Former South Carolina golfer Erica (Battle) Pressley (2002-2006) has overcome some big challenges, but she always finds a way to succeed. Now legally deaf, Pressley is one of three women playing on the USA women’s golf team at the Deaflympics November 15-26 in Tokyo, Japan. The Deaflympics is an international, multi-sport competition for deaf athletes, held every four years and recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). These games predate the Paralympics, having been first held in 1924 in Paris.
“It means the world to me,” said Pressley, a native of Irmo, S.C., who was recently inducted into Irmo High School’s Athletics Hall of Fame. She now lives in Texas. “Back when I was younger, golf was not in the Olympics, so I always wanted to win the U.S. Open. After college I sort of got burned out on golf with all the travel that we did. Now I’m 41, and I’m a mom and wife, so to be able to represent my country and the sport that I love, it’s amazing to me.
“As a former Carolina golfer, it’s pretty special that I can still do something almost twenty years after I graduated. I can’t help that I lost my hearing and why it happened, but I can use my disability to bring awareness to the deaf community. We can compete and do anything that anyone else is doing. If you put your mind to something, you can always do it. It shows my kids that it doesn’t’ matter what obstacles you have to overcome. If you work hard, you can achieve whatever you want to. My dream of representing my country is now coming true! Who knew it would be 20-plus years after I graduated from Carolina?”
Pressley has always been a competitor and has worked through challenges before. Her father, Eddie, who was her first coach, passed away when she was a freshman in high school. She continued to play several sports and also excelled academically in honor of him. She competed for Irmo High School’s girls and boys golf team and was a highly sought-after college recruit. She landed at her hometown school at South Carolina and that’s when she inadvertently found out she had a hearing problem.
“I actually started losing my hearing when I was about 16 or 17, but I didn’t notice it at first,” said Pressley, who is married to former South Carolina track and field standout Gerald Pressley and earned degrees in marketing and real estate with a minor in hotel, restaurant, and tourism management. “It was actually my teammates at Carolina. They went to my coach and were saying, ‘she’s being really rude and ignoring us.’ I never heard them! I didn’t know they were talking. The school sent me to get tests and that’s when I found out I had moderate hearing loss at that point. They fitted me with hearing aids and that made a world of difference. I could hear my professors! I didn’t realize I was missing so much stuff. I had no clue.
“Since then, my hearing has steadily declined. They can’t give me a reason why. I’m the only one in my family with hearing loss. My kids can hear perfectly fine. At first, I was embarrassed by it because I thought, who wears hearing aids? Things are different now with more technology. I read lips now really well, too.”
Pressley played in a lot of amateur tournaments after college but didn’t turn pro once she started a family. However, she has played in the previous two World Deaf Golf Championships. She found out about the U.S. Deaf Golf Association in 2022.
“Someone I knew on Facebook mentioned that her husband had qualified in Tae Kwon Do in the Deaflympics,” Pressley said. “I had never heard of it. So, I Googled it four years ago. I saw there was golf. So, I contacted them.
“It’s a whole other community. I’m starting to learn ASL so I can communicate better. We have to play with our hearing aids out. So, if you’re not completely deaf or if you have a cochlear (ear implant), you have to turn those things off. It’s a different feeling playing with them out because you don’t hear anything, and it took me some time to really get my balance and feel. When you hit a golf ball, you hear it, so you know if you had a bad swing. When I can’t hear it, I have to figure out, how did that feel?”
She now works as a travel advisor, booking corporate and personal travel. She’s also a substitute teacher at several charter schools. While she can’t train every day like she did in college, she’s happy when she can shoot the scores she carded in college.
“I have to be realistic and know that shooting mid-70s right now is still really good based on my role as a working mother and lack of practice,” Pressley said. “I’m doing everything I can to compete to the best of my ability. I’m a competitor, so I don’t want to lose. I still expect myself to do well.”
She did more than just “well” in her time with the Gamecocks. She was the recipient of the 2006 Dinah Shore Trophy, a prestigious honor that recognizes the best golfer in the nation in terms of success on the golf course, classroom, community service, and extraordinary leadership. She also took home the President’s Award as senior, which is the highest award given to a South Carolina student-athlete and recognizes an individual who displays all of those same talents.
“I had the best teammates,” Pressley said. “I had teammates from all over the world and found we still had so much in common. The most special moment was getting to play Augusta National four times. I wish we had cell phones with cameras back then! Nobody believes me when I tell them!”
As she prepares for the Deaflympics, Pressley encourages others to never give up.
“No matter how old you get, you can still achieve your dreams,” Pressley said. “I want my kids to look at me one day and be proud because I represented my country and didn’t let being legally deaf affect doing what I loved. I want them to see if they work hard towards something, they can achieve it, even if it’s later on in life.
“I work out constantly. I’m a gym rat. I’m an avid reader. I coach a middle school girls basketball team as well. It’s great to see how much they improve and come together as a team. That’s a huge passion of mine – to give back to these girls. I love spending time with my family.”
She noted that her entire family, including the couple’s 12 year-old son, Cullen, and 10 year-old daughter, Cali, are completely obsessed with South Carolina Athletics and watch every women’s basketball and football games.
“We will always be proud of where we went to school, what it did for us, and how we are better adults because of where we went and the team atmosphere that it brought into us.”