Christa Bodensteiner is not your average farm girl. Her smile can light up a room, especially when she is talking about her two favorite subjects—Litchfield Country Club and local ministry.

Bodensteiner started her love affair with golf by hitting golf balls in a cow pasture at the age of five. She is the youngest of nine children raised on a dairy farm in an Iowa household full of golfers. She credits her upbringing for her work ethic, values and passion for helping hurting people, which is not surprising since she is slow to take personal credit and quick to praise those around her.

Like so many people before her, she visited the Grand Strand with her parents and within two months had made the move to “The Golf Capital of the World.” She was a psychology major at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and prior to moving south was in the mental health field as a crisis intervention specialist for four years. It sounds like a stretch to change to golf management in South Carolina, but after spending eight years playing on golf teams in high school and college, the decision was easy. “The mental health field was becoming more stressful and I found that I love the South. It fits me,” Bodensteiner says with a big smile.

She started out her new career in 1994 by taking photographs of visiting golfers on the first tee at Litchfield Country Club, the very club where she now has been the head golf pro since 2003 and the General Manager since 2013. When asked about her proudest accomplishments, she talks about five of her assistants that have gone on to become head pros. She is also especially proud of the fact that she started out at the very bottom and worked her way up.

Even though she still loves to play, she refers to herself as a “golf pro, not a pro golfer.” Bodensteiner considers it an honor to be a part the 50th anniversary of her employer which she describes as “a great organization filled with great people.” Litchfield Country Club is one of the original eight golf courses on the Grand Strand and has a storied history of Southern charm and quality golf.

But golf is not her only passion. Bodensteiner has a heart for people who are hurting and spends her free time and energy volunteering at Martha’s House, a transitional living facility for formerly incarcerated women, and Celebrate Recovery, a Christ-centered recovery program for people with hurts, habits and hang-ups of all kinds. With the help from the the women at Martha’s House, she has channeled her experience, photography and faith to produce and market greeting cards and magnets that uplift, encourage and inspire with the proceeds helping to support the ministry. She is truly an inspiration to many people in many ways.