The current landscape of college athletics feels like an alternate reality compared with just a few years ago. The July 2021 launch of name, image and likeness is largely responsible, as it opened the door to a world of opportunities for student-athletes to cash in on their athletic abilities.
Not every sport is experiencing a flood of NIL money, particularly past the top echelon of talent. In women’s golf, financial incentives are just one part of the equation in a shifting-sand era that could ultimately leave the sport in a better place. This ongoing period of extreme change in college and amateur golf has, in many ways, brought opportunities for women – from elevated tournaments to visibility to brand building – that could help ease the transition to professional golf.
As each successive season shakes up the status quo a little more, Kelley Hester, head women’s golf coach at Clemson, can’t help but think there are more question marks in the game now than at any other point in her nearly 30-year coaching career. She views this as an in-between time for college athletics.
“I believe this is a growth period and we’re going to get to a place that’s more stable,” Hester said, “but during this transition, there’s just a lot of questions that, in time, I think we will have a better picture of, and this will be a gray period in college athletics where we’re not where we were and we’re not where we’re going to be, but we’re headed in that direction.”
After a recent settlement in three class-action antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA, Division I women’s golf rosters can expand from six to nine scholarship players, though revenue-sharing likely will not affect female golfers in a life-changing way. That’s a reality reflected on the professional tours, where women’s prize money and individual sponsorship deals lag those in the men’s game.
Data from the NCAA’s NIL Data Dashboard, a self-reporting tool on the association’s NIL Assist website, indicate women’s golfers are not banking large sums from NIL, either. The average disclosure value for female golfers from September 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024, was $269, with an average of $1,744 in total athlete earnings.
For comparison, the data dashboard shows an average disclosure value of $3,124 for football players in the same time period, with average total athlete earnings listed at $33,677.
“I have told the team, if you want to figure out NIL, I think it’s important that you stand up for yourself and you go ask. I’m trying to teach them to advocate for themselves.”
Sara Doell, head women’s golf coach at San Francisco
NIL has evolved in the three years since it was introduced, and the landscape varies from state to state. In the spring, the NCAA’s Division I Council adopted a proposal allowing schools to provide assistance in supporting NIL activities for student-athletes who disclose those arrangements. Schools now can identify NIL opportunities and facilitate deals between student-athletes and third parties, according to an NCAA release detailing the changes.
At the outset of NIL, coaches were to remain hands-off regarding their players’ outside NIL deals. Sara Doell, head women’s golf coach at San Francisco, tried to turn that reality into a lesson in fostering independence.
“I have told the team, if you want to figure out NIL, I think it’s important that you stand up for yourself and you go ask,” she said. “I’m trying to teach them to advocate for themselves.”
For as much uncertainty as it brings to college athletics, these are the kinds of positives that NIL can introduce in women’s golf. NIL negotiations give players the opportunity to build their brands, be their own spokespeople and think about how they want to be portrayed. The opportunities are there for players who want to chase them and test what their true market value is.
“It kind of gives you incentive to work harder now,” said Amy Bond, the longtime women’s head golf coach at Florida State. “How hard can I work to get what I need to cover things?”
In some ways, however, a player’s freedom to do business on his or her own terms can be daunting from a coach’s perspective. Bond notes that people might want something from student-athletes that they don’t quite understand, which could put the athlete in a tough position.
Still, golf is a costly game, and NIL could be an avenue for players to take care of some of their own, such as summer tournaments, or bank funds for Q-School entry fees down the road.
One reality that cuts into the ability of top female amateurs to collect on off-campus deals is that many of them are international players, and largely excluded from NIL agreements through visa restrictions. According to data collected by the NCAA in 2022, 34 percent of women’s college golfers were non-American players, with women’s golf trailing only tennis and ice hockey in that statistic. Eleven of the top 20 players in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking – in other words, the ones most likely to draw the biggest NIL deals – are non-Americans, and eight of those 11 are on college rosters.
Outside of the top-ranked players, NIL deals are likely local or small-scale anyway. Patty Post, the director of golf at the University of Delaware, noted that in addition to the changing nature of NIL and prohibitions for international students, the USGA Rules of Amateur Status – which still prohibit some actions, such as giving golf lessons for payment – adds one more layer of difficulty to navigating this new landscape.
Players ultimately must put some energy into chasing a deal that fits. From her standpoint in overseeing men’s and women’s golf at Delaware, however, Post said NIL opportunities seem to be gender-equitable.
“It’s more about those who are going out and seeking those opportunities,” she said. “Some of our student-athletes, because it’s small, they don’t really feel like it’s necessary to put in the effort for the small stuff at this moment in time.”
If visibility translates to marketability, then it’s notable that men’s and women’s golf can be compared. Both national championships are televised on Golf Channel from the same venue in the spring.
When it comes to comparable visibility, though, the women score an unanswered point each spring during the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. There is no men’s equivalent.
Each year on the Saturday before Masters week – a tournament to which a handful of male amateurs are traditionally invited – 30-something women tee it up at Augusta National for the final round of a 54-hole event that is televised on NBC.
At Florida State, Bond has welcomed home a player who contended in each of the tournament’s five iterations. Notably, alumna Beatrice Wallin of Sweden finished in the top 10 in 2019, ’21 and ’22. Junior Lottie Woad of England won the ANWA in 2024. It’s a long week, but as Bond notes, it’s also a unique experience under pressure. Thriving in it brings a wave of confidence.
“To have the opportunity to play Augusta National in a competition setting, that to me is where all the pressure comes from,” Bond said. “Because they’re the only females that get to do that in competition, I think it adds a little bit of stress there for them in that respect.”
In each of the five years it has been played, the ANWA has secured its status as the biggest opportunity in women’s golf. Now, it’s the tournaments behind it that are buttoning up. Five of them joined forces in 2024 to form the Women’s Elite Amateur Golf Series: Southwestern Women’s Amateur, North & South Women’s Amateur, Women’s Western Amateur, Sea Island Women’s Amateur and the Ladies National Golf Association Amateur.
A similar elite series of seven events formed in men’s golf two years ago. The idea is that a collaboration among some of the longest-running events at the best venues would bring more of the top players into the same fields.
“The real litmus test for us is when you start looking at the strength of fields, and that is what was glaringly improved this year,” said Andy Priest, executive director of the Southern Golf Association and chairperson for the Elite Amateur Golf Series. “That’s part of what we’re trying to help.”
The LNGA Amateur, for example, increased its WAGR power rating by 431 points from 2023 to 2024 when it joined the series. Three of the other four events improved their ratings by at least 115 points.
Pulling in five independently run women’s events to join seven similarly independent events in the men’s series had the effect of improving not just fields but also operations details and player experience. Priest calls it a collective group of equal partners, and Titleist supports all 12 events. Men’s and women’s events in the series are marketed through a central channel, with men’s and women’s events intentionally portrayed side-by-side – an important visual.
As Priest noted, series events may provide particularly important competition for players involved in the rapidly growing U.S. National Development Program, which launched in February 2023.
In terms of opportunity, the USNDP is the most comprehensive.
The U.S. may be among the last established golf countries – and among the last sports, for that matter – to launch such a program, but Heather Daly-Donofrio, the managing director of player relations and development for the USGA, has seen a positive in that fact: the chance to learn from others.
Daly-Donofrio described the budding USNDP as a comprehensive development program designed to meet the individual needs of team members, in areas ranging from instruction to fitness and nutrition to mental coaching. In its first year, the national team includes 18 players ages 14-18. In all, 71 athletes are receiving grant money through the program, with a median amount of $10,000. Players can use those dollars for expenses such as tournaments, coaching, practice fees or equipment.
“I tell a lot of people, we’re not in the instruction business in the national development program – all these kids have amazing instructors – but we work collaboratively with their coaches, and we identify the gaps and provide the resources to fill those gaps,” Daly-Donofrio said.
A major goal of the grant program is to mitigate financial barriers and find kids who might be off the radar. Already it’s been career-changing and in many cases has allowed players to compete outside their state or region for the first time. Among the more than 200 players placed in American Junior Golf Association events through a partnership with that junior organization, there have been 59 top-10 finishes, and 16 became fully exempt (meaning they gained the highest priority of entry status into future tournaments).
By next year the national team will grow to 30 players and could include high school graduates. The number of grant recipients will also increase, ideally reaching 100 players. The USNDP is also building out state teams, which are essentially mini versions of the national team.
“Having a national development program and a team is not built into the culture of golf in America, so it’s going to take us quite some time to build the relationships, show the successes, build the trust,” Daly-Donofrio said. “That’s part of the reason we started with the juniors because we wanted to start building those relationships and build lifelong relationships with these athletes.”
It’s yet another cultural shift in golf, but one that brings endless opportunity.
Williams, who has covered junior, college and amateur golf for Golfweek magazine and other outlets, played golf at Truman State University in Missouri and coached girls’ high school golf in Florida, where she resides.