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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means the world to me,\u201d said Pressley, a native of Irmo, S.C., who was recently inducted into Irmo High School\u2019s Athletics Hall of Fame. She now lives in Texas. \u201cBack 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\u2019m 41, and I\u2019m a mom and wife, so to be able to represent my country and the sport that I love, it\u2019s amazing to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a former Carolina golfer, it\u2019s pretty special that I can still do something almost twenty years after I graduated. I can\u2019t 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\u2019t\u2019 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?\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s girls and boys golf team and was a highly sought-after college recruit. She landed at her hometown school at South Carolina and that\u2019s when she inadvertently found out she had a hearing problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually started losing my hearing when I was about 16 or 17, but I didn\u2019t notice it at first,\u201d 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. \u201cIt was actually my teammates at Carolina. They went to my coach and were saying, \u2018she\u2019s being really rude and ignoring us.\u2019 I never heard them! I didn\u2019t know they were talking. The school sent me to get tests and that\u2019s 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\u2019t realize I was missing so much stuff. I had no clue.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince then, my hearing has steadily declined. They can\u2019t give me a reason why. I\u2019m 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pressley played in a lot of amateur tournaments after college but didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone I knew on Facebook mentioned that her husband had qualified in Tae Kwon Do in the Deaflympics,\u201d Pressley said. \u201cI had never heard of it. So, I Googled it four years ago. I saw there was golf. So, I contacted them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a whole other community. I\u2019m starting to learn ASL so I can communicate better. We have to play with our hearing aids out. So, if you\u2019re not completely deaf or if you have a cochlear (ear implant), you have to turn those things off. It\u2019s a different feeling playing with them out because you don\u2019t 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\u2019t hear it, I have to figure out, how did that feel?\u201d<\/p>\n
She now works as a travel advisor, booking corporate and personal travel. She\u2019s also a substitute teacher at several charter schools. While she can\u2019t train every day like she did in college, she\u2019s happy when she can shoot the scores she carded in college.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d Pressley said. \u201cI\u2019m doing everything I can to compete to the best of my ability. I\u2019m a competitor, so I don\u2019t want to lose. I still expect myself to do well.\u201d<\/p>\n
She did more than just \u201cwell\u201d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the best teammates,\u201d Pressley said. \u201cI 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!\u201d<\/p>\n
As she prepares for the Deaflympics, Pressley encourages others to never give up.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how old you get, you can still achieve your dreams,\u201d Pressley said. \u201cI want my kids to look at me one day and be proud because I represented my country and didn\u2019t 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\u2019s later on in life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI work out constantly. I\u2019m a gym rat. I\u2019m an avid reader. I coach a middle school girls basketball team as well. It\u2019s great to see how much they improve and come together as a team. That\u2019s a huge passion of mine \u2013 to give back to these girls. I love spending time with my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
She noted that her entire family, including the couple\u2019s 12 year-old son, Cullen, and 10 year-old daughter, Cali, are completely obsessed with South Carolina Athletics and watch every women\u2019s basketball and football games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former South Carolina golfer Erica (Battle) Pressley (2002-2006) has overcome some big challenges, but she always finds a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,17412,8115,952,20114,20112,20111,755,20113,8447,1227,85,8453,20115],"class_list":{"0":"post-180079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-carolina","11":"tag-columbia","12":"tag-featured","13":"tag-featured-articles-home-page","14":"tag-fighting-gamecocks","15":"tag-gamecocks","16":"tag-golf","17":"tag-headlines-home-page","18":"tag-south-carolina","19":"tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-usc","22":"tag-women-s-golf"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}