After enjoying a successful golf career at Montgomery County High School that included three trips to the state tournament and an all-state medal, Aubrey Nelson found a new home four years ago – Westminster College.

Despite missing the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nelson was a valuable player for the Blue Jays during his three years with the team, finishing in the top 30 in conference play three times and helping the squad pick up a pair of third-place finishes. Westminster is an NCAA Division III school in Fulton.

“It’s cool to always be in a competitive sport like that, especially golf,” said Nelson, who graduated with a business degree at Westminster in May. “I feel like it humbles you. There are a lot of good competitors. We’re only in Division III, but Division III has a lot of good competitors there and you get to meet a lot of good people on the course. I made a lot of good friends at Westminster on the golf team. I still have close connections with them now.”

Now that his golf career at Westminster is over, Nelson hopes to continue playing the sport in the future.

“I would say I’m definitely not done with competitive golf just yet,” Nelson said. “I want to continue that. I may go play at the Missouri Amateur and try out for that.”

Nelson started playing golf when he was in elementary school. His grandparents bought him his first set of golf clubs.

“The main reason I really like golf is it’s a team sport, but it’s also an individual sport,” Nelson said. “You learn so much about yourself just being out there, like handling your frustrations. I kind of example it into real world stuff. Not everything is going right for you in the real world. You have to get past it.”

Nelson graduated from MCHS in 2018. When he was a senior, he became the first golfer in program history to earn all-state honors as he placed ninth in the state tournament.

The Wildcats now have three all-state golfers in program history as recent graduates Keenan James and Logan Hutcheson earned all-state honors at the Class 2 state tournament in Columbia in May. Nelson got to see the two players at the event.

“To have not one, but two all-state golfers from the same class, that’s huge for Montgomery,” Nelson said. “That’s huge for the Montgomery golf program.”

During his freshman year at Westminster, Nelson competed in four tournaments, including the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament, where he placed 15th and helped the Blue Jays finish third, their best SLIAC showing since 1997.

“It was something special for our college and our golf team,” Nelson said.

In the 2021 season, Nelson played in four tournaments. He said he was thrilled to return to the golf course after the pandemic canceled the 2020 season.

“It was awesome,” Nelson said. “The first tournament back out, I had the jitters in me. It was awesome just to get out there and be yourself. Golf is a mental sport. Anytime I could get on the course and play, it was definitely exciting and it was definitely a rush.”

Nelson’s best finish was 13th at the SLIAC tournament, coming up three places short of all-conference honors.

“In conference golf, you play 36 holes the first day, then 18 in the second,” Nelson said. “After the first day, I was in fifth place. It kind of got in my head and I struggled a little bit. But I take it as a learning experience.”

This year, Nelson played in only one tournament, which was the SLIAC tournament. He was the Blue Jays’ top performer with a 26th-place finish.

“I competed in one tournament because we just got a new golf coach,” Nelson said. “There really weren’t a lot of golf tournaments and they weren’t really big. So I went to the conference tournament. It sucks that I got to go to only one tournament this year, but I did a lot of practicing for it and I got ready for it.”

Nelson, who currently works for Hunter Modular in Jonesburg, also played football at Westminster. He played in a total of 21 games. Nelson punted for 1,823 yards in his freshman season and finished with 28 tackles in his sophomore year.