Hall of Fame video
Included in the Drury Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2019 is its first female golfer. Katrina (Choate) Clark represents the high standards of Drury athletics with a career that personified the long standing Drury motto: excellence in athletics and academics. Katrina personified excellence on the links and in the classroom and has set a high bar for all future Panther women golfers to emulate.
“Katrina was one of the most competitive golfers I have ever had the pleasure of working with,” stated her Panther head coach, Lisa Tinkler. “And the competitive fire did not just come out when she was on the golf course. It was in the classroom and in virtually everything else she did.” That competitive fire helped Katrina earn three trips to the NCAA-II National Tournament.
Katrina (Choate) Clark came to Drury from Rockwood Summitt High School in the St. Louis area in the fall of 2007. Her freshman year was shortened due to injury, but in her first full season (2009-10) it quickly became apparent that a special talent was on the Panther roster. Katrina played four full years for the Panthers under head coach Lisa Tinkler and her last two seasons she earned All-America honors. Her senior year Katrina earned NCAA-II Second Team All-America honors and was the Great Lakes Valley Conference medalist, tying the tournament record for the lowest two round total (143). Katrina earned WGCA All-America honors and All-Midwest Region honors as a junior and qualified for the NCAA-II National Golf Championships her sophomore, junior and senior seasons. Her senior year she finished 39th in the nation; 34th her junior season; and, 42nd as a sophomore. Each of those three years the Panthers, as a team, finished in the Top 25 of the Golfstat National Rankings.
While enjoying success at the national, regional and conference levels, Katrina was a daily model of consistency. She finished in the top 10 in tournament after tournament throughout her career and won medalist honors on six different occasions. She won medalist honors at the GLVC Championships and at Murray State in 2012; at the Drury and Arkansas-Ft. Smith Invitationals in 2011; and, at the NCAA-II Super Regional (hosted by Drury) and at the Truman State Classic in 2010. A three-time All-GLVC pick, Katrina twice shot rounds of 70. The first time coming at the California State-Monterey Bay Invitational (March 29, 2011) and the second time at the 2012 NCAA-II Super Regional in Findlay, Ohio (May 6-8, 2012).
Katrina’s Hall of Fame career was punctuated by her academic success. Twice she was the GLVC’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year in women’s golf and in 2011 she was the recipient of the Dr. Edsel Matthews Award, a recognition that is annually given to the top Drury female student-athlete for her success in athletics and in the classroom. “Katrina was an outstanding student who had a true passion to learn,” Dr. Carol Browning, professor in the Drury Mathematics Department, fondly remembered. “I enjoyed her sense of humor and I am sure her positive approach is welcomed by all her students.” Katrina earned her undergraduate (December 11, 2011) and graduate degree (Master in Education Curriculum Instruction in 2015) from Drury .
Today the Drury Sports Hall of Fame is inducting its first female golf student-athlete, Katrina (Choate) Clark. The term “student-athlete” is especially appropriate as Katrina was outstanding in both. It is most fitting that on this day, Saturday, January 11, 2020, with family and friends present, the Drury Community recognizes Katrina for a college career in golf, and academic success, that merits her being forever enshrined as a member of the Drury Sports Hall of Fame (Class of 2019).
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Katrina is now a mathematics teacher at Lafayette High School in the Rockwood School District. She has coached basketball and has been the head girls’ golf coach for the past four years. Her team finished fourth in the state in 2017 and that year she was named Missouri State Coach of the Year. This past fall one of her players won the MSHAAA individual golf championship. She and her husband, Matt, have two boys: Kaiser (3) and Calloway (2 months).
