Golf is a sport that challenges everybody who steps onto the course, no matter whether or not it’s their first time choosing up golf equipment or they’re among the many prime professionals on the planet. 

I picked up the sport after faculty, and since then it has been an integral a part of my life. From successful the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur 4 separate instances to competing in U.S. Women’s Opens and ending top-20 within the U.S. Senior Women’s Open, I’ve been lucky sufficient to search out success within the sport of golf.

That is a part of the explanation I wished to cross alongside my love for the sport of golf to our subsequent era of feminine golfers by teaching. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing firsthand how the golfers I’ve had the privilege to teach have benefited from having the ability to compete on the collegiate degree. 

Unfortunately, with the course faculty sports activities are headed and the dangers on the horizon, I fear about what the longer term holds not only for faculty golfers however for women and men competing in quite a lot of sports activities. 

Under a invoice that simply handed California’s state Assembly this month, faculties can be compelled to make use of soccer and males’s basketball income to make direct funds to athletes in these sports activities. This would take cash away cash that’s usually used to fund Olympic and non-revenue sports activities reminiscent of golf. As a university tennis participant on the University of Missouri earlier than my post-graduate profession in golf, I understand how beneficial the expertise in faculty athletics could be in getting ready athletes for achievement after commencement. 

I additionally admire that faculty athletes can now make cash off their title, picture, and likeness. It’s an extremely optimistic growth and one thing I want would have been in place once I was at school. Already, many collegiate golfers — Texas A&M’s Sam Bennett, for example — have benefited from this coverage. Unfortunately, nevertheless, lots of these alternatives might be taken away underneath this new revenue-sharing proposal in California.

If income sharing turns into required by legislation, there might be fewer alternatives for golfers, tennis and volleyball gamers, wrestlers, gymnasts, and different athletes in non-revenue sports activities. The fewer packages that stay, the less athletes will be capable of benefit from the title, picture and likeness income.

Ultimately, that is why we’d like a uniform commonplace that ensures no sports activities are topic to being positioned on the chopping block due California’s potential new legislation.

Sports have been such an enormous a part of my life. They have supplied me with the instruments and expertise which have helped me succeed. Opportunities to acquire these expertise and have life-altering experiences for future athletes in any respect ranges might disappear if we transfer to a income sharing mannequin.

It is my hope we discover a nationwide resolution that can guarantee feminine golfers and all younger athletes will proceed to be impressed to pursue their desires, simply as I used to be.

Ellen Port is an beginner golfer and former collegiate golf coach, a four-time winner of the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur, three-time winner of the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, and he or she captained the successful workforce of the 2014 Curtis Cup. She is an inductee of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.