Haylin Harris, who attended Salpointe Catholic High School her freshman and sophomore years, left the Old Pueblo bound for Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana before landing in East Lansing at Michigan State University.
She immediately went to work, playing in all 11 team tournaments as a freshman in the 2018-2019 Spartan season. She placed third at the East Lansing Regional to earn a bid to the NCAA Championships where she tied for 51st at 12-over-par 231.
Harris kick-started her JGAA career in 2012 with a win in her very first tournament in the Girls 13-14 division. She followed in 2013 with two more, which happened to be at home (Tucson Conquistadores Spring Classic and Tucson City Jr Championship), before competing in 14 JGAA tournaments in 2014 in the Girls Championship division. A good year for Harris, she posted three wins as well as top-10s in all but two tournaments.
In 2015, Harris placed first in the Willie Low Invitational en route to 6 of 7 top-5 finishes that year before wrapping up JGAA competition in 2016 with a third-place finish in the Tucson Conquistadores Spring Classic and T8 at the Thunderbird Invitational.
Among other accolades, Harris was ranked as the No. 3 player nationally in the 2018 class by Golfweek, reaching as high as 12th in the Golfweek/Sagarin Girls Junior Rankings and 25th in the Rolex AJGA Polo Golf Rankings.
She qualified for three consecutive USGA Girls Junior Championships (2015-17), making the field of 64 match play in 2015 and ’16, and then all the way to the round of 16 in 2017. And Harris qualified for the 2017 USGA Women’s Amateur.
Harris teed it up in 14 AGJA events, with two wins under her belt. She won the 2017 Davis Love Open with the help of a final round 67 and the 2017 Natural Resource Partners Bluegrass Open after a 68 in the final round.
She now plays for the University of Colorado Buffaloes as a fifth-year senior for the Women’s golf team. Her best results include a top-20 finish at the Golfweek Red Sky Classic and the Michigan PGA Women’s Open, a professional event. Harris is working toward her master’s degree in organizational leadership at Colorado. Before transferring to Boulder, the former Spartan graduated with her bachelor’s degree in creative advertising from Michigan State in May 2022. Off the course, she was a three-time Academic All-Big Ten selection and a 2021 Big Ten Distinguished Scholar.
