Ruben Sanghera isn’t from the United States. He’s not planning on staying in the U.S., either. A 20-year-old student at the University of Sheffield in England, he enrolled in a study abroad program and found himself at the University of Florida for the year.

That’s not an easy adjustment; almost nothing’s the same. His first few days in Gainesville, he went grocery shopping for some familiar favorites, only to find that perhaps they’re more of a British thing. His favorite type of beans, Heinz Beans with tomato sauce, were nowhere to be found. Chips? Well, we have those, they’re just called french fries.

When he searched for waffles, he was surprised to find that in America they’re served as a sweet food, frequently topped with maple syrup or fruit. Apparently back at home waffles are made out of potatoes and used to make sandwiches.

For Sanghera, who describes himself as “very British”, there’s not much here that resembles the comforts of his homeland. So, how did he adjust to his new reality? Well, he found familiarity, specifically in the form of the UF Club Golf team.

“I think it made my adjustment easier because I was already familiar with the sport of golf, which allowed me to meet other people here in the U.S. with similar interests,” Sanghera said.

On the surface, the club is what it’s advertised as. Students practice on the Mark Bostick Golf Course every Sunday, improving their game in preparation for tournaments throughout the year. A select few students from the club are chosen to compete in three regional tournaments on the path to the National Collegiate Club Golf Association Championship.

Once you look further, though, you realize it’s much more. It’s a community, a place for students – whether seniors or freshmen, guys or girls, British or American – to come together and bond over a game they love.

That’s something in which club president Griffin Hout, a 21-year-old senior from Andover, Massachusetts, takes great pride in. He understands the value that the club provides for students like Sanghera, and has tried to maintain it since he became the head man. He won’t blow his own trumpet, though. Instead, he opts to credit the game of golf and the club format for creating that social setting.

“The thing about the game of golf that makes this setting in a team club so compelling for us is that golf is an individual game traditionally, and you don’t get a ton of opportunities to compete as a team,” Hout said. “Those opportunities are really special because you try not just playing for yourself but for everybody on your team.”

This isn’t a foreign concept. In fact, in other sports it’s common to hear about playing for each other, playing for something bigger than yourself and all those cliches. When you bring that over to an individual sport like golf, it’s no surprise that you get a similar result.

Hout mentioned a specific memory he had that he thought applied well to this idea. Back in December of 2022, the team went to Las Vegas to compete in the club national championship. It wasn’t the golf that stuck with him, though. It was arriving in Sin City at 3 a.m. on a Thursday and, specifically, getting out of the Uber onto the golf course and just chopping it up with everyone.

That’s the type of camaraderie that the club’s trips provide, but that members also get from just showing up to those weekly practices.

What sticks out most to him, though, is how the club can help students develop and become more confident in themselves. He’s seen how some who started off a bit shy or closed off or, as in Sanghera’s case, looking for some comfortability, started to allow their personalities to shine through. You could say it takes one to know one, because as Hout claims, he was once the same way.

“I wasn’t the most well-spoken or outspoken person,” he said. “I’m now running these practices every week.”

For a non-public speaker, that’s impressive. At the start of the year, when tryouts are taking place, he interacts with around 80 new people who show up, and that wasn’t something he would’ve been comfortable doing when he first joined as a freshman.

However, Heidi Christensen, who has known Hout since freshman year, thinks he’s been destined to occupy a leadership role.

“Our joke was that Griffin lived at the course because no matter what time of day you went, you’d see him,” she said. “He prioritizes everyone else’s practice before his own, even giving up his own spot for someone else to play.”

Christensen went out of her way to emphasize just how much Hout cared about the club and how he as always wanted the best for it and all the students who came through. That culture, set by Hout, allows for people like Sanghera to feel welcomed.

It’s no surprise that when asked about other students in the club, Hout was the first name that came out of Sanghera’s mouth.

Speaking of the international student, it’s clear that he feels far more comfortable three months into his stay in America than he did when it first started.

He no longer feels obligated to his British traditions. No potato waffles – no big deal. He can head downstairs from his apartment at The Standard to Chick-fil-A for a chicken sandwich, which he says is “quite nice”. If he wants to go crazy, there’s a Publix across the street where he can order a Pub-Sub (the concept of which confused him at first because he thought people were referring to a “pub”, also known as a bar). He even found his Heinz beans.

Still, he doesn’t forget what life was like on Day 1, and the hole that the UF Golf Club filled.

“You could say,” Sanghera said, “I found a piece of home at a time when I was feeling homesick.”