A childhood Christmas gift leads to a record-setting career for UNK golfer Liz Lyons
KEARNEY – It’s Christmas morning in 2010 and a little girl with brunette hair and pink pajamas is about to open one of the best presents she’ll ever receive.
As she rips away the wrapping paper, the 6-year-old turns to her parents and excitedly announces: “A golf set!”
Moments later, her younger brother discovers a matching box of Maxfli youth clubs: “You got a golf set, too!”
Those holiday gifts were the start of something special for Liz Lyons and her family.
Her dad Jason had already introduced her to the game a few years earlier, bringing her with him during rounds when the family still lived in North Carolina.
Lyons, the oldest of three children, happily tagged along, riding in the cart and watching her dad play. Afterward, she’d beg him to buy a bag of Reese’s Pieces, his favorite candy.
Once Lyons and her brother Connor had their own clubs, trips to a driving range near their home in Olathe, Kansas, became a regular activity.
“It just kind of stuck,” Lyons said.
Golf became a bigger part of her life as she got older, with Jason sometimes playing alongside her and other times serving as her caddie during summer tournaments.
“That’s how me and my dad always bonded.”
Although she still enjoys playing rounds with him, the 22-year-old has surpassed her first golfing partner.
“He’s good, but I can beat him,” Lyons said with a smile.
A PERFECT FIT
Lyons tried other sports growing up – soccer, cross country, track, dance – but golf was the one that lasted.
At Olathe West High School, she qualified for the Kansas Class 6A state tournament all four years, finishing third as a junior and fifth as a senior. She earned first-team all-state honors in 2021 and 2022.
Those accomplishments caught the attention of University of Nebraska at Kearney head coach Shawn Rodehorst, who saw a golfer with a reliable swing and a strong understanding of her game.
“We’re not going to change anything mechanically about her,” he recalled thinking during the recruiting process. “She already knows how to make it work.”
UNK was the first college Lyons visited as a prospective golfer. She traveled to Kearney with her parents in spring 2022 and immediately liked what she saw.
Rodehorst reminded her of her high school coach, particularly his approach to supporting student-athletes beyond competition. That mattered to Lyons, who wanted to pursue her academic interests and participate in other campus activities while playing college golf.
“I really wanted to make sure I had a coach who was going to be supportive of not only golf but also school and being involved in other activities,” she said. “They needed to understand that we’re here to play golf, but we’re also college students and we want to have a good experience and have fun.”
Lyons visited other schools, but none of them beat UNK.
“It really felt like a perfect fit,” she said. “I knew this is where I was supposed to be.”
Four years later, Lyons has plenty of reasons to be happy with that choice.
A senior studying interior and product design and construction management, she maintains a perfect 4.0 GPA and has received numerous academic honors, including three Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) All-American Scholar awards and three MIAA Academic Excellence Awards.
She’s involved in the Gamma Phi Beta sorority, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and campus honor societies, and she was selected as a homecoming royalty finalist this fall.
On the golf course, she’s developed into one of the most dependable players in program history.
Lyons entered the fall season with a career scoring average of 78.03, the second-lowest mark in UNK history among players with at least 40 rounds. She’s earned honorable mention All-MIAA recognition each of the past two seasons, and her 76.76 scoring average last year ranks fourth on the school’s single-season list.
Rodehorst credits her success to an unusually consistent game.
“She just doesn’t really hit bad shots,” he said with a smile. “She knows her swing really well. She knows her game. She doesn’t try to do things she can’t do. She knows what she does really well, and she’s very accurate.”
The coach even has a colorful way of describing her ability to avoid trouble.
“She will just kind of par you to death because she’s so consistent.”
Lyons has worked on adding distance through strength training and becoming more aggressive when opportunities arise, but she considers her biggest improvement to be mental.
“I have always been very consistent in the way I play, but I think what has really helped me get better and develop is working on the mental aspect of golf,” she said. “It’s an extremely mental sport, and I think that’s what differentiates some of the better players.”
That means understanding when to take risks, how to respond to a poor shot and how to approach the next hole without dwelling on what happened earlier.
“Shawn and I talk about that a lot,” she said. “Golf is kind of a vehicle for lessons in life in a sense. The way you think about things and frame it in your mind affects the outcome.”
It’s an approach that has helped produce some of the best golf of her career.
CHAMPIONSHIP MOMENTS
The final hole of the 2026 MIAA Women’s Golf Championship was about as pressure-packed as it gets.
On Day 3, Lyons approached the 18th hole at Mules National Golf Club in Warrensburg, Missouri, with UNK holding a one-stroke lead over Washburn. The Lopers were chasing their second conference tournament title in program history, and Lyons had an opportunity to secure it.
After a solid tee shot on the par-3, she narrowly missed a birdie putt. Her Washburn opponent also missed a birdie attempt, then watched her par putt lip out.
That left Lyons with a 2-footer for the championship. She drained it.
The Lopers celebrated a two-stroke victory – their first MIAA tournament title since 2022 – and Lyons finished as the individual runner-up with a 13-over-par 223, just one shot off first place.
It was one of several highlights during a remarkable spring.
Two weeks later, UNK placed second at the NCAA Central Regional, earning its second-ever appearance in the NCAA Division II Women’s Golf Championship and first since 2023. Lyons tied for sixth individually at regionals, leading the Lopers into the national tournament in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Although UNK finished 18th at nationals, the experience gave the returning players a better understanding of what their team could accomplish.
“I feel like this spring we figured out we’re a good golf team and if we play this way we can do really well,” Lyons said. “As a team, we’re capable of a lot.”
They carried that confidence into the fall.
With five of their top six golfers returning, the Lopers won four of five tournaments during the 2026 fall season, setting several school records along the way.
The first came in September at the Central Region Preview in Blue Springs, Missouri, where UNK won by 21 strokes with a school-record 36-hole total of 575, 1 under par.
Lyons was even better individually.
She fired rounds of 71 and 66 to finish 7 under par, winning medalist honors and breaking UNK’s 36-hole scoring record by five strokes. Her second-round 66 also established a school record for the lowest individual round.
A month later, she shared medalist honors with teammate Claire Berquist at the Central Regional Preview at Meadowlark Hills Golf Course in Kearney. Both finished at 1-under 212, helping UNK cruise to another team victory while breaking the program’s 54-hole scoring record by 16 strokes.
The Lopers added titles at the Nebraska Intercollegiate and Indian Creek Shootout, climbing to No. 27 in the NCAA Division II WGCA Coaches Poll and No. 31 in the National Collegiate Golf Rankings.
For Lyons, the individual records have been gratifying, but the team’s success has made this stretch particularly memorable.
“Winning is fun,” she said. “We’ve kind of figured out this groove, and it’s been really fun going into tournaments with confidence, knowing we can compete with anyone there.”
Rodehorst has noticed a difference, too.
“At practice, we’re not really talking a ton about fundamentals and things like that. They already know what they’re doing,” he said. “We’re just continuing to increase confidence and make sure they know what they’re capable of.”
With the way the Lopers have been playing, there’s little need for pep talks.
“There are a lot of tournaments where my job is pretty easy,” Rodehorst said with a laugh.
ENJOYING EVERY ROUND
The Lopers’ recent success is built on more than talented golfers, with Lyons serving as a prime example of their overall chemistry.
During tournaments, when players spend much of their time competing in separate groups, she’s constantly looking for opportunities to encourage her teammates. A wave across the fairway, a smile or a few positive words can make a difference when someone is struggling.
“Liz is probably one of the more bubbly people you’ll ever meet,” Rodehorst said. “She’s kind of that perfect kid who you’d want on your team. Always has a smile on her face. A good leader.”
Lyons has embraced that leadership role as one of three fourth-year players on the roster, recognizing how her attitude can influence others.
“As I’ve gotten older, I feel like I’ve definitely been more self-aware that I am a leader on the team and my energy does have an effect on the people around me,” she said.
That enthusiasm reflects what she enjoys most about being a Loper.
“I love how supportive we are of each other and how much fun we have,” Lyons said. “Our team is super talented, and we know we’re capable of being really good. But at the end of the day, we’re all just trying to have fun. And I think that helps us do well.”
Those relationships, along with the team’s success, played a major part in her recent decision to return for a fifth year of college golf. She’ll remain at UNK through May 2028, when she plans to graduate with bachelor’s degrees in interior and product design and construction management.
Rodehorst welcomes the opportunity to have her back, both for her performance on the course and the energy she brings to the team.
“I basically treat that as if I just got a really good grad transfer. A top 100 grad transfer,” he said. “I think her ceiling will continue to rise as she realizes how good she can be. This fall has proven that.”
What began with a set of golf clubs under the Christmas tree has become an experience Lyons wouldn’t trade for anything.
“I feel like I’m so lucky that I get to come here, go to class and play golf for free,” she said. “I get to do all the things that I really enjoy right now.”