Jenna Eidem of Wiesbaden completed her high school golf career by winning the DODDS-European championship for the fourth time. She totaled 88 points in the two-day event, almost double the total of runner-up Leigha Daryanani of Bitburg. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
Jenna Eidem of Wiesbaden completed her high school golf career by winning the DODDS-European championship for the fourth time. She totaled 88 points in the two-day event, almost double the total of runner-up Leigha Daryanani of Bitburg. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
Jenna Eidem of Wiesbaden completed her high school golf career by winning the DODDS-European championship for the fourth time. She totaled 88 points in the two-day event, almost double the total of runner-up Leigha Daryanani of Bitburg. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
Standing just off the 18th green at Wiesbaden’s Rheinblick Golf Course, still teary-eyed and shaky-voiced after completing her perfect DODDS-Europe run of four consecutive individual girls golf championships, Wiesbaden senior Jenna Eidem offered a comment that retroactively explained her dominant career.
“I truly believe, as cliché as it sounds, that I’m one of those people that when I say something, I do it,” Jenna Eidem said. “I set my mind to it and I do it.”
This impressive ability likely dates back well before Eidem’s days as a Warrior. But for the current purpose of depicting and celebrating the 2014 Stars and Stripes girls golf Athlete of the Year, the origin of the gift Eidem describes can be pinpointed to the eve of the 2011 European golf tournament.
On that day, as Jenna recalled, her father approached his freshman daughter and asked if she was ready for her first attempt at high-school glory.
“I’m going to kick butt tomorrow,” Jenna recalled replying.
And so it was. The next day, the first of many DODDS-Europe butts were kicked. Eidem won her first European championship by a 10-point margin under the event’s modified Stableford scoring system.
Eidem strengthened her grip as a sophomore, recording a stunning 27-point victory over the field. A year later, she fought off a worthy challenge from Ramstein hopeful Dametrah Lewis to record a 17-point win.
Last month’s European tournament was a simple victory lap for Eidem, as she nearly doubled her nearest competitor’s Stableford score with a remarkable 88-point showing.
When it was over and official, Eidem drifted off the green, accepting hugs and congratulations while watching the boys groups finish up their own rounds.
“Four years ago I never, ever thought this would happen,” Eidem said then.
A contradiction? Not to Eidem’s hypercompetitive mind. There’s a distinction, you see. Eidem expected to win as a freshman, and she did. Then she expected to win as a sophomore, and as a junior, and of course as a senior, and she did each time. But a stellar career, marked by four years of undisputed and uninterrupted dominance, is an accomplishment that only truly reveals itself in retrospect.
Now, it’s time to look forward again. Eidem will spend time this spring at a golf academy in Florida, honing her skills for a career that, if all goes well, is only just beginning. Her confidence, just as it was four years ago on the night before her star was born, is high.
“I want to play collegiately and then I want to go pro,” Eidem said. “I believe I can do it.”
For Eidem, that has always been enough.
Twitter: @broomestripes
