{"id":130564,"date":"2025-08-09T02:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T02:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130564\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T02:02:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T02:02:17","slug":"inspired-by-sister-brooke-biermann-refuses-to-back-down-at-bandon-dunes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/130564\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspired by sister, Brooke Biermann refuses to back down at Bandon Dunes"},"content":{"rendered":"

BANDON, Ore. \u2013 Don\u2019t let Brooke Biermann fool you.<\/p>\n

Off the golf course, she\u2019s an All-American girl from St. Louis, both affable and benevolent, and to whom conversation comes easy. <\/p>\n

But when she enters the arena, she\u2019s downright tenacious.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kid is going to give you everything she\u2019s got,\u201d said Brooke\u2019s father, Bill Biermann. \u201cAnd no matter what, she never quits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not after a right-wrist injury popped up just days before this week\u2019s U.S. Women\u2019s Amateur at Bandon Dunes<\/a>, the 22-year-old Biermann\u2019s final start before turning pro and entering Q-School.<\/p>\n

Not after she trailed for the first 21 holes of her Round-of-32 match against Olivia Duan on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

And certainly not after she found herself 2 down to Texas standout Cindy Hsu with just four holes to play later that afternoon.<\/p>\n

So, what did Brooke Biermann do this time? What she often does. She fought her way back by claiming two of the next three holes, and then despite botching a 2-footer to win in regulation, she knocked out Hsu on the first extra hole to advance to Friday\u2019s quarterfinals, where she\u2019ll face incoming Northwestern freshman Arianna Lau of Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are always amazed because here you have this sweet, blonde-haired kid who\u2019s so nice, but when she gets on the golf course, the switch flips,\u201d Michigan State head coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll said. \u201cShe\u2019s just so tough, and her grit is unmatched.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, nearly.<\/p>\n

Brooke will argue that her determination is largely influenced by her younger sister, the strongest person she knows.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Attachment<\/p>\n

Ashleigh Biermann was born with Jacobsen Syndrome, a chromosomal condition so rare that when she arrived two decades ago at St. Louis Children\u2019s Hospital, doctors there had never treated such a patient. Bill Biermann can still picture the distinct, grayish color of his baby girl, who would undergo multiple surgeries, including an open-heart procedure and cardiac catheterization, and spend months in the hospital, only to go home with a feeding tube and to a room outfitted with monitors and wires.<\/p>\n

Those diagnosed with Jacobsen Syndrome are missing genetic material in the 11th chromosome, which causes a variety of cognitive and physical issues, and developmental delays, especially with speech and motor skills. <\/p>\n

And yet, Ashleigh, now 20, has never let her limitations affect her resoluteness. She\u2019ll likely never be able to drive, but she can bike, swim and walks about five miles a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s just so relentless,\u201d said Bill, who points to the time when Ashleigh, while still in school, began working at a hospital through Special School District of St. Louis. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe had this job wrapping sandwiches, and don\u2019t ask me why, but they timed the kids, and she\u2019s sitting there on the first day, and she\u2019s stressing,\u201d Bill recalled. \u201cBut what does she do? She comes home and tells us, \u2018You need to buy me some bags so I can practice.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Brooke: \u201cTo see her determination and her mentality when she\u2019s told, You can\u2019t do that, or you can\u2019t play this \u2013 I try to take that and run with it as much as I can out on the golf course. Being able to walk with her and see her, it\u2019s like, you know what, I\u2019m fortunate enough to have a healthy body and able to compete at the highest amateur level, and what a blessing that I\u2019m able to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooke wasn\u2019t even 3 years old when she first visited Ashleigh in the hospital, and she\u2019s since accompanied her little sister to over a hundred doctor\u2019s appointments. Ashleigh\u2019s devoted defender, Brooke once confronted a bully who was teasing Ashleigh at their school; with her right fist buried in his chest, Brooke threatened the bully with a few words that are not suitable for print.<\/p>\n

Once Brooke left for college in East Lansing, Ashleigh would call or FaceTime her big sister \u201cprobably 15 times a day,\u201d Bill estimates. \u201cAnd Brooke, so graciously, never complained.\u201d For Ashleigh\u2019s most recent birthday, Brooke surprised her with tickets to a Jason Aldean concert. Even Brooke\u2019s boyfriend, Drew Barclay, who played college golf at D-II Maryville in St. Louis, will buy Ashleigh gifts and take her on dates when Brooke is out of town.<\/p>\n

\u201cAshleigh couldn\u2019t have gotten a better sister,\u201d Bill said.<\/p>\n

And vis versa.<\/p>\n

Ever since a partial jaw removal in middle school pushed Brooke away from contact sports and toward golf, Ashleigh has been enamored by her sister\u2019s game. She\u2019ll spend hours on the range watching Brooke beat balls, and she rarely misses a tournament. When Ashleigh\u2019s new job as a teacher\u2019s aide at her church\u2019s preschool kept her from attending last month\u2019s Western Amateur, where Brooke reached the semifinals, several competitors were asking Brooke where her sister was. And for four years, as Brooke garnered trophies and All-America honors, Stoll and the rest of the Michigan State players considered Ashleigh a part of the team, so much so that when the squad posed for photos after advancing through the NCAA Norman Regional last spring, Ashleigh was invited into the frame.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s my No. 1 fan,\u201d Brooke said. \u201cShe leans hard on me, and I lean hard on her, and I wouldn\u2019t change that for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ashleigh usually travels with a small stool \u2013 though that didn\u2019t make the flight to Oregon \u2013 and a backpack stocked full of snacks, raingear, towels, her lucky Sparty ball marker, anything she might need \u2013 and some stuff she probably doesn\u2019t need, her family jokes. Her bag on Thursday had to have weighed nearly 20 pounds, but Ashleigh didn\u2019t care. Also donning a green Michigan State hat, she walked all 41 holes on Thursday while providing constant encouragement with her favorite cheer, \u201cKick butt, Brooke!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me smile,\u201d Ashleigh said of Brooke\u2019s golf.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Attachment.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Bill beams, too, when talking about this moment. Not only are both of his daughters enjoying the times of their lives, one competing in and the other witnessing the nation\u2019s premier women\u2019s amateur championship, but Bill is on the bag \u2013 and on a piece of property that his late father, also named Bill, called the \u201cmost beautiful place I\u2019ve ever been,\u201d after visiting the coastal David McLay Kidd design just months before his death 13 years ago.<\/p>\n

Brooke\u2019s relationship with this game can be traced to the elder Bill, a golf nut who prior to passing gifted a 9-year-old Brooke a dozen yellow golf balls, which she calls, \u201cGoldies.\u201d It was with one of those goldies that Brooke, playing in maybe her third tournament since her grandfather died, recorded a hole-in-one at Yorktown Golf Course, a par-3 layout across the river in Shilo, Illinois.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a sign,\u201d Brooke said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why to this day I always play a yellow ball. I know it\u2019s unique, and a lot of girls, when they ask what I\u2019m playing, I\u2019ll go, \u2018Yellow Titleist 1\u2019, and they\u2019re like, \u2018Okay\u2026\u2019 But I always want to have my grandpa with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was surely with her as she placed the goldie back in front of her mark on the 18th green, seemingly poised to complete her comeback right there and then. But Hsu had rolled her birdie try first, and her ball came to rest in Brooke\u2019s line. In hindsight, Brooke says, she should\u2019ve conceded the putt, but instead, she found herself adjusting her stance around Hsu\u2019s coin \u2013 and the slight change likely influenced the shocking push that never touched the hole.<\/p>\n

Brooke realized it soon after contact, rising early and immediately placing her hand over her face as the crowd gasped.<\/p>\n

Ashleigh, however, showed no reaction. Perhaps she knew how her sister would respond. She\u2019d already witnessed Brooke drain a clutch par save at the par-3 15th to claw back to 1 down, and then nearly hole her pitch at the par-4 16th, her ball hanging on the lip before eventually time ran out.<\/p>\n

Bill was surely confident, telling his daughter on the first tee box, \u201cBrooke, you got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Hsu\u2019s par putt from 10 feet lipped out hard, Brooke Biermann\u2019s marathon day had reached its conclusion. After entering the championship as the world No. 112, she\u2019s now just three wins away from etching her name onto the Robert Cox Trophy, one of the most beautiful trophies in sport \u2013 and at the \u201cmost beautiful place.\u201d<\/p>\n

For as competitive as she is, Biermann couldn\u2019t help but get sentimental: \u201cNo matter what happens I\u2019m going to be happy. … That\u2019s what I\u2019ll probably tonight think about most, how grateful I am to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

And to have an inspiration like Ashleigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BANDON, Ore. \u2013 Don\u2019t let Brooke Biermann fool you. Off the golf course, she\u2019s an All-American girl from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":130565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-130564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114996349897844845","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}