Cloots’ thirst for activity was evident from the beginning.
During school, she would keep a ball in her jacket and toss it against the wall for hours on end.
“She was always busy with a ball,” said her mother, Susan.
Cloots’ love affair with golf started on a family vacation in Portugal when she was 10. She hit her first bucket of balls at the resort’s driving range and became obsessed.
On the weekends, she spent entire days at Ternesse Golf & Country Club in Antwerp — striking balls off the tee for hours on end. And after impressive performances in amateur tournaments, Cloots earned her spot on the Belgian national team when she was 14.
It wasn’t long before Cloots, inspired by other European golfers’ success, decided she wanted to move to America to play collegiate golf.
“I knew I could do it,” she said. “It was just a matter of how good of a school I could get.”
In order to draw attention from American teams, she reached out one-by-one to college coaches with a simple email:
Hi, I’m Leslie. I’m graduating this year and I’m interested in playing golf for your college.
Eventually, it paid off.
Jan Mann, UNC’s women’s golf coach, came from the United States to watch a 17-year-old Cloots at the British Girls Amateur Championship — where the Belgian finished second in stroke play.
“She was certainly someone I had an eye out for,” Mann said.
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After taking a visit to North Carolina with her father, Cloots was convinced.
Whether it was UNC’s prestigious business school, athletic opportunities or her soft spot for Carolina blue, the Antwerp native had found the home she was looking for 4,000 miles away.
“It was an easy decision to come here,” she said.
***
Cloots first fell in love with golf because she had so much fun playing it.
Her favorite memories from Ternesse were with her golf coach from junior lessons. He would make Cloots and the other golfers do silly drills, like chipping into an umbrella or racing around a pond.
“He was not that great of a coach,” she said, cracking a smile. “But he always made it so fun. It made you come back every time.”
When Cloots came to UNC, that fun disappeared.
“(Most athletes) really start grinding and wanting to get better, better, better,” Mann said. “And sometimes the fun can go out of it because they lose focus of what the game truly is.”
From the moment she came to Chapel Hill, Cloots put pressure on herself to succeed both on the course and off it. She knew she had four years before she needed to be ready — and that was it.
As a first-year, she played golf, studied and didn’t do much else. She wasn’t involved around campus and had few friends outside of the team.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” she said. “I was so focused that I lost having fun.”
The transition to college was difficult for Cloots, who struggled to learn a new culture in a different country.
During her first couple of years, Cloots couldn’t relate to others. She was brash and forward when dealing with teammates and coaches.
In her words, she didn’t like “hitting around the bush.”
“From her freshman year, she was very blunt ...” said fellow senior Rachel Jones. “I always thought the best of her.
“But she would say hurtful things — and they would hurt.”
***
Two years ago, Mann brought in a meditation specialist to help the golfers focus during competition.
“Golf is unique in that you have a lot of time in between shots to think,” Mann said. “It’s really, really important that you’re able to have a quiet mind when you need to.”
After her experience with the team specialist, Cloots joined the Carolina Meditation Club.
And it’s made all the difference.
“After 30 minutes sitting, I feel a lot more centered and more connected with myself,” she said.
“It sounds really weird, but it gives you a lot more perspective. For me, meditation is a way to just focus on being and not doing stuff all the time.”
That change in focus has manifested itself in every aspect of Cloots’ life.
Early in her career, she allowed her failures to consume her mind. But last season — when she led the Tar Heels in stroke average and earned three top-10 finishes — she found peace on the course.
“In the past, I would get frustrated a lot,” she said. “But now I put that back into determination.”
This approach has made her more patient on the golf course and helped her to overcome mistakes.
It’s also made her a better teammate.
“She’s gotten good at thinking before she speaks and saying things in a nice way,” Jones said.
“Yes, she still gets her points off, but now she’s able to say it in a nicer way and still come across well as a good leader.”
Most importantly, however, it has allowed her to love golf again.
“Meditation has helped me a lot with that ...” she said. “Just finding the joy again.”
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