Going Dutch
Netherlands-born golfer Harmen Hubert will be bringing his game, culture and possibly booty-shake to Evanston
By Laurel Jorgensen
The Daily Northwestern
Dutch golfer Harmen Hubert gets asked enough questions about his native country.
So before you meet the incoming freshman next year, you might want to brush up on a few facts about the Netherlands.
For starters, the country is located west of Germany and north of Belgium. Amsterdam — where the majority of the population is not stoned all the time — is a city in the Netherlands, not its own country. And — surprise! — the Dutch wear shoes just like ours.
“You first get to hear, ‘Where are your clogs?'” Hubert said. “And then second, ‘Oh, are you from Amsterdam?’ Everybody thinks Amsterdam is where it’s going on.”
As a freshman on the Northwestern men’s golf team next year, Hubert will add a foreign flavor to the roster, following graduated European players such as Swede Bjorn Widerstedt and English golfer Luke Donald, who now plays on the PGA tour.
But most people in the States who meet Hubert can’t believe he’s not American, he said. He has spoken English since age 9 and has a nearly impeccable accent, which he said hurt his grades.
“Every single (English) speech test I had in school, I got lower scores because I didn’t speak the way they wanted me to,” Hubert said. “You have to speak with a British accent. Because I started going over here with my parents on vacation, I picked up the American accent.”
Although Hubert, a born-and-raised Dutchman, hails from Bosch en Duin, the 18-year-old has spent the past year diligently working on his golf game at the International Junior Golf Academy in Hilton Head Island, S.C.
Since September, when other NU recruits still were in high school, he’s been golfing nearly constantly. Even when he answers a phone call from a reporter, he’s on the course.
“Can I put you on hold a half-minute?” he said a few minutes into his interview with the Daily. “I have to hit a shot.”
Hubert’s days have been filled with three-hour golf practices, daily rounds on the course and workouts at the academy’s fitness facility.
Scott Lefevre, Hubert’s coach at the IJGA, calls him “the best player at the academy” and said his student is “a real intense guy.”
That intensity has translated to success on the golf course. Hubert, who plans to major in economics at NU, has been a highlight of the IJGA tour, which plays events around the country.
In March, he won an event by 11 strokes that featured every IJGA student, Lefevre said. He also has played on the Royal Dutch National Team since 1998 and represented his home country on the 2003 European Boys Team.
Hubert said he recognized NU’s name because of Luke Donald’s success here.
“Notre Dame contacted (Hubert) and he’d never heard of (it),” Lefevre said. “He said, ‘Oh, is that good?’ I said, ‘Most parents in this country would give an arm and a leg for their kids to go there.'”
A March visit to NU solidified Hubert’s decision to play for the Cats. And unlike most students here, he’s even looking forward to the Chicago winters, he said.
“It’s kind of nice to go back to the climate I’m used to,” said Hubert, who also played soccer in high school. “You can play pretty much all year round (in South Carolina). (In Chicago) you get a nice winter break where you can sit inside and lay in your bed and sleep.”
He acknowledged that it might be “a little weird” being the only non-American on NU’s team. He’ll think differently than the other players, he said, analyzing his shots in Dutch and translating yardage on the course into meters.
“If I hit a bad shot, I’ll probably curse in a different language,” he said.
Current NU golfers said they’re ready to welcome the Dutchman to the team. Senior Casey Strunk, who will have graduated when Hubert joins the Cats, said they’ve already given the new player a nickname — Harmen Electra.
“Someone just said it and we thought it was funny,” Strunk said.
So can Hubert booty-shake like Carmen?
“I don’t know,” he said. “You’ll have to ask the girls’ golf team that.”
