UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Pro golfer Jason Day made the shot of the day during the second round of the 2017 BMW Championship, recording a hole-in-one on the 17th hole at Conway Farms Golf Club near Chicago. For one Penn State student, it turned out to be the shot of a lifetime.
Day’s ace unlocked BMW’s donation of a four-year, full tuition and housing scholarship worth $100,000 to the Western Golf Association’s Evans Scholars Foundation, which in turn awarded the scholarship to Brooklyn Gabriel, a first-year Penn State undergraduate from Philadelphia. Gabriel is the fifth student nationwide to be named a BMW Hole-in-One Scholar since 2010; BMW last donated a hole-in-one scholarship in 2015.
Gabriel applied for and earned the scholarship following three successful summers working as a caddie at Glen View Club, aptly located in Golf, Illinois, through the Western Golf Association Caddie Academy. Without a background in golf but with a willingness to step out of her comfort zone, she joined the academy and began caddying following her freshman year at Cristo Rey Philadelphia High School.
“I thought it was interesting that I would be able to do something brand new, which was caddying, and be able to stay in Chicago for seven weeks and work toward a scholarship,” said Gabriel. “So, I decided to sign up.”
In three years as a caddie, Gabriel learned quite a lot about the game of golf, but she also learned life skills that transcend the game – like how to communicate with different personalities and the value of patience. When she found out this past summer that she had been named a BMW/Evans Scholar, she learned another key life lesson: hard work, in this case in the classroom and on the course, pays off.
“I was honored and excited when I found out I had been selected,” Gabriel said. “Without this scholarship, my future probably would have looked different, attending college-wise. The scholarship has helped me achieve my goal of going to college and attending Penn State, so it’s definitely a tremendous help for my mom and me.”