- A golf scholarship is a form of athletic scholarship awarded by higher learning institutions like colleges and universities. A scholarship itself is a financial grant that goes toward tuition and other school related expenses; generally scholarships cannot exceed the expenses associated with attending a school and scholarship money does not need to be repaid. The purpose of athletic scholarships are to attract skilled athletes to a school through financial incentives. Normally an athlete that accepts a scholarship must participate in the sport that they received the scholarship for heavily--meaning they cannot usually skip many practice sessions or competitions, or they might risk forfeiting the scholarship.
- It is often believe that a sports scholarship to play at a college or university is a "full ride," meaning the full amount of tuition. While certain sports like football and basketball have a full ride scholarship system in the NCAA, where each scholarship is a full ride, golf works on an equivalency system, which allows scholarship money to be split up between athletes. Most players that are offer scholarships for golf do not receive a full ride, since golf teams can often maximize their scholarship money by offering partial rides to several players and thereby increase the size of the team. If one player was exceptionally talented, a school could offer them a full ride and split remaining money among other players.
- Like all athletic scholarships, securing a golf scholarship is a matter of performing well at the high school or some other competitive level. If a player garners significant attention for his talent, college recruiters might approach him to offer a scholarship. Only the best players will be recruited, however. For players planning on going to schools with a less elite golf program, scholarships can often be secured by communicating with the school's coaches. Say you are an above average golfer and you are attending a small college that is not known for their golf program. The coaches will not be likely to know anything about you if you don't inform the school that you are a golfer, but such a team is likely to need more players and might offer you a small scholarship if you commit to playing.
