Column: ECR’s Turner Osswald hones golf game through love of physics

Sitting on a bench adjacent to the putting green at Woodley Lakes Golf Course, 16-year-old Turner Osswald of El Camino Real High offered a stunning theory.

The defending City Section golf champion who’s getting an A in advanced placement physics, is a member of the school‘s robotics team and once dressed up as Albert Einstein for Halloween was not kidding when he said, “I base a lot of my putting skills on sleep.”

Forget the putter. Forget the ball. Forget the green.

“I guess you can say this was an experiment,” he said. “One time I had two hours of sleep and missed every single putt. I lost 15 strokes putting. On the day of the City championship, I got 15 hours sleep and made every single putt.”

There’s the legitimate excuse for every high school golfer to tell their mom or dad why they are sleeping in and not taking out the trash. They need sleep to help their putting.

OK, there are other things involved besides sleep, but the 5-foot-9, 141-pound junior has used his intelligence and work ethic to make himself the top golfer in the City Section.

He won last year even though he was hitting drives 260 yards. He made six birdies over the final nine holes to finish with a four-under-par 68 at Griffith Park’s Harding Golf Course.

“I practiced so repetitively and consistently,” he said. “My stroke back then wasn’t as fluid or smooth as it is now. But because I practiced so much, my misses became less prevalent in my game. My swing wasn’t there yet. Now I’m consistently hitting 280 and 290 because I’ve learned how to fix my swing more.”

Physics is Osswald’s second love after golf. He has two dreams — play on the PGA Tour or work for NASA researching physics.

As a member of El Camino Real’s robotics program, his specialty is programming and building the frame for robots.

“What I learned is you have to build prototypes and it’s like golf,” he said. “You consistently fail and learn more and more.”

Through exploring physics, Osswald is using ideas and concepts for golf.

“I love implementing physics in golf,” he said. “Oh, I want to hit it this far and it’s going to spin left because I know the green layout or I want to hit this high so it lands soft and doesn’t roll off the back, or I want to put this much spin on the ball so it will stay or roll back. It all blends together.”

Coach Eric Choi calls Osswald “eccentric in his thought process.”

Can he be the next Elon Musk?

“He’s an aeronautical engineer,” Osswald said. “I want to be a theoretical physicist.”

A theoretical physicist explores uncertainty in space and matter, and studies natural phenomena.

Osswald said he started playing golf at 6 when his father asked if he was interested in playing the game. “Now he doesn’t like it anymore after I beat him,” he said jokingly.

Keep track of Osswald the next two seasons in golf as he tests his theories, including putting. If only he can figure out how to sleep longer while taking six AP classes.

If you want to tease him about his Albert Einstein costume on Halloween a couple years ago, go ahead.

“It was one of my favorite outfits,” he said.