It isn’t that golf had come easily for Erica Shepherd. That isn’t true of anyone in this sport.
Yet she had been teen phenom, junior national champion, college All-American. You know, The Next Big Thing. Pro success ahead, right?
Or not.
The Greenwood native graduated from Duke in 2023 and finished 14th in the NCAA Championship that year. She turned pro.
In her first seven tournaments on the Epson Tour, the qualifying tour for the LPGA, she missed every cut. Besides issues with her swing, the opponents were loneliness, doubt and despair.
A lifelong dream of making the LPGA Tour had become a nightmare.
“It can put you in a very dark place, I would say,” Shepherd said in a phone interview from her residence in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Perseverance paid off.
Shepherd, 24, has become the first native Hoosier to earn a LPGA Tour card since Danah (Ford) Bordner of Indianapolis did so at age 30 in 2011. The latter was a Lawrence Central graduate and Big Ten champion at Indiana University.
Shepherd, a Center Grove graduate, will be the only left-handed player in the LPGA. She began as a lefty so she and her right-handed brother, Ethan, a former IU golfer, could share a bucket of balls.
Erica made the LPGA Tour on Dec. 9, tying for 24th in final qualifying at Mobile, Ala. She birdied two of the last five holes for a final round of 71 at Magnolia Grove and 72-hole total of 5-under-par 281.
Thirty-one (top 25 and ties) earned cards. Shepherd was one of 17 rookies to make the cut and one of only four Americans.
“Everyone always says it’s the toughest week in golf,” she said.
It was made more so by the weather. Heavy rain shortened the event from 90 holes, caused long delays and unplayable conditions. Temperatures were so cold that frost pushed back the final round.
Shepherd said she had been mentally preparing herself for such weather. Indeed, she had been doing so all her life.
Her father sent her a screenshot of a documentary made after she won the U.S. Girls’ Junior championship in 2017. It included shots of her wearing a ski mask while playing at Dye’s Walk Country Club in Greenwood.
“If the course was open, I would be out there playing. Nothing could faze me,” Shepherd said. “That built a foundation of toughness that helps me a lot.”
That toughness was tested on the Epson Tour. Inexplicably, she was shanking shots. She worked on correcting her swing with Pat Beningfield, head of instruction at Bethesda (Md.) Country Club.
She conceded her weaknesses had been short game and putting. Paradoxically, poor ball striking required her to improve in those areas.
“It all kind of came together,” Shepherd said.
That was underscored in mid-September. In the Murphy USA El Dorado (Ark.) Shootout, she took her first pro victory at Mystic Creek Golf Club. After an opening 3-over 75 that left her seven shots off the lead, she shot 68 and 69 for a 54-hole total of 4-under 212, worth $45,000.
Top 15 on the Epson Tour secure an LPGA card. She was 24th, thus sending her to Mobile.
As an amateur in 2017 and 2018, she made the 36-hole cut in an LPGA tournament, the Indiana Women in Tech Championship at Brickyard Crossing. She qualified for the 2016 U.S. Women’s Open at age 15.
“God has answered my prayers – not just because of my recent success, but through the countless small wins He’s given me as I’ve walked through the lows of both golf and life,” Shepherd posted on Instagram. “It’s still hard to not let the game rule me or allow the struggles to break me down.
“But thankfully it has been made very clear to me that He wanted me to face these battles head on instead of walking away from my lifetime dream. So here we are! Trust His plan and dream big!!!!! I promise it’s worth it!”
The closest the 2026 LPGA Tour comes to Indiana is the Kroger Queen City Championship from May 14-17 at Cincinnati.
Contact IndyStar correspondent at dwoods1411@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Erica Shepherd on earning LPGA Tour card: ‘It can put you in a very dark place’
