Years ago, Andrew Cortez stepped onto the American Falls municipal golf course with a friend and a set of five hand-me-down clubs. It was a spur-of-the-moment-type decision. Just two kids bored on a summer day.

Cortez is seldom away from the links anymore.

He developed a passion for the game almost instantly. Cortez grew up like most kids, playing football, basketball and baseball as the school year revolved. But golf was different.

“It was just something about it (that) clicked in me, and I’ve just loved it ever since,” Cortez said.

About a year later, at age 9, Cortez played his first competitive round of golf. Now, in the summer before his junior year of high school, the American Falls teenager’s love affair with golf has blossomed into a near expertise and his livelihood.

The Idaho State Journal Boys Golfer of the Year finished tied for fifth at the 3A state tournament and was the Beavers’ most reliable golfer all season. He shot a two-day 154 at state and a personal-best 69 at Headwaters at Teton Springs in April. Cortez finished with an average round score of 75 for the season.

Bill Beck worked for the American Falls course for 11 years. For most of that time, seeing Cortez was a daily certainty.

“In bad weather he was at least chipping and putting,” Beck said. “Even in a snow storm.”

Beck described Cortez as crazily dedicated to golf. American Falls coach Doug Good hasn’t seen anyone work harder to perfect their craft in a long time.

And he did it all on American Falls’ nine-hole, $6 greens.

Cortez didn’t grow up at a country club. His parents only golfed recreationally but always had clubs lying around. They supported his every desire and taxied him to all of his tournaments. But he wasn’t born with a golf club in his hands and a perfect swing in his genetic code.

“Just learned from the dirt up, basically,” Beck said.

Cortez had some help along the way from coaches, Beck and Good among them. But he was always self-motivated. He loved the sport too much not to be.

“Good kid to coach. Very receptive,” Good said. “I didn’t feel like I need to tell him a lot.”

Even the mental aspect of golf, the most challenging facet of the game, Cortez figured out on his own.

He admits he was once hot-tempered and hammered himself after a bad hole. But eventually he realized that golf is a momentum game. You have to stay cool to have a chance at rebounding.

In his first tournament, Cortez shot a 78 through nine holes, he recalls. The next day he improved by 30-some strokes.

But it wasn’t until he got to high school, Cortez claims, that he fully grasped the mental side of golf.

“It took me a long time,” he said.

At the state tournament, Cortez started the back nine of his second round with a triple bogey and a double bogey in his first three holes. He tranquilized his nerves and rattled off three straight birdies thereafter to stay in the hunt.

“You just have to clear your mind of all thoughts and then you just have to trust in yourself and your abilities,” he said.

Cortez’s most memorable hole of the year was his last. The 18th on day two of state.

After a solid drive, Cortez’s approach shot sailed over the green and into a bunker. He chipped out of the sand onto the green, setting up a 30-foot putt.

“It was just one of those putts,” Cortez said. “You get over it and you say, ‘Wow. I feel really confident with this.’”

Cortez sank the shot. It gave him a day-two 76 and matched Kellogg’s Hogan Samuelson and Gooding’s Clancy Cockerman for fifth place.

Cortez wants to win state next year. If his game is on, he says, he knows he can do it.

His plans for the coming week aren’t surprising.

Playing golf. What else?