TAMPA, Fla. – How an athlete got involved with a particular sport typically is not too interesting of a subject. How Jake Peacock got into golf, though, is pretty fun.
Peacock was 18 months old when his parents, Stacey and Terry, returned from a vacation in Mexico and presented their son with a snorkel. That snorkel became an object with which to tee up other objects around the house.
“Apparently, I turned the snorkel upside down and started swinging it like a golf club,” recalled the Georgia native. “The story is that I was hitting pennies off the carpet and against a wall.”
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Talk about a hybrid! It was also the first chapter in a story that continues to be told. A plastic set of golf clubs, though, was next.
“I was outside for hours and I would put (the little plastic ball) in impossible lies, such as leaf piles,” he said. “I would be having a blast in the backyard, whacking the ball into the neighbor’s yard.”
Peacock is still whacking them pretty good. The difference is that he has been swinging the real thing since he was five years old, a foundation that grew into a level of competitive passion and excellence that has seen the USF grad become the American Athletic Conference’s first two-time (2024, 2025) individual champ.
“He has been one of the best we have ever had,” said coach Steve Bradley, who took over at USF in 2014 and is a five-time AAC coach of the year. “One thing that has never wavered is his ability to putt and his ball striking over the last 12 to 18 months. His ball striking and his mental maturity in working with his sports psychologist has been phenomenal.”
The psychologist is Phil Shomo, a Hilton Head-based mental skills coach who has worked with the USF men’s program and who Peacock heaps much praise upon for his maturation as a player. In fact, listening to Peacock talk about his game as a high school player is to listen to a young man who not too long ago could not get out of his own way with a club in his hands.
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“I had a mental barrier with routine stuff on the golf course,” he said. “I was trying to be a perfectionist. That is not the reality of the game, the reality of life. I didn’t have any confidence or trust in what I was doing and I was playing afraid. He helped me build a consistent routine that I could rely on, so in pressure-packed situations I had something that I could stick with and help me control my nerves. That was the biggest piece that we addressed and it helped me take off.”
Peacock’s game took off after arriving at USF in summer 2022 following his freshman year at Western Carolina University, which was the only school to offer him. All he did was win Southern Conference freshman of the year honors. Peacock wanted something more, though, a challenge that he felt Bradley and USF could provide.
“I am forever grateful and thankful for Western Carolina, which gave me a chance to play in college,” he said. “(Transferring to USF) was a gut feeling, something you can’t really put your finger on. This place was calling to me.”
Since answering the call, Peacock has had an exceptional run on and off the course. He graduated earlier this month with a degree in public relations and advertising and has more than made the grade on the links where he has risen to the No. 20-player on the PGA Tour University ranking. The final chapter of his decorated collegiate career will be written this weekend with his fellow Bulls at the NCAA Division-I National Championship in Carlsbad, Calif.
“My decision to transfer to USF was a no-brainer and it led to the best three years of my life,” he said.
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