Whether it be in the United States or Europe, University of Tampa junior Nicolas Jutigny has proven to be an exceptional golfer.
Originally from New Hampshire, but predominately raised on the border of France and Switzerland, Jutigny learned the sport at a young age.
“My parents play, and they were on a vacation in Turkey. My uncle was supposed to come take care of me,” Jutigny said. “I was like six, and he didn’t come, so my parents just brought me out to the course and gave me a club and I just kind of started to hit a golf ball around.”
It is unusual for a child to take a natural interest in a sport like golf.
For Jutigny, it was a negative trait turned positive which kept him playing.
“I’m very stubborn, so every time I’d fail, I would just go at it again and wait until I’d succeed, which is what I do with pretty much everything,” Jutigny said.
Jutigny lived in France, approximately 200 feet away from the border.
He attended high school at the International School of Geneva, which was actually across the border in Switzerland.
While playing soccer for his high school, Jutigny learned how competitive golf works differently in Europe.
“In Europe, you play in your club. So ever since I was 12, I was on the men’s team of my golf course,” Jutigny said. “It would be outside of school. I would have to work it out by myself with my club and get qualified on their team. That’s actually why I came to college here– because we don’t have college sports and I wanted to keep playing golf competitively.”
While playing for Golf and Country Club of Bossey (which he is still a member of during summers), they won the Division II French Title in 2007.
His small graduating high school class was represented by many different countries around the world.
Since Europe doesn’t have college sports, students interested in playing on a collegiate level wind up going to colleges in other countries; many of his high school friends are in Australia.
Jutigny, in fact, nearly ended up at a large state university.
However, it was the size that was the deciding factor for him.
“I was supposed to go to Arizona State, but it was too big,” Jutigny said. “I didn’t want to be just dropped on a campus with 60,000 people. [Tampa’s] campus size was perfect location was great.”
Jutigny, who had never visited UT before attending, may have taken a leap of faith by going this far to attend a college whose golf program is not based around recruiting or golf scholarships.
“The whole system here is a walk-on system, so you have to be pretty confident that you can make the team. It was kind of risky coming here,” Jutigny admitted. “But I thought I had a good shot at making the team.”
He appreciates that University of Tampa is a Division II school.
“It’s not as competitive as D1, which is good cause I didn’t want to play golf 24/7,” Jutigny said. “But I still want to play competitively at a level where I feel challenged and still have to work to be on top.”
Recently, Jutigny won the St. Leo Invitational the first Spartan to win a tournament since 2002, and the first Spartan ever to win at St. Leo.
He believes this was his biggest accomplishment of his golf career thus far.
“I came in [my freshman year], and I feel like I regressed my first year. This is the first time I feel like I’ve played to my level,” he said. “I’ve never been able to have three good rounds in a row. Finally, I got it together.”
Many other players found the St. Leo course difficult.
Whether it was difficulty reading the greens or the wind playing a factor, but Jutigny was not fazed by it.
He thought the course “fit [him] really well.”
Finishing the first round two under with three consecutive birdies, Jutigny was playing strong on the course and staying calm in his mind.
“When you’re not playing well, you’re always thinking about what [you are] doing wrong, whereas when I was playing well, I was just thinking about playing golf,” Jutigny said.
The Spartan golf team is currently not ranked.
Jutigny acknowledged while everybody on the team is playing hard, there is room to improve.
“We’ve had four tournaments and of three of those after two rounds, a UT player was in the lead,” he said. “We’ve never been able to get it going at the same time. Definitely the next step is winning a tournament as a team. We play in a tough conference, but we are working hard [to be competitive].”
He believes the key to reaching that next step is simply confidence.
“It’s all a question of confidence. Everybody on the team knows how to play. Everybody who goes to tournaments knows how to play. It’s just different levels of confidence at different times,” he said.
Outside of sports, Jutigny is a marketing major.
He is undecided on the role he wants golf to have in his life after college.
Several factors challenge his decision, one being whether to play in the US or go back to Europe.
If not continuing with golf, he wishes to earn a master’s degree and one day live in California.
Rick Christie, head coach, declined to comment about Jutigny.
Daniel can be reached at dfeingold@ut.edu.