Golf Digest promotes alumnus, TikTok account in March feature
April 7, 2021
With the start of the Masters Tournament this week, millions of golf enthusiasts will turn their attention to the professionals in Augusta, Ga., but Golf Digest recently promoted a new golfer in Macon – a Maryville College alumnus – as “worth a follow.”
Drew Collins ’20 was one of five up-and-coming players, personalities and coaches whom Golf Digest editors featured in a March 17 story about the convergence of the sport and social media app TikTok.
The online write-up linked to Collins’s TikTok account, @drewskigolfs, and highlighted his “Hole of the Day” series, his page title “Back Nines Matter” and his intentions to use his TikTok presence as a way to make golf – often referred to as “the game of Kings” – more accessible to more people.
Collins was not a member of the golf team at Maryville College but was, instead, a defensive back for the Fighting Scots football team. He was introduced to golf as a youth attending the Boys and Girls Club and picked up his clubs again when the COVID-19 pandemic closed the Maryville College campus in March 2020 and sent him and his classmates home to finish the semester.
Golfing was a way to get out of the house and get his body moving, he said in a recent interview. In those first months, he struggled through most rounds, but said the lessons and habits learned from football helped him improve.
“Golf reminds me of football. The aspect of not blowing up over one play is transferable to the golf course. Golf is a mental game,” Collins said. “You are competing with others, but mostly it is a battle within yourself, so mental toughness is huge in the game of golf. You could make quadruple bogey on one hole, then turn around and make a birdie on the next.”
As a way to document his progress and improvement throughout the summer, Collins started the “Hole of the Day” series on his TikTok account. Collins said that he woke up one morning to one of his posts having more than 150,000 views and many new people wanting to follow his account.
As the Black Lives Matter movement began to be talked about all across the country, Collins decided to change the title of his page to “Back Nines Matter,” in reference to the last nine holes of a golf match. In his interview with Golf Digest, he said that wants to be an inspiration and show people that no matter where you come from, golf is a sport that can bring many opportunities and open many doors.
“It’s a blessing to be promoted by a platform [Golf Digest] that Tiger Woods and many more legends have been a part of. It’s too early to see what kind of effect that it will have on my account, but I have had some brands reach out for collaboration,” he said. “I am constantly trying to play as much as possible and compete with others to make me a better golfer. I would love to give back to what introduced me to the game, and that was the Boys and Girls Club that I grew up in.”
Collins graduated from the College in 2020 with a bachelor of arts degree in exercise science and was recently accepted into the physical therapy program at the University of St. Augustine for the fall of 2021. Collins said that his goal is to earn his doctorate in physical therapy and eventually intertwine his love for sports and physical therapy by opening up his own clinic while training athletes across all levels.
He attributes much of his success to the things he learned and the experiences he had while at MC. In addition to his role on the football team, he was a Peer Mentor, an academic mentor and a leader in the College’s chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Collins specifically credits MC with assisting him in his professional career, both as an entrepreneur and as a physical therapy student.
Noah Bowman, assistant director for learning services at MC, said he is not surprised that Collins is applying the same gritty attitude displayed on the football field and in the classroom to his golf game – and his plans for the future.
“Drew Collins and I met when he was a first-year taking my college success class. He was conditionally admitted based on academic indicators from his high school career. However, it was pretty evident right away that Collins was a different kind of student. He was gritty and refused to fail,” Bowman said. “Drew leaned into my ‘4 Tenets of MC Success’ very quickly and immediately began to self-regulate and steadily transition into the student-athlete scholar he was born to be!
“From conditional admit to Dean’s List honoree to Lead [Cooper Success Center] Mentor, Drew found his place at Maryville College and never looked back. Even in the face of incredible adversity and personal loss that would have shaken even the strongest of fighters, his gritty attitude kept him from failing, and ultimately set him apart from his peers and will continue to set him apart,” Bowman continued. “Drew has the heart of a champion … and has multiple USA South Conference Football Championship rings to prove it!”
Written by Grant Agnew ’22, Communications Assistant, and Karen Beaty Eldridge ’94, Executive Director for Marketing and Communications