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Second season on LPGA Tour for local girl Brittany Marchand

April 1, 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Mike Baker

Orangeville’s Brittany Marchand has broken into the big time. 

The young golfer is living her dream, having cracked the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) circuit last year. Now in the midst of her second season at the top level, Brittany is working hard each and every day to prove that she belongs.

Speaking to the Citizen earlier this month, Brittany spoke openly about her transformation from a little seven-year-old girl learning to swing a club to one of the best female players in the world today.

“It definitely wasn’t something that happened overnight,” Brittany said, looking back on her early years in the sport. 

In fact, it was something that almost didn’t happen at all. A budding figure skater as a child, Ms. Marchand navigated the competitive scene with ease. All of her focus and attention, outside of school, went towards were skating. It was all she would think about. That was until her grandfather made a suggestion that would go on to change her life.

An avid golfer himself, Brittany’s grandfather was her very first golfing mentor – teaching her the basics of the game. From there, she was enrolled in programs alongside girls her own stage at the Shelburne Golf & Country Club. 

It was here that she learned to love golf. Although, not initially for the reasons you might think.

“At the beginning, I enjoyed going and started to really look forward to it because I wanted to see my friends. Then, as the years went by, I started to learn more and more about the game and enjoy it,” Brittany recalls.

When she was 12, she started participating in 9-hole competitions across the region. That’s when things started to change for Brittany.

A competitor at heart, Brittany continuously pushed herself to be better, as if, even at that early age, she was striving for greatness. By the time she walked through the doors at Orangeville District Secondary School she already knew in her mind where she, eventually, wanted to be. Working alongside her high school coach, Ian Budgell, the pair focused on getting her there. 

During her time at ODSS, Brittany would become the youngest player to claim the Ontario Women’s Champion of Champions title as a 15-year-old in 2008. Before turning 20, she had the honour of representing her nation, competing at the Guatemala Junior Championship while a member of the Golf Association of Ontario’s under-19 excellence team for the 2009-10 season.

Rewinding ever so slightly though, Brittany retells the story of how she wound up at North Carolina State University, competing for the school’s golf team and a complete full scholarship.

“I think it was my Grade 10 year, I started learning about all the different scholarships available down in the U.S. and the different possibilities. Then, towards the end of high school I was pretty confident I was going to get something,” Ms. Marchand said. “I started looking at potential schools and had a few in mind, then NC State just kind of fell into my lap. My mom noticed one of the winners of a big (National Collegiate Athletic Association) competition was from NC State. We already had a vacation planned to be in the area, so I made a call and met up with the school’s golf coach. I loved the school and the coach loved it. It seemed a perfect fit. I was offered a full scholarship pretty much that week.”

Going against the grain somewhat for prospective athletes, Brittany placed an equal importance on her education. Refusing to take the so-called easy ride of a degree in the arts, Ms. Marchand decided to major in chemical engineering. She set the bar as a student athlete during her four-year stay in North Carolina, perfecting the art of juggling golf with her academic responsibilities.

During her time competing for NC State, Brittany made the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) honour role in three of her five years, and was named ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2014. On the athletic side, Ms. Marchand managed three NCAA wins during her college career.

When asked why her degree took on equal importance with her golfing, Brittany was realistic in recognizing she won’t be a professional golfer forever.

“I was always a very good student, I loved school, liked learning and really enjoyed math and science. I think the important thing for me is I wasn’t coming out of high school thinking I was going to become Number 1 in the world, that just wasn’t on my radar. It wasn’t realistic,” Brittany said. “My parents sat me down and talked about a potential path after golf. I think, in my mind, there had to be something there for me once I was finished with golf, or golf was finished with me.”

Her success in the NCAA paved the way for potential career on the pro scene. Immediately after graduating, Brittany enrolled in what she called qualifying school for the LPGA. There, prospective professionals must endure three qualification stages. Should athletes make it to the final round, they are given the opportunity to earn their LPGA card. Unfortunately, during her first try, Brittany fell just short of qualifying for the LPGA. Instead, she earned status on the Symetra Tour.

“I missed the final stage in that first year by a single shot,” Brittany recalls. “So I started out on the Symetra Tour.”

The Symetra Tour is a qualifying bracket for the LPGA. Brittany spent two years competing at that level – in 2016 and 2017 – winning one solitary championship, in Milwaukee in 2017. 

“That was a surreal feeling. I had been working so hard, but for one reason or another was having a very up and down year. There were times where I thought ‘maybe this isn’t for me’, then other times where I felt really good,” Brittany said. “I started to build momentum towards the end of the year and finally got to a place where I was super comfortable, had a bit more confidence and was able to play my game. I guess things fell perfectly into place for me at the tournament in Milwaukee.”

At the conclusion of her final year on the Symetra Tour, Brittany had racked up $82,442 in career earnings, including a $15,000 winners’ cheque from the tournament in Milwaukee.

Following her second full season on the Symetra circuit, Brittany once again tried her hand at qualifying school – this time doing enough to earn a spot on the LPGA. In her debut season, Brittany competed in 17 events, finishing 89th overall on the LPGA money list with earnings of $138,422. 

As a rookie, she had one top-10 finish, at the Thornberry Creek LPGA classic, held in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She shot her very first LPGA hole-in-one on the 17th hole in the first round of the KPMG Women’s Championship, held in Kildeer, Illinois last summer. For her efforts, Brittany won a brand new Kia Sorento. 

So far this season, Brittany has competed at three events – the ISPS Handa Vic Open & ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open down under, and the Bank of Hope Founders Cup, held in Phoenix, Arizona, failing to make the cut at each event. 

As she looks to the future, Brittany has a couple of goals in mind – to win a competition on the grandest stage, and represent her country in the tournament of tournaments.

“I always have it in the back of my mind that I would love to win a tournament. My key focus for this season is to be as consistent as I possibly can be. I need to make a lot of cuts and maintain my status on the LPGA,” Ms. Marchand said. “I want to have a good year. I’m really looking forward to 2020, because it’s the Olympics in Japan. I would love to make the Canadian team. It’s a really big year for me, I need to set myself up for that opportunity. I need to secure some more top 10 finishes, stronger finishes and see where that leads me.”

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