Sometimes you arrive by happenstance at a story with a recipe that provides far more flavor that you might have expected. One simply never knows how well the ingredients will blend together.

Case in point: The world’s most dynamic basketball player, a dedicated but unassuming Ivy League women’s golf coach, and a young Black woman who has traveled a delightfully eclectic Baltimore-to-Nigeria-to-Johannesburg-to-Florida-to-New Hampshire route to nurture her love for life and golf.

Individually, they are in different quadrants of the world, but as proof that golf is most magical, Steph Curry, Alex Kirk, and Hope Hall are central characters who share vision, commitment, passion, and a belief that the game can improve lives and bring a sense of unity.

Curry, when he’s not mystifying NBA opponents, pours much of his money and energy into something called the Underrated Golf Tour. Kirk, having dealt with the pandemic and efforts to do away with golf at Dartmouth College, relishes how the story has worked out and Hope Hall is where it had seemingly been meant for her to be.

A Dartmouth student and a member of the women’s golf team.

“There were a lot of hurdles,” said Kirk. “But now we’re all reaping the benefits.”

In two tournaments for Dartmouth this fall, Hall – who played her high school golf at the St. Andrews School in Boca Raton, Fla. – has acquitted herself nicely in the new landscape. She shot 78-79-76 at the Princeton Invitational, then helped Dartmouth roll to victory at the Lady Blue Hen in Delaware by posting 74-75-75 – 224 to finish in a share of ninth.

So far, so good. Which might mean Hall’s first impressions were the real deal, because she first met Kirk when she was a sophomore in high school, a few years ago when Dartmouth, in town for a tournament, was at the same range as some high schoolers.

“I noticed these two young girls (Hope Hall and her sister, Alana) and thought they had really good swings,” said Kirk, who is quick to add that, “I’ll talk to anybody.”

So he struck up a conversation with Marvin and Pam Hall, got some of the background on their daughters, and got talking with Hope. Next thing you know, “I (ended up) going to one of his summer camps and the atmosphere was awesome,” said Hope. “I said to myself, ‘I really have to go here.’ ”

To know Alex Kirk is to know how easily this introduction unfolded. “He is,” said Bruce Chalas, the women’s golf coach at Boston University, “a terrific guy, really dedicated to his team and his players.”

It’s a wonderful world in which these coaches live. Chalas worked that camp with Kirk and confirmed that Hope Hall was a wonderful talent. Kirk, meanwhile, had been instrumental in a young woman from China, FLair Kuan, making her way to play on Chalas’ team.

Cheers to both of them for their commitment to women’s golf, to the game and to helping to develop young people. But, of course, they are not alone, which is a wonderful segue into the Underrated Golf Tour and a certain all-world basketball player who has Kirk’s unyielding admiration.

“What Steph is doing is amazing. He really is trying to promote junior golf,” said Kirk. “This is real. He’s breathing it.”

The mission statement behind Curry’s Underrated Golf Tour (Underrated, the basketball league, began a few years ago) promises an “overarching commitment to provide equity, access, and opportunity to student-athletes from every community by balancing participation in the sport to truly reflect our society.”

It is the under-served communities and the junior golfers of color who don’t have access to “all of the opportunities the sport of golf offers” that Curry said he wants to help.

What unfolded in 2022 was a series of four tournaments across the U.S. – Chicago, Phoenix, Houston, Tampa – after which the top 12 girls and top 12 boys qualified to play in The Curry Cup at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.

“There was a panel discussion at Harding Park and Steph stole the show,” said Kirk, who attended. “He was tremendous. He’s an ambassador for the game. I tell you, this is only going to get bigger and bigger.”

For Hope Hall, her golf was consistently good (she was sixth in Chicago, sixth in Tampa, tied for first in Houston, and second at The Curry Cup), but more impressively there was the aura of Steph Curry.

“He is so natural to be around, but it’s great to see how excited he is about golf. I was a little star-struck, to be honest,” she laughed. “But for him to focus on giving minorities opportunities to play is amazing to me.”

To be settled into the bucolic campus in Hanover, N.H., might rest as the vision Hope Hall had for herself dating back to the summer camp. But Kirk can tell you that there was a bit of a roller-coaster ride from that summer camp to seeing this come to fruition.

As if the pandemic that arrived in early 2020 weren’t bad enough, Kirk heard the stunning news later in the year that the golf programs at Dartmouth were being axed. “With all of that going on, guess what? I was still friends with the Halls,” said Kirk, whose respect for the parents and for Hope ballooned exponentially because of their faith in the coach and in the school.

Remarkably, it all worked out. Dedicated alums rallied the troops, the golf programs were saved and Hope Hall was able to be where she wanted to be – after spending some summer fun in the presence of Steph Curry.

How good is that?

Very, very good, but here is what Alex Kirk loves about the story. He gets to coach Hope Hall and her teammates, all of whom understand the point to all of this. “The finish line is not college,” he said. “This is a springboard into life.”