LOS ANGELES – The Loyola Marymount University men’s golf team is one of the few sports on campus that compete in multiple seasons. This season, the Lions have exclusively been on the road, competing in tournaments held across the U.S. For junior Adam Søndergaard Pedersen, long travel and unfamiliar territories are nothing new.
Heading into the fall, the nine-player roster welcomed five transfers from schools in Power Five conferences, including Oregon and Arkansas. Pedersen transferred from North Carolina State, where he golfed from 2023 up until this fall. Born in Ethiopia and adopted by his family in Denmark, Pedersen is not only representing the crimson and blue across the green but also representing small golf nations.
Being in Los Angeles for over a month and a half, Pedersen, who lives with two of his teammates off campus, has adjusted easily from Raleigh, North Carolina. “The coaches and the team have been really good at taking us to whatever, just so we can start bonding. We’ve been busy, so most of my time is spent with the golf team, but obviously there’s also school and different kinds of stuff. You meet people, which is also one of the cool things about LMU. I came from a school with 40,000 people, which kind of feels like a city. Here, you go to class and it’s a class of 25 people, so all of a sudden you know the names of 20 of those people pretty early on. Life outside of golf is pretty easy here, just because it’s easy to get to know people,” Pedersen said.
Adam Pedersen holds his Srixon ZXi7 eight-iron in his right hand and his Bettinardi putter, with its white cover, in his left. (Photo by Sebastian Rosales Valdez)
Pedersen started golfing when he was eight. “I lived really close to a golf course growing up. One day, I just went, thought it was fun, and next thing you know, I’m there every day just trying to get better,” Pedersen said. The nature of the sport appeals to him.
“I love team sports, but I think what drew me to golf was the failures are your own, and the wins are your own. Whatever you put in is often what you get out,” Pedersen said. He has gotten a lot out of golf, claiming the men’s title in the 2023 Danish Stroke Play Championships, one of the country’s premier amateur tournaments, all before he was in college.
“It was a good experience. It felt like something I’d been waiting for a long time, and it’s pretty awesome that it ended up happening at an event like that,” Pedersen said. He still uses the Bettinardi putter he won the championship with in competition today.
Despite Pedersen’s early success in Denmark’s golf scene, his decision to continue his career in the U.S. was influenced by the success of other Danes who did the same. “I started being good at golf when I was like 12, and from that point to like 16, I actually didn’t think of college. I figured that I would stay home, go pro as quickly as I could and get out there and make some money. It was mostly because there are two guys on the PGA Tour that I grew up playing with, Rasmus and Nicolai Højgaard, who did that. They made it pretty early from Denmark, but then all of a sudden there were a bunch of Danish guys who went to college and came home and had a lot of success, and all of a sudden it seemed like a pretty good choice,” Pedersen said.
Denmark has only 346 18-hole courses compared to the 16,752 found in the U.S., but the small nation still finds ways to make a mark on the international golf scene. “I think it’s at a really good spot right now. We’ve, for a long time, actually had some really good golfers come out of the national team and the system. It’s a small country, and with that, it’s also a small golf country,” Pedersen said.
Adam Pedersen swings his golf club during competition. (Photo by LMU Athletics)
The amenities that come with golfing for a Division I program were ultimately an added incentive in Pedersen’s decision. “It’s hard to get the life of a college athlete, it’s obviously hard work, but there’s just so many benefits. You get to play the best courses in the world, play against the best players in the world, and you get to, on top of that, get an education. I hope this golf dream works out. I’ve always hoped that. But it would suck if I didn’t have anything to fall back on,” Pedersen said.
Pedersen’s favorite course he’s played so far with the Lions has been Olympia Fields Country Club’s North Course. Olympia was one of Pedersen’s dream courses, but competing on cool courses hasn’t been the only thing in the American golf scene that he’s taken advantage of.
“The weather in Denmark is not great. You’ll get all four seasons within a day. Winter is cold, so from October to March we’re indoors hitting into a simulator. You can go outdoors, but it’s not comfortable. There’s no tournament from October to April. Then in the spring and fall, it’s kind of cold. Summer is pretty decent, but there can be a lot of rain. It’s not that bad. The other thing that drove me to go to the U.S. to play was that you can play all year round. People can just get better and better and compete in that period where I couldn’t really compete, at least back home,” Pedersen said.
Pedersen has quickly discovered that Los Angeles not only boasts ideal golf conditions year-round but also a vibrant Ethiopian community he hadn’t experienced before. “I haven’t really met a lot of Ethiopian people back home, but over here there’s a bunch, especially around campus. I’ve seen a few Ethiopians, so I couldn’t tell you who’s who, but they can always see me and always know. I’m always so surprised,” Pedersen said.
Pedersen was adopted from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, when he was six months old. Growing up in Denmark, his heritage offers a unique perspective on his career. Since Ethiopia only has two 18-hole courses, Pedersen’s success could help open the door for more Ethiopian golfers to one day reach the PGA Tour.
“It’s not something I thought about that much growing up. My brother is from the same place, so obviously we’ve talked about it a lot. I could not name one golfer from there. So, it’s cool to be an Ethiopian golfer,” Pedersen said.
For now, Pedersen and the men’s golf team are focused on the team’s final fall tournament next weekend, the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational, hosted by Georgia Tech in Alpharetta, Georgia. After that, they’ll get some rest before the spring season, which is packed with conference, regional and national play and tournaments hosted on the West Coast.
