Kevin Flowers Jr. has met Ravens players Kyle Hamilton and Nick Moore in his role as a caddy at Baltimore Country Club in Timonium. The Loyola Blakefield senior said he helped Hamilton make a read on one of his putts and was pleasantly surprised at how down-to-earth they were.

“I didn’t really fanboy over them,” he said. “They’re just regular people trying to play golf and have a good time.”

That was not the only perk Flowers enjoyed. In February, the Baltimore native was awarded the Western Golf Association’s Chick Evans Scholarship, which will cover the cost of tuition and housing for four years at the University of Maryland where Flowers plans to major in kinesiology.

Flowers is the eighth caddy from Baltimore Country Club to receive the award, joining sisters Samantha and Becca Lannon of Dulaney High, Varada Maulkhan of Catonsville, Kendall Opheikens of Overlea, Antonio Carter of Curley, Shawntae Wilson of Bard and William Mitchell Jr. of Friends. Western Golf Association chairman Steve Colnitis said Flowers was one of 350 students to receive an Evans Scholarship out of more than 960 applicants.

“He truly demonstrates this motivation to get ahead, and we love the hard-working kids because the Evans Scholars program graduates 98% of the kids in our program within four years,” said Colnitis, a former Evans Scholar and a member of Baltimore Country Club. “Kevin was just a hard-working, delightful kid that whoever he caddied for, people gave him very good marks.”

Flowers’ path to caddying took a circuitous route. Having participated in soccer, basketball, baseball and taekwondo, he acknowledged that except for a cursory knowledge of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, he was unfamiliar with golf. “I knew you hit the little ball with the stick, but that was about it,” he said with a smile.

After Flowers was one of four students at St. Ignatius Loyola Academy in Baltimore to earn the Rev. William J. Watters Scholarship for full tuition and books at Loyola Blakefield, Western Golf Association director John Leahy Jr. approached all four boys at a reception to inquire if any would be interested in caddying. Flowers was the only one to contact Leahy two weeks later.

“He said, ‘Mr. Leahy, that caddying thing, can you tell me more about it?’” recalled Leahy, president and founder of Target Marketing Group and a member of Baltimore Country Club. “Kevin was pretty shy at the time. So you could probably say I was a little surprised. I was happy that he called me.”

Flowers spent the summer between his freshman and sophomore years caddying at Baltimore Country Club. But learning the rules of etiquette such as avoiding making movement as a golfer is about to swing — which he did to the consternation of a club member — took a toll.

“Just being here, it was surreal, and to mess up and have little petty mistakes, it was kind of getting to me,” he said. “It was probably one of the reasons why I stopped coming because I didn’t have enough confidence, I didn’t have enough experience to brush it off.”

Flowers kept his distance the following summer and got a job at Charlestown Senior Living in Catonsville. But in the spring of 2024, Leahy lobbied for him to return by mentioning the Evans Scholarship, which requires an applicant to caddy for 80 to 100 rounds over a period of three years in high school, a 3.2 GPA, involvement in extracurricular activities and demonstration of financial need.

“From that standpoint, Kevin was real attractive,” he said. “I knew he needed the opportunity, and he was willing to put his foot out there and venture into the unknown.”

Flowers said that conversation with Leahy as well as discussions with his father Kevin Flowers Sr. and older sister Binica Hicks convinced him to concentrate on caddying.

“I feel like my sister was the driving force because she was like, ‘If you put in the work now during the summer and you actually are eligible for the scholarship, why wouldn’t you do it? It’s not really conflicting with anything except for work, right?’” he said. “It would just be kind of silly to turn down a full scholarship. It was just a good opportunity.”

Flowers’ parents no longer live together, and he has been raised primarily by his father. Although he doesn’t know much about golf, Flowers Sr. said he wasn’t surprised by his son’s venture into the sport.

“Kevin doesn’t do what everybody else does, and that is a good thing,” said his father, a retired sheet metal mechanic for the federal government. “You find out that a lot of these young kids will try something or have a tendency to try to do something, and he’s just not about that.”

Despite Flowers Sr.’s unfamiliarity with golf, Leahy noted that he often drove his son to the club and waited four to five hours in the parking lot to bring him home after caddying. Flowers Sr. said the scholarship is significant for his son because without it, he might have had to enroll in a trade school or the U.S. Army, where his father served for three years.

“It’s a good thing for him because I think that college is good for you and academically, he was showing signs that he wanted to go to college because I had in my mind that he could go to trade school if nothing else,” he said. “So by him being able to go to college, I think it is a good situation for him.”

While golf has expanded Flowers’ options for the future, he said the sport has helped him improve in his maturity.

“I feel like I started to learn more about golf as far as how it teaches you patience,” he said. “It also teaches you to adapt. If you’re somewhere in the rough and you need a certain club, you need to know your strengths and you need to know your weaknesses. You have to know when to take a risk and you need to know when to settle down. I think that’s what it has taught me.”

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