LaJean Gould
Owner, Women In Golf Foundation, Inc.
The Women In Golf Foundation, Inc., headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, is a 501-C3 organization that promotes women in golf. The organization focuses on creating opportunities for females by implementing programs that develop leadership and life skills as they learn to play the game of golf competitively for business and recreational purposes. The organization will hold its 25th Women’s Collegiate Championship Silver Anniversary Celebration at Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, GA from April 26-28, 2019.
Support and training are provided for female youth golfers early through college and entry into their chosen profession. The organization’s signature focus is on the development of women collegiate golf teams and identifying career opportunities within the golf industry and other corporate positions. To keep this focus, young girls are recruited and developed as a feeder pool for collegiate institutions.
Tiffany Mack Fitzgerald
Founder, Black Girls Golf
Tiffany founded Black Girls Golf in 2011, after spending several years in Corporate America and recognizing how her male colleagues who played golf had the inside track on opportunities at the firm.
Mack decided to use her people skills to build better relationships with her male colleagues and superiors while on the job. In learning the game of golf, she then noticed how few Black women were involved in the sport. Thus, Black Girls Golf was born, as a safe space to not only learn to play the game, but to also build confidence and provide networking time.
Black Girls Golf is headquartered in Greater Atlanta with more than 3,000 members in the U.S and abroad. The organization is not a competitive league, but rather a global network of like-minded women who want to learn, practice and play golf.
Sherri Pla
PGA Professional
Sherri serves as a PGA Professional in Palm Beach Gardens, FL where she operates the Pla Junior Golf Academy at Palm Beach Gardens golf course. A native of Riviera Beach, Fls., and Head PGA Class A Pro at Sandhill Crane Country club, she became the first PGA Member to establish a PGA Junior League Golf program in South Florida.
Coach Sherri gives private lessons, holds junior golf clinics and junior golf camps, and hosts junior golf tournaments. in 2018 Pla entered her first year as the Girls Varsity Golf Head Coach at The King’s Academy. Her ambitious works earned her a nomination into the African American Golf Hall of Fame in 2015 and she was named the AAGHOF Inaugural Golf Instructor of the Year.
Renee Powell (PGA, LPGA)
Head Golf Professional, Clearview Golf Course
This Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews honorary member played on the US-based LPGA Tour and is currently head professional at her family’s Clearview Golf Course in East Canton, Ohio. She was the second African-American woman ever to play on the LPGA Tour. In 2018, the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, honored the golf legend by naming of the school’s new dormitory, Powell Hall.
In 2017 she was into The PGA of America Hall of Fame and the Powells were awarded the Jack Nicklaus Golf Family Award from the National Golf Foundation (NGF) in 1992. In 2019 the Powell family received the Old Tom Morris Award from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.
Selina Johnson
Founder/President/CEO
Hollywood Golf Institute
Detroit native Selina Johnson motivates youth to succeed in life by changing their way of thinking. Her primary method uses golf instruction to motivate and educate Detroit’s urban and suburban youngsters, many who for the first time, have never experienced the sport.
Her Hollywood Golf Institute was founded in 1980 and incorporated in 1984 in Detroit, Michigan. The popularized non-profit organization, whose mission is to introduce urban, minority youth to the sport of golf and its inherent aspects for discipline, has benefitted youth ages 4-17, as well as college students. An African American Golf Hall of Fame inductee, Johnson’s love for children and the desire to see them have equal education opportunities is what she says motivates her to continue developing and growing her programs.
DO YOU KNOW OF A WOMAN LEADER IN GOLF THAT WE SHOULD CONSIDER FEATURING?
Email us your recommendation along with a brief statement telling us why we should consider her!
Send to Editors@AfricanAmericanGolfersDigest.com
