For lots of kids, by the time they reach high school, they’ve played the same sport for years, maybe trying a few new things, but always coming back to the one mainstay.

Three years ago Mercer Island senior Kevin Liu joined the MIHS boys golf team. He had little playing experience, picking up the game with his father and neighbor. From the time he was a sophomore, learning the game, to a senior, he quickly progressed to become a solid player and the team’s captain.

“I originally was a swimmer; I started swimming when I was around 10,” said Liu. “I stuck with it for about four years, but swimming is a very rigorous and demanding sport — it takes a lot of time. I just decided to go in the opposite direction. My dad and I started playing [golf] and picked it up together.”

The senior, also a member of the Key Club and MIHS marching band who served as a manager for the girls golf team this spring, said he tries to emulate top golfers when he plays.

“The qualities of great golfers, like Tiger Woods, or others you might not know — the qualities they have are qualities that I want to emulate when I play,” he said. “It’s patience, confidence and perseverance. Those are definitely my top three. Golf taught me that because just learning the sport itself requires all of those qualities at the same time.”

Those three things have certainly been a part of Liu’s game the last three years, starting when he joined the team as a member of the JV squad. His coach, high school teacher Tyson Peters, said he wished he could have had one more year with Liu on the team.

“What a change, improvement he made in just three years,” said Peters. “It is our hope, as a coaching staff, that we inspire our players not to just improve their golf games competitively, but that they truly develop a love for a game that they can play for the rest of their lives — this certainly occurred for Kevin. Not only did his newfound love for the game help him develop from an average JV player into the best player on the team in three short years, but it helped him quickly mature into a confident team captain and responsible young man.”

One thing golfers quickly learn is that the game, unlike many other sports, takes a lot of mental work. A player can quickly lose confidence and it will completely change his game.

“Before you even step onto the course and hit the first ball, you can kind of shoot yourself in the foot,” said Liu. “You can be unconfident and say you can’t do this. I came from that background — a background of inexperience and inability, and I eventually developed into a golfer that was free of those shackles. My hope for each of the golfers on the team now is that we’re all young golfers, very inexperienced and [have] a lack of tournament play — I just wanted to pass along the skills that I developed. Sort of the swagger. I want them to maintain that.”

Liu said the team’s last home match this past fall was one he won’t soon forget. The Islanders were doing well after the first couple of players came in, but then things took a turn and it appeared the team wouldn’t win their final regular season match of the year.

“We had a last spark of hope as the last couple of guys shot better than we expected them to. It ended up being that we lost by about six strokes, I think, but it was a hard-fought battle. It was one we definitely could have won,” said Liu.

Those kind of matches are the ones that may hurt the most, but it’s those experiences that help turn good golfers into better ones. Liu said his advice for the team next season is to remember that the older golfers have more experience.

“Be humble,” said the senior. “I feel like confidence is more of an acquired quality than a granted one, so even though there are some guys who are very good — take age and experience into account. The older guys, even though they might not shoot better scores than them all the time, in the end they are more experienced golfers. They should definitely listen to their elders and the coaches.”

It’s that kind of advice and leadership that made the senior the team’s only captain this year.

“Kevin, as captain, proved to be invaluable this year, as we had a young team with a lack of senior or competitive experience,” said Peters. “Kevin was always positive and inspirational, and worked hard to develop a tightly bonded team. Although we did not have a winning season, it was one of my most enjoyable, and this was due to the teams’ camaraderie. He will be deeply missed next year, but in knowing this, Kevin has even sat with the incoming captains to discuss what makes a successful team leader; this is much appreciated.”

Liu is going to attend Occidental College in Los Angeles in the fall, playing for the golf team. He said he hopes to major in either political science or world affairs.

When Liu walks across the stage at the Convention Center on Thursday night, he knows it’ll be bittersweet, but also an impressive moment.

“I’m definitely expecting feelings of bittersweetness and more proud than anything thats for sure. I’m going to treat it like any other night and I”m going to say that this isn’t the end of the road for me and my friends. I’ll see them sometime in the future and this is just another stepping stone looking towards the future.”