For aspiring professional golf players, it can be difficult to explore an opportunity to further your game and your academic education at the same time. 
Young golfers from Australia and New Zealand, therefore, should consider aiming to attain golf scholarships to college in the US, in order to pursue a future that promotes sporting development with the support of a credible degree and future career.
I understand that it can be daunting to consider an international pathway like college in the US, so I’d like to help you understand why golf scholarships to college should be your goal if you want to take your passion for golf to the next level.
The US is the perfect place for young golfers to build their future athletic opportunities. It is also home to the Professional Golfers Association (PGA), the world’s largest sports organisation since 1916 that has held some of the most well-known golf tournaments in history.
For young international golfers, the most realistic pathway to furthering a golf passion is likely to be via the US collegiate system, where thousands of golf programs across a variety of competition levels are available.
One of the best avenues for international athletes to make the dream of playing college golf a reality, is through college golf scholarships. College scholarships can help students pay for college costs such as; tuition, accommodation fees, books and materials, meals and more.
I want to share with you why I think a scholarship to play golf in the US collegiate system should be a priority for you as an aspiring Australian athlete.
- College golf is a perfect building block to future opportunities
A lot of aspiring professional athletes struggle to find the right pathway to pursue a higher level of sport, and often fall short of their goal after attempting to jump hurdles to get there.
The US college pathway can be considered a developmental step in golf that will build your athletic skills and mindset to a level that you may not be able to achieve elsewhere.
Golf Australia support the idea that the US college student-athlete pathway is a stepping stone for those with their sights set on the professional tour in their future golf career.
Whether you are looking at the college pathway as a journey to pursue a higher level of golf, or to continue a passion for sport while working towards a world-class degree, a golf scholarship to college can help you work towards a variety of future opportunities.
Gaining a golf scholarship, therefore, is an ideal step in the process of using the college pathway as a bridge between your early golf passion and your career aspirations.
- College golf scholarships have bred professional athletes
While I mentioned that college golf can be the perfect building block for a career in golf beyond the college system, you might not have been 100% convinced that it can lead to something more. The fact is, college golf has built impressive careers for former collegiate athletes, and it could do the same for you.
Collegiate golf has developed several of the most successful golf athletes in recent history, including; Tiger Woods (Stanford), Ricky Fowler (Oklahoma State), Luke Donald (Northwestern) and most notably, Australian collegiate golfer-turned professional athlete, Adam Scott (UNLV).
Aspiring athletes from Australia can take their inspiration from the variety of Australian golfers who went through the US college system, including; Adam Scott (as previously mentioned), Bronson LaCassie, James McLean, Aaron Price, Courtney Massey, Maverick Antcliff, Alison Whitaker and Julia Boland, just to name a few.
Therefore, if your goal as a young passionate golfer is to take your sport to the next level, no matter which avenue you want to follow in the future, or which country you want to be in, following in the footsteps of successful athletes like those mentioned above could be the pathway for you to consider to begin your dream journey to sporting success.
- Scholarships to college embrace a holistic approach to the future
Using golf scholarships to obtain a larger future opportunity in sport is a great pathway to embrace for a young international athlete. Still, there is yet another benefit to following the journey to college in the US, outside of sport.
As a student-athlete, you will also be securing yourself a practical educational future at college.
By pursuing a collegiate golf opportunity, athletes will also take on the challenge of pursuing a world-class education, whereby you will finish college with an opportunity to follow either a sport pathway to the future or implement your degree to obtain a career.
This holistic approach to a young person’s future helps avoid the athlete being left confused or without purpose in their post-college life, unlike many aspiring athletes without an education to support them.
- Scholarships provide incentive to work hard
What a lot of people don’t understand about college scholarships is that they are an evolving process. Students who receive and accept a scholarship offer to college in the US are not locked-in to a one-time opportunity.
US college student-athletes have the chance to increase their scholarship funding on a yearly basis, calculated on athletic improvement and coach evaluation.
Based on this concept, scholarships can provide hard working, grateful young athletes who understand the value of the opportunity they have secured for themselves, like NSW golf talent, Jackson Bugdalski.
Working hard and improving as a golf athlete can become an innate reaction to your environment; the US college system.
The way the college system is structured allows aspiring golf athletes from around the world access to world class resources, elite facilities, personal development skills and respected coaches. This makes it an enormously beneficial pathway and a goal that aspiring golf athletes should aim for.
In my opinion, it’s important for golf athletes aiming to obtain scholarships to college in the US to understand the level of competition and the huge opportunity that the US college pathway provides. In their recent college recruitment document, Golf Australia outlines to their aspiring collegiate athletes that; ‘Elite amateurs from all over the world are competing for scholarships and positions on the team.’
There are hundreds of Australian and New Zealand student-athletes currently thriving in the US collegiate system via the process of college scholarships. These student-athletes have made their college dream a reality and paved the way for future athletes to follow in their footsteps.
So if you think that this opportunity sounds like a good fit for you, you may want to enlist the help of someone who can help you obtain a college golf scholarship to get this process underway.
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