While we at Graham’s Foundation definitely acknowledge that all prematurity stories won’t have happy endings, we also love sharing the stories that demonstrate the incredible strength and resilience of preemies. We shared one such story at our third annual Golfing for Graham’s Foundation outing in July, when our special guest at that event was golfer Petra Cole.
Ms. Cole started life 12 weeks early, and weighed only 1 pound 9 ounces at birth. She endured many of the medical and developmental struggles that micro-preemies face, but went on to play golf at and graduate from San Diego State University before moving on to graduate school. Golf, as we mentioned, is one of Cole’s passions – she started playing at 2 years old – and she has landed 8 holes in one. Someday, she hopes to compete in the LPGA tour.
We were incredibly grateful to Ms. Cole for her support on the green during our 2011 golf outing, and she hasn’t stopped supporting our mission since! It’s not just that she represents how much those born extremely prematurely can accomplish, but also that she truly believes in what we do.
Now we want to offer Ms. Cole our support in kind by wishing her big wins on the golf course at the 45th California Women’s Amateur Championships – an intense three-day competition in November. As Ms. Cole describes it:
“It is two days of stroke play then a cut. If you make the cut, you go into morning and afternoon match play events. At that point, you play until you lose a match. If you keep winning your matches you could play three days of match play all morning and afternoon. That’s a lot of golf!”
We’ll be following Ms. Cole’s progress in the Championships, and sharing photos and updates on our Facebook page so all of our great supporters and preemie parent friends can cheer her on along with us. Stay tuned!
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