Last year, she placed in the top 15 in the provincial high school golf championship. This year, she broke into the top 10.

Next year, Kristine Dixon, 16, has set sights on breaking into the top 5 in the Alberta Schools' Athletic Association (ASAA) girls championship.

For the second consecutive year, the grade 11 student has made the cut for the ASAA provincial championship after finishing second in the south-central zone final. That's quite impressive for a person who just took up the sport two seasons ago after observing it for many years.

"I grew up on the golf course," says Kristine. "My parents golfed a lot and I would sit in one of the cubbies of the golf cart and watch movies or I'd go explore the course."

One day her father took Kristine to the driving range and realized she had some talent. Her game sparked from there.

Since then, she spends much of the summer on the golf course, predominantly on her Lynx Ridge home course. She also plays others and takes in numerous tournaments, some of them with her family. She's also part of the Maple Leaf Junior Golf Tour.

The Bearspaw resident currently carries an impressive 12.5 stroke handicap.

"I also train at the Calgary Golf Dome in winter to keep up my skills so I'm ready to go the next year."

Kristine was in fourth place in this year's provincials after the first 18 on the Alberta Springs Golf Resort with a 78. Day Two on the Innisfail Golf Course wasn't nearly as successful for her. She shot a 103, still strong enough to place eighth overall from a field of about 70 high school girls from across the province.

She says Innisfail has proven to be the toughest course she has played.

"It's a tricky course. It doesn't look like it, but when you have trees and very small fairways it gets hairy. It's very hilly, too."

Score Golf ranks it as the number one course for conditioning and places it in the top three courses in Alberta. 

Kristine has been the only golfer from Cochrane High to advance to the provincials for the last two years. She aspires to earn a post-secondary golf scholarship upon graduation, preferably in the States. Failing that, she's looking towards the British Columbia lower mainland, perhaps on the University of British Columbia golf team.

On Sept. 11, the high school girls' golf team won the divisional banner. Cochrane high's Kristine Dixon had the best score in the girls round and won the banner with fellow golfers Aubrie Shapkin and Jenna Virjee.