At a school as small as Bristol, producing college-bound athletes is a feat, especially when that sport isn’t basketball, the program that’s put Bristol on the map. To do it three times in a year in a single sport is something even more impressive.

With the college signings of Diesel Williams, Kaiden Kohler, and Addison Williams, Bristol’s golf program will send three players to the next level.

“I think it’s a great success,” Bristol boys coach Kyle Quinn said. “These are three hard-working kids. They all put time and dedication into the game. They’re the ones that you’d see out there every single day, so I’m real happy for them.

“I couldn’t be more happy. It’s terrific. It’s a great opportunity for them, and I’m glad to see the golf program building, especially the girls. We haven’t had a girls team, and this is the first girls team that we’ve had since a couple years ago starting up. So we’re growing, and we’re getting better, and it’s just a great thing to see for the school and the community.”

Quinn, who also owns Bristolwood Golf Course, has been an extremely valuable resource in helping these kids develop their games.

“They pretty much have an open door to the course, anytime they wanted to be out there, there was time,” Quinn said. “If I had lights out there, they’d be there all night, especially Diesel. Diesel was someone that his parents, I don’t think, ever had to worry about where he was. He was on the course all the time. He just plays and plays.”

Diesel Williams will be attending Maryville College in Tennessee to continue his academic and athletic careers.

Wanting to go south has been a goal for Williams for a while, and this brings him one step closer.

“I’ve always liked the South and the beach as a kid, and the last couple years, I’ve been thinking and I wanted to, after college, be able to build a life down south and stay kind of that way,” Williams said. “I figured, why not start it in college to get used to it and make sure it’s really the right thing for me?”

The game of golf found Kohler when he was in middle school. A gift from a family member created a love for the sport and a goal that Kohler is soon to achieve with his commitment to Point Park University.

“My great grandma got me a set of golf clubs when I was in eighth grade,” Kohler said. “Ever since my sophomore year, I really started taking it seriously and grinding every day just to achieve my goal of being able to play college golf.”

Kohler sees the potential in the game just in his everyday life as well. While loving the game in itself, he thinks golf can help give him a leg up in the business world too, which he plans on studying in college.

“I played basketball as well, but golf really, I thought I could really go far in golf and be able to achieve my goal, playing college sports,” Kohler said. “I felt like I could maybe do something with it, like in my career, wanting to do business, it’ll all help me with sales and everything.”

Addison Williams is attending Ohio Northern University. If you told her a few years ago that she’d be going to college for golf, she’d look at you as if you had three heads. Now, it’s a love affair she hopes to continue for a long time.

Coming from a dancing background, she was hesitant to take up golf, but once her competitive spirit activated, she went all in.

“I would have never thought of all things, I’d be a golfer,” she said. “I still talk about it so much, like, of all things. I come from a basketball school, and I just decided to play golf. It was really random. I guess it was just one of those things, where you find an interest, and it’s one of those things that’s just so shocking, and you just fall in love. It comes from out of the blue, I guess.”

Despite being underestimated the first time she stepped up to the tee by a new opponent, Addison not only thrived with the boys but played a significant role in establishing a girls team for the first time in school history.

“I gained a lot of experience playing against the boys and that competitive drive and proved them wrong,” she said. “I’d like to say that that played a big role in where I am today. Down the road, during my junior year, I was like, OK, we need a girls team at Bristol.’ So I talked to the athletic staff, and we were able to go out during a period, during our lunch, and I talked to lots of underclassmen, even some students who were like a grade younger than I am, and I was lucky enough to share my passion of the sport with other girls in my junior year, we made my school’s first-ever girls golf team in the history of Bristol, which is pretty cool. I think we won about 80% of our matches that year.”

Out of a high school currently listed at 146 kids according to the OHSAA, three from Bristol’s golf program are attending the next level.

That’s an achievement that Diesel Williams will be taking with him.

“It’s an accomplishment. Something that doesn’t happen often,” he said. “Being able to go around saying, ‘I’m from small town Bristolville,’ that people really probably haven’t heard of before, will probably be pretty interesting to them, and they’ll be able to talk about and learn more about where we came from and what it’s all about.”