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North Central High School graduate Sophie Perry began caddying during her freshman year, but it wasn’t because of her love for the game.
“I really didn’t know much about golf at the time,” said Perry.
Perry says when she met with her school counselor to talk about potential scholarship opportunities and summer jobs, her counselor suggested caddying as an option for Perry to think about.
Sophie decided to pursue caddying at the Highland Golf & Country Club, and focus on earning the prestigious Chick Evans Scholarship through the Western Golf Association’s Evans Scholar Foundation.
Sophie quickly realized that caddying wasn’t going to be easy.
“After the first year, I’ll admit I had in my mind that I didn’t want to do it anymore,” Perry laughed. “I thought it was a good experience but it was a lot to do, a lot of learning curves. But then over that spring break going into my second year, I decided that this was something I really wanted to continue, and the scholarship wasn’t so out of reach.”
It turned out to be the right decision.
Sophie went on to caddy 110 rounds at Highland Golf & Country Club while maintaining a 4.0 GPA, volunteering in the community and more.
After all of her hard work, Sophie’s goal was met to relieve her parents of any financial strain when it came to paying for college.
“I got the big package and everything and I opened it, and my mouth just dropped,” said Perry. “It was very cartoonish. We were jumping up and down, very excited. We were all just hugging each other, it was great. Being able to see all of that come into fruition, all of these four years of such hard work coming to fruition has really become so validating.”
Sophie is one of 19 caddies to receive the scholarship in Indiana.
RELATED: Cathedral senior scores hole-in-one scholarship as a golf caddie
The Chick Evans Scholarship will cover $125,000 toward Sophie’s tuition and housing at the Evans Scholar House at Indiana University starting this fall. She will be studying biology. Sophie emphasized the lessons learned while caddying will ultimately help her throughout her collegiate career.
“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to keep showing up, to keep being determined, and to keep continuing and improving. I think that’s a really great skill to have and a really great tool that I have through knowing all of these people and knowing that I have their support through wherever I go in the medical field,” says Perry
Sophie is now looking forward to her first semester in college after achieving so much throughout high school.
“This journey has probably been the biggest achievement of my life so far,” she said. “It’s made me so incredibly proud of everything I’ve been able to achieve and everything people have done to help me achieve all of this. I’m really looking forward to starting a new chapter of my life at IU at the Evans House. I think surrounded by this community of likeminded people who are academically motivated students who all have an appreciation for golf is really important to me and I think it’s going to be a wonderful community.”
If you know someone who would be interested in the Western Golf Association’s Evans Scholar Foundation, click here for more information.