Christmas 3—LAKE CITY — When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March of 2020, perhaps no athlete was better prepared to turn lemons into lemonade than Jordana Windhorst Knudsen.
Just an eighth-grader at that time, but already a standout for the powerhouse Lake City girls golf team, the fierce competitor inside Windhorst Knudsen enjoyed the switch to distance learning.
She was in Arizona visiting her grandmother when students were told to stay home, that their school days would suddenly consist of seeing their friends, classmates and teachers in little boxes on a computer or tablet screen.
“I was already there when (the pandemic and distance learning) hit,” said Windhorst Knudsen, who will be a senior at Lake City Lincoln High School this fall, “so I thought ‘well, there’s no point in going home right now. ‘ I think I stayed down there for about a month.
“It was 100 percent fun to be able to do school (online) then go out and practice and play as much as I could.”
It was a drastic change for a golf fanatic who was accustomed to her practices in March consisting of hitting into a simulator in her garage.
Being able to finish her school work on a mid-week March day, turn off the computer, step outside and play a real round of golf was a comfort to Windhorst Knudsen at a difficult and confusing time for many students and athletes.
That experience also caused a light bulb to turn on in her head. A decision that, at the time, was four years down the road, suddenly came into focus.
“That experience helped me decide where I want to go to school,” Windhorst Knudsen said last week. “I want to be able to go outside and play (anytime) as opposed to hitting at simulators or in domes.”
Her destination is still undecided, but she has had a handful of Division I and high-end Division II programs express considerable interest since her recruiting window opened last fall.
Windhorst Knudsen hasn’t put a timetable on her college decision just yet, but if her play this summer mirrors her play from this spring, and last summer and spring, she will have more offers to sift through. She’ll lean on her advisor, Ellen Kuenster from Brent Snyder Golf in the Twin Cities, to help her with that process.
“It’s been hectic, it’s been fun,” Windhorst Knudsen said of the recruiting process, “all of the above, but it’s harder to get known by colleges in the south when you’re coming from the north.”
Windhorst Knudsen finished her junior season by winning a third consecutive Section 1AA girls individual championship, helping her Tigers get to the state meet — where they finished as runners-up — for a third consecutive season, and placing eighth individually at state. She also finished the season with a scoring average of 76.8, the best in southeastern Minnesota by more than 5 strokes.
For all of her accomplishments to date, Windhorst Knudsen is the Post Bulletin All-Area Girls Golfer of the Year for a second consecutive year.
“She’s like a gym rat in basketball, whatever you would call that in golf … a golf nut, I guess,” Lake City head coach Steve Randgaard said. “She’s a heck of a young lady, very talented in the classroom, too. If she keeps her mind clear and free of distractions, and stays positive, that’s when she plays her best.”
As it is for many golfers, the mental side of the game has been a big focal point for Windhorst Knudsen over the past four years. With that mental focus and a maturity in her play, her scoring average dropped from 84.4 as a seventh-grader in 2019 to 78.9 as a freshman, to 76.2 as a sophomore. It increased ever-so-slightly this year to 76.8, but she was fantastic off the tee (she hit 62.6% of the fairways she played) and approaching the green (averaging 10.6 greens in regulation per round).
“I know during rounds she sometimes likes to think about things other than golf, which has helped her,” Randgaard said. “She plays her best when she’s loose and having fun. … She’s very detailed, very structured, but we talk about that a lot, just going out and having fun.”
Windhorst Knudsen’s summer is loaded with big-time events — and some fun thrown in later this month. She finished fifth at the prestigious Chaska Junior Invitational last week, then won both of her matches for Team Minnesota as it tied Team Wisconsin at the annual Minnesota-Wisconsin PGA Junior Cup, a Ryder Cup-style event played annually that pits the best high school girls golfers in Minnesota against their counterparts from across the border.
“With the high school season, I get so used to all the girls we play with,” she said, “with tournaments like these I can branch out a little and meet new people. I love the courses we get to play. I’ m so lucky we got to play at the Royal (Golf Club in Lake Elmo). It’s one of my favorites in Minnesota.
“It’s just an honor to be invited to play in it.”
She’ll also head to England in a couple of weeks to watch the British Open at Royal Liverpool. While there, with her dad and a family friend, they’re hoping to play a round at St. Andrews, the nearly 200-year-old course in Scotland, where the Open Championship has been played 30 times.
Before long, she’ll have her college chosen and her senior season with the Tigers will be upon her. Her coach said he’s sad to only have one more season with her.
“She’s just a top-of-the-line kid,” Randgaard said, “a great student and a great teammate and person to be around.”
2023 — Jordana Windhorst Knudsen, Lake City
2022 — Jordana Windhorst Knudsen, Lake City