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Marcus Yam | The Roanoke Times

Courtney Ellenbogen and her Blacksburg teammates qualified for the Group AA state golf tournament in the Region IV tournament at Ashley Plantation. The meet, which will be played Monday and Tuesday in Crozet, will be the last high school tournament for the Duke-bound senior.

Courtney Ellenbogen (left) joins Pulaski County's Korey Dickerson at the first hole during the Region IV tournament.

BLACKSBURG -- Courtney Ellenbogen looks down at her hand, unfolds her index finger and begins to count.

One ... two ...

Rain drips off the clubhouse roof at Blacksburg Country Club. It's a miserable weekday afternoon, cold and wet, but Ellenbogen is here to play golf.

She is always here to play golf.

She's graciously carved out an hour to talk to a reporter about her brilliant golf career. After covering her personal interests -- she reveals she's huge Virginia Tech fan, a Red Sox fan, a longtime piano player, a skiing junkie -- Ellenbogen starts to talk about her game.

When asked how many times she's shot 80 or above in the past two months, she smiles sheepishly.

Then she counts.

"... three ..."

She looks up from her hand.

"Three or four over 80," she says, and sighs.

Three or four? Courtney Ellenbogen? This is a player who went more than a year without shooting 80. From June of 2007 to August of '08, she hopped from one elite tournament to the next, firing numbers that started with 6s and 7s.

It was a remarkable streak, one that explains her full golf scholarship to Duke and the effusive praise she gets from anyone who's seen her play. But starting in August, when she returned from another busy summer of golf to begin her final high school season at Blacksburg, something happened.

Ellenbogen became, well, mortal.

***

To understand where Ellenbogen, 17, is at now, you have to understand how she got here.

The daughter of Bill Ellenbogen, a former Hokies offensive lineman who played pro football from 1973-80, Courtney inherited plenty of athletic drive.

But there are differences. Bill is a 6-foot-5 bear of a man. Courtney is petite. And while Bill is a 17-handicap who can get frustrated on the course, Courtney is completely unflappable.

"Kids are born with different dispositions," Bill Ellenbogen says. "She's always been a calm person."

And it was this calm, 5-year-old girl who showed up at Steve Prater's junior program at Blacksburg Country Club and picked up a club for the first time.

"The difference with her," says Prater, now the pro at Roanoke Country Club, "was the amount of focus she had a such a young age."

Along with several other talented young golfers -- some of whom are now teammates of hers at Blacksburg High -- Courtney would come to the course once a week for lessons and a few holes. It wasn't her life by any means, but she enjoyed the social aspects of the program and the game itself.

"I kind of fell into it a little bit," she says. "As I started working harder and harder, I started seeing steady improvement."

Other sports she enjoyed began to fade from her list of priorities. Baseball. Soccer. And finally, in the sixth grade, swimming.

"I was getting to a point in both sports where more of a time commitment was required," Ellenbogen says. "I decided I probably had more potential with golf."

***

Potential means nothing without the drive to work, and Ellenbogen's always had it -- in school and on the course.

She's never made a grade lower than an A on her report card. Ever. Even before high school.

And golf is the only arena that compares for her.

"I'm pretty much out here every day," she says. "I kind of feel like I have to keep up with everyone else, because I know if I'm not out here at the golf course, then somebody else is."

But that somebody else might not get up at 5:30 or 6 in the morning to lift weights three times a week. Ellenbogen does. She has since the eighth grade.

It's been a lesson in time management for Ellenbogen, who often stayed up past midnight last year to finish her homework.

"I would like a lot of sleep," she says, smiling. "But I don't often get it."

Here's what she has gotten: Highs galore. There was the 2007 U.S Women's Open, when she came one unlucky lip-out away from making the cut. There was the return trip in 2008. There was the career-low 65 at the prestigious Scott Robertson Memorial. There was the practice round with Paula Creamer, the Duke offer, all the VSGA junior tournament wins.

Just last May, there was the 70 she shot in the first round of the LPGA's Michelob Ultra Open as the only amateur in the field.

"She's been very fortunate as an athlete," her father says. "If you charted her career path, it's pretty much been just a straight line up."

He pauses.

"Until now."

***

Prater noticed it as soon as Ellenbogen got back from her busy summer golf schedule. Something was different about her swing. Her hip sway had changed a bit. Her pivot looked different.

It was just tiny things, something only the most trained eye could see, but Ellenbogen sensed it, too.

"I've lost some confidence in my swing," she says. "I can't tell you why I started doing that, or else I would have fixed it, but I just got my swing a little out of its groove and I've been trying to get back in it."

In the meantime, though, she's posted some scores she hadn't seen in a while. Things bottomed out at an August tournament in Tennessee, when she struggled to a whopping 94.

"My swing was completely off, and then it kind of snowballed mentally," she says. "That pretty much sucked. That was probably one of my lowest times I've ever felt playing golf. It's not fun at all.

"I never thought I was going to shoot anything close to that, ever. But it happens, and now I have something to work up from."

And work she has -- employing the same rigorous schedule that got her here, but adding more swing study with coaches and pep talks with those around her.

"It's tough to watch someone -- particularly if she's your daughter -- who is really working hard and not getting the results she's after," says Bill Ellenbogen, who sticks to fatherly advice and does not coach his daughter in the sport. "But this is just part of the growth process as an athlete. This is really the first time she's had to face adversity. Any athlete who competes at a high level is going to have some struggles."

***

On Monday, Courtney Ellenbogen begins her final high school tournament. The Bruins head to the Group AA championships in Charlottesville as one of the favorites after their convincing win in the Region IV event last week.

Ellenbogen shot 79 in the regions. Her score was not among the top four on the team, so it wasn't counted.

But she's eager to help the team and buoyed by history. Ellenbogen would have won the individual state title last year had lightning not interfered with the final round and shaved off her stellar back-nine performance.

"I always feel like I can go in and play well and win the tournament," she says. "I feel like if my game is where it can be, then I can definitely put up a few good numbers.

"I think my game's on the way up, and that gives me more confidence going into it."

A few minutes later, she rises and throws her golf bag on her shoulder. She heads back out into the rain, determined to hit her way out of whatever this is.

You're reminded of the words her longtime coach, the man who knows her game as well as anybody, had uttered on the phone.

"She'll be fine," Prater had said.

Count on it.