The Wayne State College Women’s Golf team has a new member this year. Meet Saffire Sayre, a freshman from Des Moines, Iowa. She attended West Des Moines Valley High School, where she played golf all four years. Sayre helped Valley High win three straight Iowa team state titles all over the last three seasons. She was tied for eighth individually in the state tournament last year.  

Sayre had an very accomplished high school career. Along with three team state titles, she was First Team All-State and First Team All-Conference all four years in high school. During her senior season, she was an honorable mention to the Des Moines Register All-Iowa Girl’s Golf team and earned All-Central Metropolitan League Central Conference honors. She also was named the 2021 Player of the Year for the Iowa Pro Golfers Association.  

Sayre fell in love with the game of golf at just 10 years old. She had finished all her junior golf camps and decided to pursue the sport further. At 13 years old, she played her first 18-hole course, and kept striving to be better. She says she has learned a lot from her father, James Sayre, who played college golf at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

Newly named WSC Head Coach, Nick Swaney, had extraordinary praise for Sayre and what she brings to the team. “I had seen Saffire had a lot of high school success,” Swaney said   “She’s done a nice job helping our team culture so far…I think she’s going to be a really good fit to this group.” 

Sayre’s teammate, Viktoria Bortkiewicz-Hamelin said “Saffire is a great new addition to this team. She has a lot of potential to push put team higher.”  She is ready to go to work and she is a great teammate to be on a team with.” 

Along with playing the sport of golf, Sayre loves watching the professionals play. Her favorite male golfer is Jordan Spieth, and her favorite female golfer is Michelle Wie, even though Wie doesn’t play anymore. According to Sayre, The greatest golfer of all time, is Annika Sörenstam, a historic female golf player on the LPGA tour who played for 23 years. 

Her favorite course she has played on is a “pristine course” in Rhodes, Iowa called The Harvester. Sayre says, “There isn’t a divot on the fairway or a divot on the green and everything is perfect.” She has also gotten to play Pinehurst No. 2, a historic golf course in Pinehurst, North Carolina. that has held both men’s and women’s professional championships. A course that she would love to play is Augusta National in August, Georgia., the home of The Masters, but she admits it is a little out of reach. Sayre would love to go play the Pebble Beach Golf Course in Pebble Beach, California., a common site for the U.S. Open. 

Besides playing golf, Sayre loves to play board games, especially Monopoly. Sayre claimed “I could sit there for hours and play, but people are always saying they don’t have the patience. I get the patience from golf.” She once even played an eight-hour game.