Growing up a surfer girl in San Deigo who loved Auburn, Charlotte Cantonis would roll the tree in her back yard in California after big wins. Then the game of golf got her to the Plains
Cantonis, a standout freshman for the No. 5 Auburn women's golf team, helps lead the Tigers into a televised tournament starting Monday on Golf Channel.
Charlotte Cantonis grew up surfing.
As a kid living with her parents in San Diego, she was out on the waves as early as five years old, riding on the board with her dad. She loved the water, and as she got older she started to surf on her own, got her own board, and even competed, entering in competitive surfing events. It was surfing and soccer for her as a child. Those were her two sports.
But golf was always around. Just about everyone in her family enjoys the game and plays in some capacity. She has two cousins who are now professional golfers: Jack Maguire who is on the Korn Ferry Tour, and M.J. Maguire who’s playing on the Asian Tour. She played plenty with the family. Golf’s always been a part of her life.
So, too, has Auburn.
Cantonis’ mom went to Auburn. So did two of her uncles, and an aunt. “So I’ve always been an Auburn fan, even when I was little,” she said. Even living way out in San Diego, she and her mom would roll the tree in their backyard on the West Coast after watching big football wins on TV.
“I always played golf but didn’t really like it until sixth grade — and decided I wanted to start playing tournaments, and then got competitive and wanted to play in college, and Auburn was always at the top of that list,” Cantonis said.
Yes, as fate would have it, the golf club brought her to her mom’s alma mater, when the surfboard really couldn’t have. Cantonis is now a standout freshman for the championship-contending Auburn women’s golf team, firing a tournament-best round of 7-under on Feb. 16 to help lead a comeback win for the Tigers at the Moon Golf Invitational. Auburn has won four tournaments this season already, the program’s most in a single season since 2009, heading into Monday’s Darius Rucker Intercollegiate, which will be televised by Golf Channel.
“I kind of realized that those things weren’t necessarily something that was sustainable for me, or that I wanted to get good at,” Cantonis said of surfing and soccer. “My parents explained to me when I was around that age, golf, you can make money, you can get a scholarship, you can play your whole life. And I was really bad,” she laughed, “but I’m very competitive, so it was just very motivating to get better. So I think the competition, hardness of the game, made me want to play more.”
Nowadays, Cantonis makes it look easy.
SEC Freshman of the Week
Cantonis won SEC Freshman of the Week after that performance at the Moon Golf Invitational — her second time picking up the SEC Freshman of the Week honor this season.
She ended up tied for eighth in the individual leaderboard at the tournament, her fifth top-five finish of the season so far.
She whipped around the course for a bogey-free 65 in that 7-under second round, capped by an eagle on No. 18 as she finished her round.
On 18, her first shot hit fairway on the par-5, 515-yard hole. Her second shot landed her in front of the water, which separates the green from the fairway, 73 yards from the pin.
She landed her third shot just past the hole, and spun it back into the cup to hole it out for eagle.
Just as remarkable is what led into that round: