Lenna Persson wasn’t able to squeeze in the obligatory trip to Mount Rushmore on her college visit, but she’ll have plenty of chances to make amends when South Dakota State University becomes home beginning next year.

The Aspen High School senior recently signed her letter of intent to compete in women’s golf for the Jackrabbits, a NCAA Division I program located in Brookings.

“What I wanted was a competitive program. So, I chose South Dakota because I feel like I can get a great education and also be the best golfer I can be in college,” Persson said. “All my friends are doing college applications now, and they are all so stressed, writing so many supplementals, doing all these things. And I put in the work before, and now I’ve just been cruising. It feels great to be in college and done with all of that.”

---

---

Persson has become a standout golfer for the AHS girls, headlining a program currently going through its heyday. The Skiers finished fourth in Class 3A this past spring, with her tying for fourth overall. A year prior, when she was a sophomore, the Skiers finished as state runner-up at Aspen Golf Club, the best team finish in school history. She was also fourth individually.

She’s won all three of her individual regional championships and will be chasing the career sweep this coming spring as a senior.

---

---

Still, Persson said it took some effort to get coaches to respond.

“I was emailing college coaches, and I was trying to get recognized, trying to get seen, giving them so many updates,” she said. “I have this massive spreadsheet, like 100 college coaches, that I would try and email every week. And nothing was really working. My mom and I signed up for NCSA (Next College Student Athlete, a recruiting service), and then I could message coaches directly through that, which really helped. Then I started to get more recognition, and I started to get phone calls with coaches.”

Persson said she visited five schools and received offers from four. In the end, it came down to either South Dakota State or Staten Island’s Wagner College. While academics played a major part in her decision, she ultimately preferred the seemingly more competitive nature of the SDSU golf program, which competes out of the Summit League.

“South Dakota is the school that is going to get me to another level in my golf game. That was ultimately the deciding factor,” Persson said. “South Dakota just had what I wanted in terms of offering a really competitive program. It’s a state school, and so much is catered toward the athletes.”

Playing college golf had been the goal for her since at least middle school, although stepping away from competitive skiing will be no easy move to make. During the winter, she can be found among the bumps, where she’s become one of the better moguls skiers in the region. She’ll compete again this winter but doesn’t see a future in the sport after high school.

“It’s definitely hard because I love skiing so much. And it’s such a big part of my life,” she said.

“The only thing is, the route with skiing is (you go to the) U.S. ski team, or you go to college, and you ski on the side,” she explained. “And I’ve always really wanted to be a college athlete. I want that experience, and I want to start to put all my time into one thing and see where it will take me. Skiing is always going to be part of my life, and I’m still going to ski this season, just because I feel like I couldn’t not. But that was one of the biggest things is I couldn’t ski in college just because mogul skiing is such a small sport that they don’t really offer it.”

Academics played a role, with Persson wanting to pursue a degree in psychology at SDSU. She’d like to work in sports professionally and sees becoming a sports psychologist as a way to make that dream reality. She said the Jackrabbits visit a team psychologist together, another positive checkmark for the program in her eyes.

“That’s always been interesting to me, the way the brain works,” she said. “I don’t think I necessarily want to be a coach but just something along the athletic industry lines. And I think a sport psychologist would be a really cool profession to go into.”

Before that can happen, Persson — who among other duties is head girl for AHS — still has one more go-round as a competitive skier this winter. Come spring, she’ll be back on the golf course with the Skiers, where she’ll be among the favorites to win an individual state title.

Then, it’s off to Brookings, which admittedly is more than 400 miles from Mount Rushmore. But she’ll likely find a way to visit, much like she found a way to make her golf dreams come true.

“There were times when I thought maybe I won’t play Division I golf, maybe I won’t achieve this goal that I’ve been wanting to achieve my entire life,” she said. “And then things happened. I realized I’m going to make this happen. That was a huge turning point this summer.”