Men's Golf | April 18

For as far back as he can remember, Felix Krammer has been at the golf course.
 
"My parents started playing in the late 1990s and when I was a baby, they just took me to the golf course with them. They always told me the story of how they set me next to the green and gave me colored balls that I would just play with and throw around. When I was two, they gave me my first club which was an old eight iron from my dad that he cut down to my size and put tennis grip tape on it and then just made me swing it. I played my first tournament when I was six and that's when it really took off."
 
While he did play other sports like soccer, it was always golf that Krammer was drawn to. In 2018 he won the Bavarian Championship. The next year he was part of the German team that finished runners-up at the European Boys Team Championship. He also finished third at three different German national tournaments including the German National Amateur. His success led to interest from college programs in the United States.
 
"As a European, you have no idea what school is good or not. I had talked to schools like Arkansas State and San Diego State and thought 'it sounds warm to me, so it can't be too bad'. The tricky part for an international kid at that time was, because of Covid, you couldn't come over and take visits because you were not allowed to travel. You were kind of just limited to what you could find on the internet about schools and what coaches told you."
 
Ultimately, Krammer landed at Arkansas State in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Coming to America can be daunting enough, but with a wholly different culture and golf courses, it was a lot for Krammer.
 
"Germany is not a super diverse country. Coming to the US and then actually being in Jonesboro, Arkansas was interesting because its kind of out in the middle of nowhere. There was a lot of typical southerners and a large African-American population. I was kind of blitzed by the culture shock."

"Golf-wise, the biggest difference is just the courses. You play courses like Rich Harvest Farms, Windsong Farm, the course at Auburn. They all have really tough layouts with situations that need shots from you that you don't really need on courses you play back home. The challenge comes with how price you have to be with your tee shots, shots into the green and then when you go down south Bermuda grass was so different."
 
Krammer had eight top-25 finishes in his first two seasons at Arkansas State. As a sophomore he posted a scoring average of 73.94 and had a top-10 finish at the All-American Individual hosted by Houston. But something just didn't feel right about his situation, so Krammer put himself in the most infamous two-word space in college athletics – the transfer portal.
 
"The main point for going into the portal was just that I didn't play much my sophomore year at Arkansas State, for the team, which just was what it was. I felt like something had to change and I had to improve my situation. I put myself in the portal and basically took a shot and was like 'let's see who wants me', which is always kind of scary to be honest."
 
"It's a tough step because once you're in there, you know that your school is most like not going to take you back. It's pretty overwhelming once schools start reaching out. You get so many emails at the start and once you get offers from schools where you want to compete at, you really have to take a close look at each of them because each of them are unique. Some have really nice facilities like NIU. Others may play a crazy schedule ore have a super location where its never hot and never cold."
 
"I think, as a college athlete, you are never at peace with your mind until you actually sign everything for the final school where you're going to go because you're always wondering what's going to happen. Did I get the offer? Is it really that good? Is another one coming? It's very nerve wracking. I can tell you that because for me, the process took almost the whole summer when I was back home in Germany and I think I aged five years over that summer."
 
One of his offers came from NIU, whose home golf course had been ingrained in Krammer's mind for awhile.
 
"I remember my first tournament [at Arkansas State] was at Windsong Farm that year, and then the second one was at Rich Harvest Farms. I was like 'this feels so European'. When Coach Carlson emailed me sent me the link to Rich Harvest Farms I responded to him 'No need to sell me on Rich Harvest Farms. I played my freshman year in your event there so I'm familiar with all the practice facilities'. That was the thing that did it for me. When Coach Carlson told me how he runs the program here at NIU it felt like a perfect fit. He just made it sound like it's a real family here at NIU and I really like that."
 
That family aspect helped Krammer acclimate himself to the Huskies, especially when his family has not been able to see him compete in college.
 
"The guys on the team, we're super close friends, and then you have their parents and grandparents traveling to all the tournaments, you feel like it's sort of an extended family. That helps for international kids, especially when you're a long ways from home and you don't see your family for four months."
 
In his third tournament at NIU in 2023, Krammer tied for fourth at the Badger Invitational with a 54-hole score of five-under par. He was named Mid-American Conference Co-Golfer of the Week for that performance. The next week Krammer was part of NIU's scoring group that set an 18-hole scoring record at the Quail Valley Collegiate Invitational with a 274. He capped his first season in DeKalb with a 12^th-place finish at the MAC Championship.
 
So far this season, Krammer leads the Huskies in scoring average at 72.310. He shot a career-low 64 in the opening round of the Badger Invitational, leading NIU to it's third tournament win in three years. Krammer finished tied for second at -7 in the tournament and earned his second career MAC Player of the Week honor. On April 5, Krammer finished second at NIU's Kishwaukee Collegiate which was another tournament win for the Huskies. As a senior, Krammer and teammate Ben Sluzas are not only trying to get NIU back in the hunt for another MAC title but also guiding the next wave of Huskie golfers.
 
"Our four freshmen are really competitive. They're pushing each other in practice. Ben and I are kind of inspiring them, to show them where you can be or what it takes to play on the top of the leaderboard in tournaments. They've developed a lot since they came in August and I'm very proud of those guys."
 
The Huskies play in their final tournament before the MAC Championship this weekend at the Boilermaker Invitational.
 
--NIU--