How to nominate and vote for The Palm Beach Post’s Athlete of the Week
The Post’s Athlete of the Week is back for the 2025-26 school year. Here’s a look at how to nominate athletes and vote in polls.
- Kayla Bryant, a senior at FAU High, is a highly accomplished junior golfer with notable wins at prestigious tournaments.
- Bryant has verbally committed to Florida State University after a successful junior golf career.
- She leads her high school golf team by example with a strong work ethic and passion for the game.
- Bryant reflects on her early beginnings in golf with a set of Barbie clubs, highlighting her growth and dedication to the sport.
Much has changed for Kayla Bryant since the time she teed it up in her first official tournament. Actually, it was her mom Lisa who placed the ball on the tee because Kayla was 5 and new to the game after receiving a set of Barbie clubs two years earlier.
How new?
“I picked the ball up and threw it down the fairway,” Kayla said with a laugh. “I guess I didn’t want to hit it, to be honest.”
Bryant hasn’t made too many rookie mistakes since, displaying a precociousness throughout her career. She made some early noise when she qualified for the national Drive, Chip and Putt finals at Augusta National as a 9-year-old. She added victories at the 2022 FSGA Junior Match Play and the 2023 FSGA Tour Championship.
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Her breakthrough win came at the 2024 Junior Orange Bowl Invitational. She added another key victory at this year’s Dustin Johnson World Junior Championship, moving her to 14th in the AGJA rankings. And she went more than two years without losing a Florida Junior Tour event.
Now the 17-year-old Bryant is about to close the chapter on her high school career as a senior at FAU High in Boca Raton. She led the Owls to a state championship in 2023 with a runner-up individual finish and was 17th last year while the team finished fourth.
“I’m definitely excited,” she said about her senior season. “Obviously, we’ve had a pretty successful four years as a team. It definitely helped me as a person and as a player. I’m excited to close it out.”
Bryant says she’s in a better “head space” this year, alluding to the pressures most high school juniors face. The academics are more difficult and she had to make major decisions such as where she’s going to college (she verbally committed to Florida State).
“Junior year is hard in school,” she said. “You’re grinding away and you’re in the middle of recruiting. Fortunately, I found a program I really like.”
FAU High coach Cherene Castillo expects Bryant to once again be a leader on a stacked team many believe will contend for another state title. But Bryant isn’t a loud, rah-rah leader.
“She leads by example,” Castillo said. “Her work ethic, her commitment to everything she does on the course is phenomenal. She has so much passion for the game, and she thrives off learning.”
Asked about her top personal accomplishments, and Kayla points to her wins at the Junior Orange Bowl (her first four-day event title) and the Dustin Johnson.
“I proved to myself I can contend with the best,” Bryant said.
She has come a long way since the day she swung those Barbie clubs – and wasn’t willing to swing at that first official tee shot. But those Barbie clubs remain in her home, tucked away in a closet.
“I look at them once in a while and laugh,” Bryant said. “They’re a lot smaller than the clubs I use now.”
Her golf career has moved on, and it will continue after this season. How much is the key question.
“It’s kind of bittersweet to start my last year of high school golf,” she said. “I’ve known these girls for so long. But I’m ready to move to the next level.”
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