Eastern golfer David Lawrence plans to go professional this summer after his senior season.

The leading scorer in the Ohio Valley Conference this season, Lawrence said that after a summer full of hard work he will compete in the PGA Tour Qualifying School in Florida.

“This summer is going to be another one full of practice and a lot of hard work, getting better in every aspect of the game,” Lawrence said. “Then come September I’m going to go down to Florida and get a few weeks of practice in and then play at the PGA Tour Qualifying School and from there depending on what kind of status I get that will depend on what my schedule is like for the rest of the year.”

Lawrence, a marketing major from Moline said his decision is influenced by his love for the game ever since high school, when he gave up baseball to play golf.

Lawrence said he chose golf because there is always room for improvement and that each round holds something different.

“It’s the fact that you will always have something that you feel like you can do better at the end of the round,” Lawrence said. “There is no such thing as the perfect round of golf. That’s what makes the challenge so interesting to me. You will never go out and play one round that’s exactly the same as the next. It’s always something new.”

Lawrence said his greatest moment of his career is finishing first individually in both the MSU Wasioto Winds Fall Kickoff and the SIU Edwardsville Invitational of the fall season this year.

However, he said that the team’s greatest moment is yet to come, and the chemistry will help them feed off of each other in the conference tournament, which Lawrence and the Panthers are currently in Nashville for April 25-28. When it comes to expectations, he said they are in the hunt to bring home a conference championship, going on to say that this is by far the best team he has ever played on.

With much appreciation, Lawrence said that it is his dad who is his biggest role model. Lawrence’s dad taught him to respect the game, but instilled a competitive attitude at same time.

When away from the links, if Lawrence isn’t doing anything competitive, he can be found rapping. Lawrence raps as a fun hobby that allows him to exploit his writing talents. Lawrence enjoys rapping about issues that actually matter and said he hopes that people get the message or even inspire them to think of something he wasn’t able to.

As for his career after college, everyone will have to wait and see where David Lawrence will ultimately rank among Eastern alumni athletes. Until then, he credits his progress over these past four years to head coach Mike Moncel and said the skills he learned have him poised for success at the next level.

“When I came here to Eastern I was very lucky to get a spot on the team,” Lawrence said. “I hadn’t been playing golf very long competitively and I have to thank coach Moncel for giving me the chance. These four years have been a huge improvement for me. At that time, I loved the game of golf but playing professionally wasn’t even an option and now I feel like my four years here have prepared me to be successful at the next level.”

Anthony Catezone can be reached at 581-7942 or at ajcatezone@eiu.edu.