Vying to Beat the Golfing Odds
Former Furman University golf star Dara Broadus is determined to take her place in the LPGA Tour.
Most of the golfers at the 2004 Queenstown Maryland Futures Tour had
caddies who calculated the exact distance to the flag. Most of the caddies had yardage books that revealed the contours and dimensions of the green and predicted the ideal target for the important approach shot. And most of the golfers were probably unconcerned about how they’d get back to their hotel or how they’d pay the $400 entry fee for the following week’s tour stop. But for one of the two Black golfers in the field at last year’s Maryland tournament, these factors made finding the green on the critical ninth hole even more problematic. The result? Another missed green, another missed cut.
Welcome to the world of former college player and aspiring LPGA member Dara Broadus.
“I know that I could play a lot better if I had the support that I needed to focus all of my energies on my game,” says Broadus, who has been pursuing an LPGA tour card since she graduated from Furman University’s legendary golf program in 2001.
Like thousands of others pursuing the same goal, Broadus’s quest is a long shot at best. But if she were to break through and get her tour card, she would be only the fourth Black female — and the first since LaRee Sugg, who joined the tour in 1995 — to participate in the increasingly lucrative and competitive world of women’s professional golf.
