What started as a joke two years ago has turned into free college tuition for an ECHS graduate.

Jazmine McGinnis said she didn’t know much about the game of golf when she and a friend tried out for the Blue Devils’ team as sophomores two years ago.

The now-18-year-old recently accepted a scholarship to play at Dodge City Community College in Kansas.

She’s obviously come a long way since she took to the links as a joke sophomore year.

“I really wasn’t serious about it at first,” she said. “In Atmore you don’t hear too much about golf.”

She was so inexperienced at the game that she used knowledge from a video game to get through the tryout.

“I imitated what I had seen Tiger Woods do in the Xbox game,” McGinnis said.

McGinnis made the team and continued to improve. Early on, she was forced to play against boys and even finished third place in a tournament against boys.

Her best nine-hole score is a 36, which is even par, at Brewton Country Club, a year after she learned how to play.

McGinnis said she’s used to playing against boys and being in Dodge City and playing with girls is “an adjustment.”

“It’s more organized,” she said. “It’s way different from the ECHS golf program. I actually have a team now. Other girls play golf.”

The daughter of Charles McGinnis and the late Myrana Askew McGinnis said she wants to major in computer science. She said, depending on offers, she would like to attend Auburn University in Montgomery after her time in Kansas is finished.

She is the granddaughter of Helen and the late James Askew, of Atmore, and Cleveland and Cora McGinnis, of Frisco City.