The Truth About Girls Golf Scholarships

 

We’ve all heard the claims — more girls golf scholarships go unused than any other sport. A 2017 opinion article in the LA Times highlighted the NCAA’s stat that more than 200 girls golf scholarships are going unused every year. 

The takeaway, for many, gets distilled down to the following conclusion: any girl with a touch of experience can get a scholarship to play golf in college.

While the 2017 article in the LA Times, and many others like it, has done a fantastic job of raising awareness around the opportunities for women in golf, it sets some unrealistic expectations for female junior golfers and their parents. 

The aim of this post is to share the truth about girls golf scholarships and provide insight into what you can do to increase your chances of earning a scholarship offer.

 

Are girls golf scholarships really going unused?

The short answer is yes. 

Golf has grown in popularity in the last several years, so in all likelihood the number of unused scholarships has dropped since 2017, but there is still a lot of athletic scholarship money out there that isn’t being used. However, just because girls golf scholarships are going unused doesn’t mean there isn’t competition for scholarships at the top schools. That couldn’t be further from the truth. This is where it gets complicated…

 

Scholarships are not going unused at “name-brand” or well-known colleges.

Yes, there are unused girls golf scholarships out there. But not at top universities. In fact the opposite is true! It’s incredibly competitive to get recruited, let alone earn a substantial scholarship, to a top university. And by top university, I mean school with a “name-brand” academic or athletic program.

 

Where are girls golf scholarships going unused?

Honestly, many of the schools that have unused girls golf scholarship money are schools that even I am unfamiliar with. They tend to be smaller schools, in more remote areas, with newer programs/coaches. Coaches at these schools don’t have large recruiting budgets (even if they have scholarship money), so they’re not traveling extensively to recruit and have a hard time getting their name out there. 

This is why I get emails from coaches every year, asking me if I know any [fill in the blank year] kids who are still looking for a school… and almost all of them say they have scholarship money still available.

 

How can I get a girls golf scholarship?

With some experience, you can get a scholarship to play golf in college… if you aren’t picky. Many young female golfers might have the talent to get a scholarship to schools like the ones I mention above, but when push comes to shove, many aren’t willing to put their other goals and dreams aside just for a scholarship.

Building a strong resume, establishing a junior golf ranking, and communicating well with coaches can greatly impact your overall recruitability and the likelihood of getting a substantial scholarship offer.

Knowing what you want your college experience to look like beyond golf will help, too. This will enable you to build a realistic school list; a list of schools that have a good pool of scholarship funding, and that have the qualities that you most want in a school. 

Having an understanding of how college golf programs are funded will also help you set reasonable expectations, and know a good offer when you see it.

Here’s some background information about how college golf scholarships work…

 

There are caps on the number of scholarships a team can have.

In women’s golf, a fully-funded D1 program has 6 full scholarships; fully-funded D2 programs have 5.4 scholarships.

 

So, how does that work? Do scholarships get divided?

Yes, often. Within the NCAA, golf is called an “equivalency sport”. Meaning, programs can have the total monetary value of their scholarship pool to divvy up between team members as they choose. The result is that most team members get partial scholarships. 

The big sports that we all see on TV — football, basketball, etc. — are called “head-count sports”, where all scholarships are full-scholarships. For these sports, programs have a total number of scholarships available.

 

What does it mean for a program to be “fully-funded”?

Programs are fully-funded when they have the financial means to provide their maximum number/value of scholarships. For example, just because a D1 women’s golf team can offer six full scholarships (divided among team members however the coach decides) doesn’t mean that the coach has the budget to afford that. The athletic department might only give the coach one full scholarship’s worth of funding for the entire team. Sometimes coaches have even less than that.

 

How do I know how much scholarship money a women’s golf team has?

If you’re just starting to look at schools, your best chance for a scholarship will be at schools with big, money-making men’s football, basketball, or hockey programs. These schools generate so much athletic revenue that they can fully-fund their smaller teams.

If you are already communicating with coaches, ask about scholarships. Share that one of your goals for college is to earn a girls golf scholarship, and ask about their program’s funding and how scholarship amounts are determined. 

 

Some surprising outliers in scholarship funding

At really desirable universities, the kinds of schools that have great academic reputations, for example, the university knows that it doesn’t need to offer scholarships to attract players; students will want to go there even if they have to pay full tuition. 

So unless a top university also has a top athletic program in one of the big money-making sports (football, basketball, hockey), it’s unlikely that the university will fully-fund the scholarship pool for a smaller sport like women’s golf. Title IX has really helped here though, and so we often see women’s golf programs with better scholarship funding than men’s golf programs!

 

Other ways to earn scholarships

When a golfer gets a scholarship offer from a school, it’s quite common for that scholarship to be divided into two parts: athletic and academic. 

When a coach decides they want to make an offer to a recruit, they will take all of the recruit’s academic information and see how much academic scholarship she can get (and you’d be shocked at what some kids can qualify for with pretty average grades and test scores). 

Then, depending on how much academic money the student gets from the school, the coach will determine how much athletic money they can/want to give. Sometimes this is what ends up equalling a full-ride scholarship, even though technically, this is a partial athletic scholarship. This helps the coach stretch his or her athletic scholarship budget a lot further.

This is also why it is so important to do well in school! Your grades can make a huge difference in your ability to get a scholarship.

 

Conclusion

If you’re a serious golfer and your goal is to earn a scholarship to play golf in college, you’ve got a decent chance of making it happen. Just know that you might have to make some sacrifices, and you might have to do some searching to find programs with extensive funding.

To learn more about the college golf recruiting process and how you can put your best foot forward, take the college golf recruiting course. And then reach out! I love to hear from families, whether we work together on an on-going basis or not. My goal is to help more girls have an outstanding college golf experience.

The more you know about the girls golf scholarship landscape and your big-picture goals for college, the more likely you will be to find the opportunity that will provide you with the best overall experience. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about!