These college golfers met as teammates. They become soul mates

Bamberg short Sponsored by Charles Schwab, host of Charles Schwab, the Women’s College Invitational.

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In 2019, Steph Curry noted that NBA star and philanthropist Steph Curry announced that he made significant financial commitments at Howard University’s Level I Men’s and Women’s Golf Team (Washington, DC Major) and the ongoing Howard University’s Level I Men’s and Women’s Golf Team. ESPN played this news all day long while screen scrolling. Countless people noticed it.

Sam Puryar is a well-traveled golf executive and coach (East Lake at Stanford, Michigan), which includes it. In early 2020, he was appointed as the director of Howard’s men’s and women’s teams. The obstacles are huge. The pandemic has ruined the world. Howard did not establish a golf culture. He needs players with serious academic and golf qualifications. But Puryar has two things for him. He likes challenges. Everything about Steph Curry will get people’s attention.

Pure people are unknown, and three teenage girls from three different states are almost as attracted to the declaration as he is. These three girls are serious golfers and serious students. They met in Howard in August 2021, and at the beginning of the first year Howard has two full golf teams and a full schedule. They have been a trio ever since. In May, three women – Makenna Rodriguez, South Florida; Jada Richardson, from suburbs of Atlanta; Kendall Jackson, from Greater Houston, graduated from Howard.

This week, they were dispersed. Kendall, an amateur who plans to turn to professional players, is playing on the Epson Tour near Hartford. Jada will be enrolled next month at Howard’s Law School, where he will attend her mourning massive international gathering. Makenna is preparing her paper at the University of Pittsburgh, titled “Comparative Analysis of Bonding Materials in Microinvasive Neural Arrays.” She plans to pursue her PhD. In related fields. A medical degree can be followed. As Tiger likes to say, it’s a process.

Makenna and Jada are 80 golfers. Kendall can break 70 on any day. They all giggled with joy as they recounted their team trip to St Andrews. Rarely one day everyone doesn’t know what the other two are doing. (The wonder of group text.) They know each other’s eating habits. (These three are picky eaters.) They know each other’s family and family history. (Makenna’s father was Ashkenazi Jewish (i.e. European descent), who lived in Venezuela before moving to South Florida, Florida.) They all knew what coach Puryar felt about dating within the team: “I totally dissuaded it,” he said in an interview. But these three ladies will tell you: Even a man with a considerable presence cannot stop young romance.

Kendall played in the American Women’s Amateur Game last year. On Monday, she competed in the qualifiers for this year’s amateurs. Jada and Makenna almost knew her first Kongbogey. (The wonders of the golf genius app and its real-time score.) She missed a bunch. She got up before dawn Tuesday and flew from Houston to Hartford for Epson.

Puryear believes Makenna’s life will win the Nobel Prize in the future. He has seen LPGA golf for many years in Kendall. and the career of Jada’s powerful lawyer. All three women talked about their inspiration from Steph Curry as an athlete and humanitarian, and Kamala Harris, a 1986 Howard graduate, delivered her own charter speech at the university last year. Howard University is named after the union general of the Civil War and has been well-known and respected since its inception in 1867. But having presidential candidates and NBA legends associated with the school means that the three young women and their coaches don’t have to tell the school’s stories over and over again. Since Washington has a lineup of Georgetown, the United States and Catholic colleges, there is also Howard. Yezi.

Earlier this year, Kendall finished second in the Bison Ladies Invitational. She also finished second in the National College Women’s Championship. She was also very happy and disappointed. She has two sets of shoulders to rely on.

“We’ve been there all the time,” Jada said. “I really think we’ll be forever in our lives.”

For several years, there has been a plan for Howard Golf to hold a popular public course at DC Langston Golf Coursel, named after the former dean of Howard University’s Law School (Bisons’ Home Course). But Langston is in the pain of an ever-evolving renovation project, with Puryar building relationships with four private courses near the university. His golfer jumps from one course to the next practice and plays on any day. “We need to practice fast green,” he said. “Fast green, practice t-shirts, and have short play areas where you can complete nine-hole practice lessons in less than two hours. He is competing with other college schools that often have college courses with golfers with lows and high GPA. His arrangement with these private clubs is a lifeline for him.

But when puryear recruits female golfers of color, it is Howard who sells himself. That is the bigger fact, and the biggest fact. The student group is about 70% of women and about 70% of black. Across the country, especially in California and Texas, Puryar is discovering black girls from country club families whose shootings were 78 or older, hoping to provide this environment for their college experience.

Their high school life is often very different. They know that life in college may look very different afterwards. But come to Howard as a golfer and student and go to campus Expected It’s a welcome thing to see other black women. Puryear often finds herself recruiting Howard as their go-to girl. In the summer of 21, he signed a girl from Georgia, a girl from Florida, and a girl from Texas.

“What I heard was, ‘I want to be the best version I can be, I want to make a difference, I want to change the world,” Puryear said.

Over the course of four years, the three girls – Jada Richardson, Makenna Rodriguez and Kendall Jackson – became teammates and soul mates. They became three members in Year 25 at Howard University, including 3,200.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments via michael.bamberger@golf.com