle — and, with one swift motion, taps the ball in from a few feet away. It’s a simple moment, but significant in the fact that this is where Leach’s dreams of becoming a golfer began.

“I’ve always been on that putting green — that’s basically what drew me to golf in general,” said Leach, 17. “I’d use it as much as I could at first, and then once I really got into golf I started going to actual golf courses and practicing. If I couldn’t go to the golf course one day, I’d be back at the putting green practicing.”

Ten years have passed since then, and while many things come and go, the putting green still stands in his backyard and it remains a refuge for the now 17-year-old Olympia High senior. It’s a place of comfort, and it’s the place where Leach perfected his short game.

In fact, thanks to his years and years of practice in the backyard, Leach’s entire approach to a hole during a match or tournament comes down to putting. For him, it’s his best shot at scoring a low round.

“My mental approach toward every hole, especially during high-school season, is the best opportunity for birdie,” Leach said. “I figure out what places — where you want to be off the tee and where you want to be on the green — that I need to be in order for myself to make birdie, and ultimately it comes down to the putt. That mental attitude has helped me shoot low scores and it definitely shows in the results.”

Though his putting has long been a consistent — and favorite — tool of his throughout his young golfing career, a lot has changed since he first started playing competitively at age 7.

It’s one thing to repetitively swing a club around on a putting green, but it’s a totally different beast when you start playing on actual courses that require both technique and patience. For Leach, it was a lot to take in at the very beginning.

In his first tournament, which was held in Orlando, Leach remembers just how drastic a difference it truly was.

“I didn’t know what to expect at all, and I didn’t play too good actually, but I played well enough to where it made me want to go out and play more tournaments,” Leach said. “That was actually the biggest thing — I didn’t play so bad where I wanted to stop.”

A LEARNING PROCESS

Between the ages of 7 and 13, Leach went through around five coaches before coming into contact with coach Brian Lombard — who now teaches at Ballantyne Golf Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was Lombard who really made a difference for Leach.

“I really didn’t understand anything, and that was the biggest difficulty for me — I just didn’t understand the swing and how the game worked,” Leach said. “He’s helped me change my game from bad to good, basically.”

While it took some time for him to adjust to more competitive levels, it took even longer to truly develop the weakest part of his game: driving off the tee.

It’s not unusual for a young player’s long game to be a point of weakness, as driving the ball comes easier as a player gets bigger and stronger, but for Leach it felt as though it took longer.

Leach will tell you that, before arriving at Olympia, he was always an undersized kid — shorter than average for his grade. It was a difficult thing for Leach, but luckily things have dramatically changed since he first arrived at Olympia and, started playing for the Titans varsity golf team.

“Just recently over the past three years, I’ve been growing and my long game has gotten a ton better since I’ve had distance and I’m now able to have shorter clubs in the greens,” Leach said. “So that elevated my game a ton.”

“My mental approach toward every hole, especially during high-school season, is the best opportunity for birdie.”

— Jonah Leach

Once Leach started really developing his long game into something positive, he was set.

Next thing he knew, he was winning tournaments left and right, before shooting a 63 and winning the metro last year and making states for the first time. Over the two-day tournament, Leach shot a 75 and 72 to finish in sixth place overall.

Along with his success at the high-school level, Leach also has performed impressively among the organizations he competes in outside of Olympia — including numerous top-three and top-10 finishes in the AJGA and Florida Junior Tour. 

The success that Leach had been rapidly building up since he first started competing didn’t go unnoticed by college coaches around the Southeast. Back during his freshman year, Leach had taken visits to a few different schools — like Auburn, Clemson and Virginia — and it was Auburn where he initially thought he’d end up, but something changed his sophomore year.

During that second year in high school, University of Florida golf coach J.C. Deacon approached Leach during a tournament about playing at UF — a spot had just opened up and he wanted Leach to come on board.

“When I found that out it was a no-brainer for me, because I’ve always wanted to go there — I’ve always seen Florida as a really good school to go to,” said Leach, who was 15 when he committed to Florida. “It was almost like a dream come true when I heard there was a spot open.”

Though he’ll be taking to the greens for the Gators golf team in the very near future, the reality of his situation is still hard to truly grasp, Leach said. 

“It’s only in the first two weeks of senior (year), but probably by the end of high-school season it will sink in,” Leach said. “Right now it seems like I still have a lot of time, but I know it’ll come up quick. But I’m super excited about college — I can’t wait.”