Hannah Harrison’s Washington State career didn’t begin with the kind of clean, confident arc she once imagined. Instead, her first year in Pullman brought a hard question she couldn’t shake: “What am I doing here if I am not playing good golf?”
That thought hit her so hard she sat down with her parents and told them she did not want to play golf anymore. At the time, she felt like she could not keep doing it for another three years.
It was a jarring turn for someone who had been aiming for college golf since middle school. But once she got to the Division I level, the game started to feel different. Her fall season didn’t go the way she wanted, and for the first time in her career, performance anxiety showed up on the course.
The pressure came to a head during a practice round in Arizona that freshman year. Harrison said she felt anxious standing over the ball and even scared to swing.
Her miss was a left hook, something she would never hit on the range. After that round, she called her mom crying about the stress.
A week later, she hurt her wrist.
That injury kept her out of two spring tournaments, and what first looked like another setback ended up giving her some relief. With the golf taken away for a bit, the pressure eased.
“I have never really been someone to experience stress and anxiety like that in golf and I think that's what made me a really good player in junior golf,” Harrison said. “So when I went to college it was just like something I hadn't experienced before and I was trying my identity way too close to my sport.”
That realization forced her to see how much her life had changed. In high school, golf was important, but it wasn’t everything.
She had friends outside the sport and didn’t live inside an all-athlete bubble. At WSU, though, that separation disappeared.
She was around athletes constantly, lived with athletes and socialized with athletes. Being a WSU golfer started to feel like the whole identity.
By the time her sophomore season arrived, Harrison knew she needed a reset. Her focus was simple: golf needed to be fun again.
The year went better than her freshman season, but the offseason brought more change. One of her best friends transferred, and her head coach left.
Then came another adjustment. With more player movement and a new head coach, Harrison felt like a freshman again.
She had just gotten comfortable, and the shifting environment pulled at her mentally. She said she was still playing under the expectations she had set for herself.
That carried into the fall of her junior year, when she did not qualify for any tournaments. Harrison knew she could not play her best golf unless she got herself out of that mental rut.
“The beginning of my junior year I was still so in my head I didn’t really give any coach or team the opportunity to have that kind of impact on me,” Harrison said. “But going into spring I went in with an open mind because I really wanted to play well and do the best that I can.”
The spring brought a real turnaround. Harrison played in four tournaments and finished in the top 25 in all four, including one top-10 result. She made a point of letting the people around her matter, and first-year head coach Kevin Tucker became one of the biggest reasons why.
Harrison said Tucker’s belief in his players stood out immediately. On the course, he encouraged aggression and trusted his golfers to attack pins instead of worrying about every possible mistake. Those details may have seemed small, but for Harrison, the reassurance mattered.
“Kevin completely changed my relationship with golf,” Harrison said.
She also recalled what Tucker told her when she learned he would be her coach: “The first thing Kevin told me on the phone when I learned he was my coach was, ‘I want the number one thing everyone to do is graduate from WSU liking golf and having fun with golf,’” Harrison said. “I told him my last tournament you really did do that.”
By her senior season, Harrison was in every tournament and had found a mental space that was far removed from the lowest points of her career.
“My experience at WSU definitely wasn’t what I was expecting, “Harrison said. “I was expecting to play for my coach I was recruited by, but I really think that it ended in the best way possible. I wouldn’t go back and change anything.”
In Other News...
Nathan Choate Just Made Another Important Move For Washington State Baseball
Nathan Choate continues to put his stamp on Washington State baseball, and the latest move adds another familiar piece to the staff. Kimble Schuessler has been hired as an assistant coach for 2027, giving Choate another voice in the dugout as the Cougars keep shaping the program around his vision.
The hire also comes as the rest of Washington States athletic calendar starts to come into focus, with volleyball announcing a home multi-team event in Pullman and mens basketball lining up a home-and-home with Weber State. For baseball, though, the bigger takeaway is how Choate keeps building depth and continuity on the coaching side, even as one opening on the staff has now been filled. [Read more 🡒]