FAYETTEVILLE — Maria Fassi remembers flying into Northwest Arkansas for the first time.
She was 13 and on her way to play the American Junior Golf Association’s Stacy Lewis Open at the Lost Springs course in Rogers. As she looked below the airplane wing from her window seat she was unimpressed with the cattle and chicken houses and relative ruralness of the region.
“There is no way I would ever come to school here,” she told her mother. “There’s nothing.”
Her mother, Fabiana, replied, “It’s OK. Just play the tournament and go on your visit. You don’t have to go here.