Year ten student Natascha Tennent is stepping onto the world stage.

Tennent, who plays at Wynnum Golf Club in Brisbane’s east, has been selected to represent Australia at the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin from June 17-25, 2023 after winning gold at the Special Olympics National Games in Launceston last month.

The 15-year-old Brisbane Adventist College student is Australia’s top-ranked female golfer with disability and she showed her class in Tasmania.

“Nationals were amazing. Getting to meet all the athletes, hang out with them and make friends,” Tennent said. 

“The course itself was beautiful. I even shot a personal best of 81 on one of the days.”

That mark has now given Tennent a simple goal for the World Games.

“I want to break 80 at least one of the days,” she said.

Tennent has come a long way from her introduction to golf at a MyGolf clinic at Pacific Golf Club as an 11-year-old.

In the beginning, Kathleen Tennent was sceptical about golf for her daughter.

Tennent is on the autism spectrum as well as having Tourette Syndrome and a rare physical disorder called ligamentous laxity.

Golf was a concern as the combination of the tics that many people living with Tourettes experience and the weakness in her legs caused by the ligament issues meant that she sometimes fell quite suddenly.

Since she started swinging a club she’s never looked back however.

Tennent has previously represented Australia abroad when she won a gold medal at the Macau Golf Masters in 2019, and the World Games has been on her radar for many years now.

“She would really like to get a medal for Australia,” Kathleen Tennent said.

“We’re always travelling somewhere for competitions. If she’s not playing in the competition on Sunday, she’ll play at her home course. Saturday’s she’ll be out with her dad playing and then practising during the week.”

Tennent’s competition schedule this year has included the Queensland Inclusive Championship and the inaugural South Australian Inclusive Championships where she was the Nett winner on both occasions.

Find out more about the Special Olympics World Games here.