Ever since he first swung an oversized club as a 2-year-old, Bennett Espenshade has been fascinated by golf.
And his natural curiosity, combined with a strong desire to get better and the willingness to put in the work, turned the Gilman School senior into the top-ranked junior golfer in Maryland and one of the top 100 junior golfers in the world.
“Golf is so different than any other sport,” said Espenshade, who is ranked No. 94 in the Junior Golf Scoreboard (JGS) world rankings.
He most recently finished 23rd at the Dustin Johnson World Junior Championship on March 1-3 in Myrtle Beach and won the Middle Atlantic Amateur Championship last fall, a wire-to-wire win against a good field that Espenshade called one of his proudest moments as a golfer.
“You can play the same course every day of your life, and no round will ever be the same,” he said. “Perfection is impossible. There are so many things you can do [with golf] and so many different ways to play it. That has always just really intrigued me.”
The 6-foot Espenshade has a swing that “a lot of people would pay money for,” according to Gilman golf coach Mike Wallace.
Espenshade is not the biggest hitter off the tee, nor does he try to be. He prefers to be more smooth and consistent upon impact. His average drives carry just shy of 300 yards, but he will occasionally blow one 15-20 yards past that mark “if I really go after one.”
In recent years, Espenshade has worked hard on the weakest points of his game, which are his chipping and putting, and that has made a huge difference for him.
Last year was his finest year as a golfer. In addition to the Middle Atlantic Amateur title, he also made the match-play cut at the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship; posted three top-five finishes, including a pair of runner-ups, in American Junior Golf Association tournaments; reached final qualifying for the U.S. Open, and won his second club title at his home course, The Elkridge Club.
“I think a lot of it was just repetition and feeling comfortable,” Espenshade said. “I kind of moved away from [having] technical thoughts during my round and just trusted the muscle memory and the time and work I put it in. It paid off.”
Espenshade employs various methods away from the course to try to get better. In the last year, he has started working with a mental coach “to tap into the way the brain works and how that can affect golf,” and he said it has improved his self-belief.
In the gym, he has worked on becoming more flexible and “learning how my body moves and what limitations I do have and how to reverse those or work with them.”
“He is not afraid to learn,” Wallace said. “Some people come out there and try to forge their own way. He is paying attention to what’s going on, communicating with others. He’s constantly learning how to become a better player.”
Next year, Espenshade will play golf at Rutgers University in his continued quest to eventually turn pro. The Scarlett Knights are coached by Rob Shutte, who has turned the program into one of the best in the Northeast. In 2020, Golfweek named him the Northeast Coach of the Year.
“It just felt like Rutgers had a great environment that I could get better in,” Espenshade said.
As for a potential future on the PGA Tour and putting all of his energy and focus toward that in the coming years, Espenshade said, “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Mike Wallace
Originally published April 17, 2024