Kathrine Frich
She says it was a tough call.
Starting college is a big leap for any teenager, especially when you are balancing classes with elite sports.
Athletes train for years to earn their spot on a university roster, hoping to make an immediate mark.
Sometimes, though, a single bad swing changes the entire game plan.
Under the knife again
President Donald Trump’s 19-year-old granddaughter, Kai Trump, is taking an unplanned break from her freshman golf season at the University of Miami.
According to The Daily Beast, the young athlete recently underwent wrist surgery in New York after getting hurt during her very first college tournament.
It was a tough call. Having already gone through a similar operation on her wrist last year, she initially tried to dodge the operating table by getting a stem cell treatment in Miami from Dr. Jeff Wiegers. That approach was not enough.
“I know I made the best decision for my long-term health and my future in the game I love,” she wrote on Instagram, as cited by The Daily Beast.
“It’s certainly not how I envisioned the next few months, but sometimes the journey takes an unexpected turn, and I’m choosing to embrace this one with patience, and a whole lot of determination.”
Hidden pavement and tears
How did the injury happen in the first place? In an earlier Instagram update reported by The Daily Beast, Kai explained that she struck solid ground near a paved path early in the round and aggravated it a few holes later.
“I hit the ground next to the first cart path; let’s just say there must have been some cart path underneath that ground because it was very hard. Hit it, it felt like a shock on my arm. Then on the tenth hole, I hit my driver, and I felt like I tore it again,” she explained.
She finished 102nd out of 120 players in that event, following a pro debut late last year where she came in last among 108 golfers.
On top of the physical setback, the daughter of Donald Trump Jr. and his ex-wife Vanessa has struggled with moving 90 minutes away from her family home in Jupiter, Florida.
In a tearful YouTube video cited by The Daily Beast, she admitted the transition hit her hard.
“I’m not like a very emotional person at all. It is like really weird for me to cry. I’ve only cried like a few times. But like, I think knowing that I have to say goodbye to everyone tonight’s like really, really sucks,” she said.
