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When Shasta Averyhardt casts back a decade to her time at Jackson State University, it’s clear her experiences there — specifically being a member of the golf team — had a special resonance. One of her best friends to this day, Nikeya Peay, was a fellow freshman golfer in 2004. Together with their JSU teammates, Averyhardt and Peay played all over the country, representing the historically black college. “We were definitely a different team,” Averyhardt says.
At the time, the world’s best golfer was a black man. What Tiger Woods was doing on TV, though, didn’t necessarily do that much to alter perceptions and attitudes everywhere else. When the JSU team landed at the course — often to face teams outside their conference in order to find stiffer competition — they typically encountered a certain type of curiosity coated in skepticism. “We would always be aware that people [were going to] judge us and see, can you play or not play?” Averyhardt recalls.
The first round would be enough to answer those questions thanks to JSU’s ample talent and, perhaps, an extra pinch of motivation. “It was a good thing,” Averyhardt says of the raised eyebrows. “Get out there and grind: Show you can play, because you can.”
That notion remains a mantra for Averyhardt, both in the context of her own career and in her interactions with younger generations of minority female golfers. The 32-year-old Flint, Mich., native is fighting to reclaim a spot on the LPGA Tour, while also working as an ambassador for Women of Color Golf, a not-for-profit group that promotes minority women’s and girls’ involvement in the sport. That fight can take its toll, but Averyhardt is often buoyed by the renewed appreciation for fairways and greens she feels after a stretch of indoor employment. Her newfound perspective has also shaped the way she views being an example and an inspiration for aspiring golfers.
The reason Averyhardt began playing in the first place was her father, Greg Averyhardt. As a young girl, Averyhardt would tag along with her dad to the course and basically run around the putting green with a club in her hands. Eventually, she started paying more attention to what her dad was doing and began emulating his swing. At that point, about the time she was 10, Greg decided to get his apprentice a set of cut-down, pink clubs. “I think that’s what really did it,” she laughs.
Future pros in any sport tend to stick out from a young age, but with Averyhardt, talent wasn’t the only thing that made her distinct. With a black dad and mother of Latino descent, race set her apart from her fellow Flint Junior Golf competitors in the mid-to-late 1990s. “I would say it was a little [bit of a] weird feeling,” Averyhardt says. “I went to [an] inner city school, where it was 60 per cent black people.”
When Flint Inner City Golf put some of her fellow students on the course, Averyhardt was one of the few female participants. Settings could change, but her skin colour or gender seemed always to differentiate her from the golfing crowd. It was a dynamic Averyhardt learned to accept, but it could leave her feeling isolated none the less. “[I realized I wasn’t] going to see too many other black girls playing,” she says.
Things changed, though, when Averyhardt arrived at Jackson State on a full athletic scholarship. It had taken some convincing from her father before she was willing to leave her home state, but Mississippi-based JSU offered a chance to leave college debt-free while also living in warm, golf-friendly temperatures throughout the winter. The slower southern lifestyle was also a departure from the pace she knew. “It helped me mellow out a little bit,” she says.
The golf team was very competitive during Averyhardt’s four years and its athletes grew accustomed to a certain type of routine: They’d show up to a tournament, erase doubts with their play and watch opponents go from asking questions with their eyes to actually posing them with their mouths. “‘Where are you guys from? You’re really good,’” says Averyhardt, recalling a typical comment.
When she graduated, in addition to demonstrating her worth on the course, Averyhardt had to find a way to fund her career. A huge step in that process came when one of her dad’s Florida-based friends told him about a group that was forming in Orlando called Sisters Across America. The organization’s aim was to help a minority player get on the LPGA tour by covering some of the enormous expenses — entry fees, travel, equipment —aspiring pros incur. As it turned out, one of the Sisters board members knew Greg from Flint and that connection helped Averyhardt get sponsored. She also worked at a golf course to offset costs.
Averyhardt made her LPGA debut in 2010, played seven events as a rookie in 2011 and one more in 2013, but failed to make the cut in any of her nine outings. When the four-year funding commitment Sisters had made to her expired, she found herself at a crossroads. She opted for a sharp turn in a new direction, taking a job with PricewaterhouseCoopers. Averyhardt calls her roughly year-and-a-half with PwC a great learning experience. However, meeting clients’ demands was simply a different, perhaps more taxing, form of stress than standing over a 10-foot putt. Once she realized that, Averyhardt re-committed herself to the sport she loves, placing a greater emphasis on having fun and not worrying so much about whether she was letting herself or anybody else down. “I put too much pressure on myself my rookie year on the LPGA,” she says. “The main reason [to play] is because it’s enjoyable and you love it. And then the next reason could be to inspire.”
Averyhardt will take part in the 2018 Symetra Tour, which kicks off in March. The Tampa Bay resident also hopes to qualify for some LPGA events, with an eye to one day establishing herself at the highest level. Averyhardt is now in her second year with Women of Color Golf — she and the organization kind of found each other on Instagram — and the group is much more concerned with simply getting clubs in hands than making the girls and women who receive them elite performers. The sport can enhance lives in many ways, from playing for fun with friends to helping form business connections outside the office. Averyhardt credits golf for helping her land her job with PwC, and she’d love to see doors open like that for more minorities. “You can see there’s so much more interest [in golf] now,” she says.
That fact is something Averyhardt reflects on a fair bit. Just recently, she was speaking with friend and fellow player Cheyenne Woods, who is four years Averyhardt’s junior, about how much things have changed from their early days in the sport. Both women — along with fellow black pros Sadena Parks and Ginger Howard — certainly serve as examples of what can be achieved. Averyhardt’s career remains a work in progress, but there’s an undeniable truth to be gleaned from her journey.
“You can come from the inner city, do something unorthodox and be successful at it,” she says. “Even if it’s hard.”
