How Grace Addison is Excelling in More Than Just Golf
By: Collin Perry
It's early March, and the Radford women's golf team is about to begin their final day at the More Than Golf invite. The team, including Grace Addison, is getting mentally prepared for the final 18 holes at Old Barnwell; a challenging private course within the undulating, sandy terrain of the South Carolina countryside. Before teeing off, the then-junior checks her phone notification.
It's an email from Dr. Jamesa Stokes, a materials research engineer at the NASA Glenn Research Center, asking Addison to interview for an internship at NASA.
Understandably, it would be difficult to think about golf with a potential once in a lifetime internship in the upcoming summer. Addison does her best.
"Honestly, you would think that I should be on cloud nine and play great," Addison said, reflecting on the circumstances. "And I started off playing well on the first couple of holes. Then that course was so hard it ate me up later. I'd make a triple bogey and think, 'Oh, it's fine, I have an interview with NASA next week."'
As one would expect, landing an internship at NASA is quite an accomplishment. According to a 2022 article from Business Insider, the space agency accepts around five percent of applicants – roughly 1,250 total interns across 25,000 applicants.
After several rounds of interviews, Addison was selected to spend the summer at NASA's Glenn Research Center, located in Cleveland, Ohio. Over the 10-week internship, she worked in the material science engineering department, assisting her mentor, Dr. Stokes, on testing the degradation of environmental barrier coatings when exposed to molten particles. Addison works in the lab at the
NASA Glenn Research Center
(photo provided by Addison)A NASA internship looks much different and has much higher expectations than most summer interns. Addison's specific project just had herself and Dr. Stokes working on it throughout the summer. She spent most of the summer working independently – utilizing her skills gained through three years at Radford's Artis College of Science and Technology – and learning from her mentor.
Although she worked largely independently, Addison connected with NASA staff and fellow interns. Even through her other love – golf.
"I joined the NASA golf intramural league they had," Addison said on the experience. "Once a week, we would all go play with other Glenn Research Center employees. That was a lot of fun."
Though golf didn't directly take her to NASA, Addison's success on the course as a youngster helped bring her to Radford. Her grandparents introduced her to the sport, playing with them every chance she could. Once she turned 11, she dedicated herself to playing golf and playing well. Addison helped lead Abingdon High School – just about an hour and a half drive west down I-81 – to three straight VHSL 3A state championships before committing to play for the Highlanders.
For head coach Jeff Beeler, he was thrilled to add Addison to his incoming class back in 2023.
"Initially, I was hoping to get two of the four of Grace, Mckenzie Weddle, Macy Johnson, and Caroline Gilreath," Beeler said. "I thought if we could get two of the four, we could have a pretty good program moving forward. I thought Grace was the longest shot of all of them. She will tell you to this day that she just didn't get on her phone much, didn't communicate with the coaches. I always tell her that she ghosted me."
Just like in high school, Addison continued to excel on the course at Radford. In her first season, she secured a spot on the Big South All-Freshman Team while adding a top 10 finish at the Elon Women's Invitational. That only set the table for even greater things as a sophomore, as she posted the lowest individual score for Radford at the Big South Tournament (4th overall), defeating both of her opponents in the match play rounds, and helped the Highlanders earn their first conference title in women's golf. Her performance also placed her on the Big South All-Tournament Team.
"Honestly, after we beat High Point (in the first round of match play), I don't remember thinking about if we would lose conference,"Addison poses with Big South
Commissioner Sherika Montgomery
after receiving all-tournament honors
at the 2025 Big South Tournament
(Jason Aigner/Big South) Addison said on the 2025 Big South Tournament. "In my head, we were going to win without a doubt. It was still really close at the end. When Shea (Smith) made the final putt, my heart fell out of my chest. It was really exciting."
Addison also prioritizes a difficult major while balancing a schedule that demands lectures, labs, and long trips from the classroom – while still succeeding in both. She enters her senior year as a three-time WGCA All-American Scholar, meaning she maintains at least a 3.50 GPA or higher while also playing in greater than 50 percent of her team's matches.
Her schedule changes greatly from semester to semester and typically requires her to either spend early morning in the classroom or use up all the daylight on the golf course. On occasions, she would get to the lab and do research at 6:00 a.m. after missing a few days of class due to a golf tournament, or study after golf practice and get ahead on a few assignments.
Dr. H. Webster, a Radford professor in the Chemistry department, says that advising and the overwhelming support of the faculty only go so far, and that Addison works hard to keep such good grades as a Chemistry major and golfer.
"The one thing that's been the same through her time here is work ethic," Webster said. "She works so hard at everything. You go in, you work in the lab. You work hard at that. (During the) internship at NASA, she worked very hard at that. And she did her work well (at NASA) because that's how she does that here."
Outside of the hard work Addison puts in, chemistry and golf are seemingly very different areas and require different thought processes. A similarity that Addison sees in the pair is how you deal with making mistakes.
"In research, things go wrong all the time," Addison said, with a smirk. "You can mess things up that are very simple. Sometimes, findings mess up and you don't do anything different than before. You just have to take it as information. This is so similar to golf. We'll play the same course three days in a row, but I'm playing a completely different round of golf each time."
As if landing the NASA internship was not hard enough for Addison in 2026, she accomplished another extremely difficult feat – making a hole-in-one – earlier this season at the Tot Hill Farm Invitational in North Carolina. Her ace on a 163-yard par-three third hole helped her finish tied for 24th as an individual and place seventh as a team.
Addison says it was her third ever hole-in-one, though her first in a competitive round. Beeler, who's now in his 19th season as a head coach at Radford, has only had one previous golfer get a hole-in-one in a tournament. What made it even more special was that Addison's family was in attendance to witness the shot.
"I was kidding with her and said, 'good thing your entire family wasn't here, because the earth would've shaken with the roar,'" Beeler said after the round. "I was walking with Caroline (Gilreath) on the first hole and heard the cheers. We knew it had to have been Grace with her family here."
This is Addison's final year at Radford – concluding a final run for a second conference title with her close friends she also calls teammates. She plans on continuing her education (ideally pursuing a master's in chemical engineering) and has sent applications to several programs. Beyond that, she hopes to be a chemical engineer and work in catalysts or biofuel conversions – areas that have an environmental application to be fulfilling and helpful in energy storage and efficiency.
Dr. Webster is confident that Addison will go on to do great things, wherever she ends up.
"She's going to be one of those alumni that show up in (The Magazine of Radford University)," Webster added. "I'm glad golf brought her here. But she'll look back, like so many of our other successful students, fondly on her time here. There'll be nothing but love for this school."
