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Aug. 10—LAKE CITY, Minn. — Jordana Windhorst Knudsen was within a month of leaving for college when she received the phone call that changed the trajectory of her college golf career.
It was Thursday, July 25, just three days before the Lake City girls golf standout and recent high school graduate left for Bethesda, Md. — just 10 miles outside of Washington, D.C. — to play in the prestigious Junior PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club.
The call came from Ashley Flowers, the coach whom Windhorst Knudsen had committed to play for at Queens University in Charlotte, N.C. The coach whom Windhorst Knudsen had been waiting to play under for close to two years.
Flowers was to-the-point with Queens’ current and incoming players.
“We got on a Zoom call and she just said she can no longer coach the team,” Windhorst Knudsen said. “It was a good parting call and she said she’d continue to support all of us.
“Obviously, that was a shocker. It’s three weeks before the season was supposed to start and two-and-a-half weeks before I’d have moved down there. … At that time, I was just expecting to go there and play for a different coach, whoever they put in place.”
As she began to process Flowers’ decision, though, Windhorst Knudsen began to wonder if there were other opportunities out there. She initiated the process of asking Queens for a release from her National Letter of Intent, but because she had already signed it, she couldn’t speak with college coaches who were at Congressional.
One of those coaches, Matt Higgins, was keeping a close eye on her, though. Higgins had just been named the head coach of the University of Minnesota women’s golf team in late May after serving three-plus years as its top assistant coach.
“It was a coincidence. God put the right people in the right places at the right time,” Windhorst Knudsen said. “Matt came to watch me in Maryland, but we couldn’t talk at the time. … Once I got things figured out with Queens, the pieces came together quickly (with Minnesota).
“Three days after I got home from Congressional, I went up there to tour it and finalized things, and I could not be happier.”
The Gophers and Windhorst Knudsen made the official announcement on Friday, Aug. 9.
“Very excited to add Jordana to the Gopher women’s golf team this fall,” Higgins said in a statement. “To add someone of her ability so late in this process is truly a gift! She has been one of the best junior players in the state and we are very fortunate that things worked out.”
Instead of making the 16-hour drive to North Carolina in two weeks, the reigning Minnesota Class 2A high school state champion will instead make the relatively easy hour-and-a-half trip to the U of M campus and prepare to become the Gophers’ first-ever women’s golfer from Lake City.
The Tigers have had five girls golfers play at the Division I level, Lake City coach Steve Randgaard said, but Windhorst Knudsen — who helped Lake City win team state championships in 2021 and 2022 — will be the first to wear the Gophers’ maroon and gold.
She plans to major in psychology, with eyes on one day becoming a sports psychologist.
“It’s going to be great to be close to home,” she said. “When I toured campus my jaw didn’t leave the floor the whole time. The athletic facilities are insane; they treat the athletes like royalty. Everything you need, they have it.
“I never expected to go to that big of a school but the people there made it feel like a second home. And it’s a bonus to be so close to my actual home.”
She’ll join a roster that includes two other Minnesotans, both of whom Windhorst Knudsen has played against often and considers friends — sisters Bella and Reese McCauley. Reese, who starred at Simley High School (Inver Grove Heights) is a two-time Class 3A Minnesota high school state medalist who will also be a freshman this fall.
Minnesota’s incoming class also includes transfer Madison Le, a junior from Mansfield, Texas, who played the past two years at University of Texas at Arlington.
The Gophers season is scheduled to begin Sept. 2-3 at Purdue’s Boilermaker Classic in West Lafayette, Ind. Minnesota then hosts the Annika Intercollegiate at the Royal Golf Course in Lake Elmo, Minn., Sept. 9-11.
“It will be ‘come in and earn your spot,'” Windhorst Knudsen said of attempting to make the Gophers’ six-player lineup for tournaments. “It will be like being a seventh-grader again, going up to the varsity. I’ll go up there and do my best.”
In addition to the state championships Windhorst Knudsen won at Lake City, she is a three-time Section 1, Class 2A medalist, a 2024 Minnesota Miss Golf finalist and a week after winning the high school state championship, she captured the Minnesota Junior PGA Championship.
Last week she put a punctuation mark on an outstanding summer when she won the Minnesota Jr. PGA Players Tour Tournament of Champions, beating Owatonna star Carmen Jirele — the reigning Class 3A high school state medalist — by five shots.
Windhorst Knudsen also had the best scoring average in southeastern Minnesota this spring (75.0) and graduated from Lake City as the program’s record holder for lowest career stroke average.
“She puts so much into it,” long-time Lake City girls golf coach Steve Randgaard told the Post Bulletin this spring. “She’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever had. She plays year round, or close to it. … Golf is her thing, her only sport. She’s put a lot of time and energy into it and she has succeeded.”