NORFOLK, Va. — Lake Taylor's Christopher Hankins was pretty young when he first had a golf club put in his hands.
"My granddad actually got me this plastic set of golf balls and clubs at three (years old)," he recalled.
A few years later, his grandfather would follow that up with a set of real clubs and Hankins found himself playing casually. Then in high school, that competitive spirit kicked in and he would start to take the sport a little bit more seriously.
"It was just like 'I need to get my skill up if I want to be as good as these other people out here,'" he said of his thought process. "That was just one of the main things that kept me playing"
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That hard work is paying off. On August 31, Hankins took the top spot in a match against 14 other high school golfers from Norfolk and Portsmouth in a competition with Booker T. Washington, I.C. Norcom and Manor, winning by 16 strokes. It marked the first time a Lake Taylor golfer claimed victory since 2019. The senior was happy with the accomplishment, but couldn't stop focusing on how much he thought he left on the course.
"The only thing that was constantly on my brain was I could've done better," he remembered. "That was the one thing that just stuck in my head. I really didn't care for the win. It was I could've done it better."
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That's one of the things that continues to motivate Hankins. He's the lone member of the Titans' golf team and hopes that the win might inspire some others at the school to pick up a club and give it a try. He and his coach have also been in the middle schools trying to get kids to come out for the team.
"It's just me creating a legacy that could possible be more Lake Taylor golfers actually putting a name for themselves out there," Hankins said of what the win means to him. "Golf isn't a sport that a lot of African American young men will want to play, especially in Norfolk. It's more towards basketball and football."
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Hankins is walking up the 18th fairway of his senior season before he turns his attention to wrestling, which he calls his main sport. As he moves forward, he's focused on continuing to move up the leaderboard, not just in golf, but in anything life puts in his path.
"I like to accomplish a lot and do as best as I can in everything that I do," he pointed out. "That's one thing about it. It's just I have to get better, or I'm going to be left behind."
Hankins enters regionals hoping to place as well as he can. He has not ruled out playing golf in college, but added he hopes to go to an HBCU, so everything depends on the right school for his major having a golf program.
