Scottsdale golfer a star at Sonoma State

ELLEN BRAUNSTEIN | CONTRIBUTING WRITER

For Talia Gutman of Scottsdale, golf connects her to people, especially her father. “It’s something special that we share. I can practice and play with him all the time — just for fun.”

The Sonoma State University (SSU) golfer, who is Jewish, also connected with her nine teammates and proved herself invaluable this season. She won Freshman of the Year for her conference, the California Collegiate Athletic Association.

Valentine Verhunce, head coach for women’s and men’s golf at Sonoma State, commended her for capping off a terrific season with the best individual finish and placing second in the post-season event to lead SSU.

“She puts a lot of effort and time into her craft and it’s starting to pay off,” he said.

“We finished maybe not strong as a team, but at least we have goals for next year,” said Gutman, 19, who played in tournaments as far away as Hawaii this year.

“I feel like I ended strong with only a couple hiccups in between,” said Gutman, who is on partial scholarship at SSU in Northern California. “So, golf is going pretty good right now.”

Gutman’s parents, Michael and Robyn

Gutman, are both physicians. Michael is an otolaryngologist and Robyn is a pediatrician. They are all members of Congregation Or Tzion in Scottsdale.

Talia Gutman started playing golf at seven years old. But it wasn’t until her freshman year of high school, when she broke her wrist while ice skating, that she realized that golf was so important to her.

“I just started doing it a lot more and it gave me a new perspective on golf,” said Gutman, who swung with one arm and putted and chipped with one hand until she recovered. “My family’s just been super supportive. So, I just continued with it.”

Gutman played junior golf for the Junior Golf Association of Arizona, completing numerous tournaments. She also played for her high school, Scottsdale Preparatory Academy.

She attended Hebrew school at Or Tzion and traveled to Israel for her bat mitzvah.

“It was an amazing opportunity and I got to share my bat mitzvah with another girl who shares my name, Talia Hoffer.”

She remembers vividly that first time she went to Israel and saw the places in person she had previously just heard stories about.

“One of my favorite places to go was

Tel Aviv and we spent numerous days just wandering around.” She said she loved the food, visiting the old and new synagogues and seeing so much religion intermixed with day-to-day life.

“It really made me happy because in any other place, you barely see synagogues and there’s not a lot of Jewish life unless you go search it out yourself. So, to see it all in one place was pretty amazing.”

Today, Gutman is studying environmental science and geography at SSU. “I like working towards cleaner energy (solutions) and creating a safer, more sustainable environment.”

“She’s equally as smart in the classroom as she is on the golf course,” said Verhunce. “Talia’s a very, very intelligent young lady.”

Gutman said she plans to play golf the entire four years she’s at the university and compete in every tournament.

She admits that golf is a continual learning process, and no one can ever achieve perfection in the sport.

“You can only practice to get better,” said Gutman. “There’s unlimited potential in the sport as long as you put the work into it.” JN

"INSPIRING