At the local driving range in Kearney, Nebraska, Elijah Knudsen is trying to relieve stress.
For the first time in his life, Knudsen, one of the great shooters to come through Colorado’s high school basketball scene, was feeling distant from the sport he loved.
It’s the fall of 2024 … the recent University of Nebraska-Kearney transfer is hoping to extend his basketball life for at least a little longer.
On the court, he works tirelessly for any opportunity he can get. But nothing meaningful seems to be coming.
“What more can I do?” he contemplates.
‘What else could I do?’ was the question he meant.
Because somewhere between swinging clubs at a course he can’t remember the name, he figured out his future wasn’t in basketball after all. It was in the swing itself. You see, at the range, Elijah wasn’t just hitting balls like a casual looking to unwind — he was crushing drives at distances most often seen at the highest levels of the sport.
Now, a year later, Knudsen is shooting his next shot as part of Colorado State University’s men’s golf team.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said CSU golf coach Jack Kennedy, a head collegiate golf coach for the past 11 years. “This is a one-in-a-thousand kind of deal.”
The story of how Knudsen got here can start where many of his often do: on the basketball court.
Led by a jump shot with boundless range, Knudsen was a junior at Mead High School — all of 5-foot-9ish and as slight as the rim he attacked — when he led the Mavericks to their first basketball state title in 64 years in 2021.
That year, Knudsen was named ‘Player of the Year’ by multiple outlets. And a season later, after the Mavs’ run to the 4A Great 8, he was named it again by BoCoPreps.
As smooth as high school basketball went, however, going away to college was anything but.
With his next-level basketball opportunities already fairly limited due to his smaller stature, Knudsen found a home and immediate minutes with Division-II Colorado Mesa University. A good sign? CMU was also the Mavericks.
He played in Grand Junction for just two seasons, though. CMU’s former coach, Mike DeGeorge, took a job with D-I Cal Poly. Knudsen said he then didn’t feel like he fit with Mike Dunlap and the new staff, so he transferred to Nebraska-Kearney.
Hoping things would get better, though — they may have gotten worse.
“I felt like I was doing everything right and wasn’t getting opportunities at Kearney,” Knudsen said. “It made me fall out of love with the game.”
Knudsen eventually left basketball back in Nebraska and came home last December to start working at the family business, Ziggi’s Coffee.
While doing so, he also wanted to see what could come of golfing. Was there a future there?
Yes, he was aware the last time he’d played golf competitively was his senior year of high school, when COVID pushed back the basketball season and he just needed something to do. He described his play succinctly from that season: “terrible.” He said he shot mostly in the 90s with the Mavericks.
But things were different three years later. Could he have taken his seat at the family (coffee) table? Yes. And who would’ve blamed him?
But golf, at least in part, was about forging his own path. (Though he’s clear: he also wants to be a part of Ziggi’s Coffee.)
“I want to make something of myself,” he said.
The idea didn’t set in right away with his father Brandon. The founder of Ziggi’s Coffee was still mourning the fact his son wasn’t playing basketball anymore. Basketball is “what him and I did,” he said.
In a practical sense, he also knew Elijah didn’t have the experience to rival other top-level player, who “live and breath the sport.” Elijah’s younger brother, Isaiah, had been the only true golfer in the family. Brandon said Isaiah plays all the time and even travels for high-level tournaments. And he’s only 9.
Brandon also knew this though: he and his wife Camrin were dreamers. They came to Colorado with nothing and built a caffeinated empire that now stretches around the country.
“So who am I to tell him he can’t do this?” Brandon said..
And that support was enough to keep pushing forward.
From last winter to summer, Elijah went from playing golf after work to playing in a few amateur tournaments around town. Some, he even won. He then took part in higher-level tournaments that featured D-I golfers and started working on his game with Stephen Arendt, the head pro at TPC Colorado in Berthoud.
It was Arendt who had the connection with Kennedy.
And the timing was perfect.
The CSU coach had a preferred walk-on spot still available just weeks ahead of the fall season and was intrigued as Arendt told him about the kid who could drive the ball well over 300 yards. So he invited Knudsen to play a round with a few of his players and he was sold.
“All of them signed off on bringing him onto the team instantaneously,” Kennedy said. “Not only as a golfer, but as a kid, student-athlete and somebody they wanted to be around.”
Knudsen’s long-range means something different these days.
Earlier in the week, Knudsen played in his second collegiate tournament at CU’s Les Fowler Individuals Invitational at Broadlands Golf Course.
At moments, he looked like the blank canvass coach Kennedy expected. He struggled on the first day of the tournament, falling to last place at 7-over-par 79. But he also showed glimpses of what could be, following that 79 with identical rounds of even-par 72 on Day 2 and 3.
With a big drive and a raw short game, Knudsen finished 28th out of 38 players.
“You know, golf has become a very athletic game,” Kennedy said. “Guys that can move the ball with speed — well, you can’t coach that. And Elijah’s got that. So the sky’s the limit.”
It’ll just take time.
Elijah knows as much. When he stepped into his first collegiate tee box at the Fort Collins Country Club weeks ago, the 21-year-old said he was confronted by a strange emotion.
“My hands were shaking and it was scary,” he said. “That’s the craziest thing about golf to me. In the state championship game in basketball, there was not a single nerve in my body. I was just out there playing. So a big challenge is getting over those nerves.”
It’s a good thing his dad can provide some perspective.
Like Elijah’s first scorecard when he was playing for his high school golf team.
“It was 98,” Brandon laughed. “I remember it exactly.”
Funny how quickly things can change.
“I would have never thought that three years later I’d be playing for a Division-I golf team,” Elijah said.