How Alysa Davis Found Her Path in Golf With the Help of a PGA Coach

The first time Alysa Davis noticed a golf course, she wasn’t holding a club. She was sitting in the back seat of her parents’ car, waiting for her sister’s cheer practice to end at Victoria Community Park in Los Angeles. Then, she looked out the window and saw a stretch of perfect greenery at the local muni course.

“I remember just pointing and telling my mom ‘I want to play golf,’” she recalls. “She was like, “OK, we’ll take you to Mulligans so we can do putt-putt.’ I said, no, I want to play real golf – over there.”

She was still pointing at the course.

That moment – a simple spark of curiosity – turned into a calling. Over the next decade, golf would become the anchor of Alysa’s world. It taught her patience, discipline and resilience. It gave her a sense of belonging. 

She explored nearly every opportunity made available to her – from Tee Divas & Tee Dudes Golf Club, a grassroots organization expanding access to golf for girls and boys from underprivileged backgrounds, to the Southern California Golf Association, First Tee – Los Angeles and the Inland Golf Academy’s PGA Jr. League Team.

Those seeds planted in Los Angeles would eventually grow into an opportunity that carried her 3,000 miles across the country, to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) – where she’s now a freshman studying in the PGA Golf Management University Program – the only one of its kind at a Historically Black College and University.

But her story isn’t just about golf. It’s about the people who saw something in her before she saw it in herself.

Through her developmental stages, Davis played in nearly every junior program she could find – SCGA Junior, First Tee, and the Underrated Golf, the tour created by Stephen Curry to bring more diversity to the game. She was talented and dedicated, but entering high school she’d yet found someone who could take her game and confidence to the next level.

Then, through the efforts of Tee Divas & Tee Dudes, she met Angel Martinez, a PGA of America Teaching Professional at the Ted Oh Golf Studio in Torrance, California.

“I call Angel all the time – literally, all the time,” Alysa says with a laugh. “He’s not just my coach. He’s my best friend. I tell him everything – golf, school, whatever drama’s going on in life. He’s someone I can always talk to.”

Martinez, who graduated from the Ferris State University PGA Golf Management Program, immediately saw her potential. He’d coached elite juniors, LPGA players like Gina Kim and Jennifer Chang, and even caddied for the great Lydia Ko once or twice. But something about Alysa stood out – not just her talent, but her heart.

“When I met Alysa and her parents, I knew right away she was special,” Martinez says. “She had that combination of curiosity and grit. Every week she’d come in, I’d watch her swing for an hour, give her drills and she’d just work on them – week after week, like clockwork. That was rewarding because you can give opportunities to a lot of kids, but not many actually seize them. She did, and now looking back, it puts a huge smile on my face to see the results."

Most of their lessons took place at the Ted Oh Golf Studio, where the walls are lined with mirrors and tech that capture every frame of a player’s motion. There, Martinez rebuilt Alysa’s swing – not to make it look textbook, but to make it repeatable and strong.

He also connected her with a TPI-certified trainer who specialized in golf-specific fitness. “When she came in, she had all the tools,” Martinez explains. “Tall, athletic, great structure – but she needed to build strength in her core and lower body to stabilize her swing. Once we focused on that, everything started to fall into place.”

Early on, the club would slip at the top of her swing, drifting past parallel without much face control. But as she continued to put in work at the gym, the difference was undeniable.

"The club head used to feel too heavy, but now she can hold it high, rotate properly and really turn into it. It’s a beautiful golf swing,” says Martinez, the proud-coach easily discerned in his voice. “The transformation, from throwing the club at the ball to rotating and holding the angles through impact, was really fun to watch."

With her physical foundation rebuilt, Martinez turned to the other side of the game – the one played between the ears. He helped her learn how to handle pressure, think through a round and find balance between confidence and humility. 

“Through everything, as someone who works with LPGA players and elite juniors, he never made me feel small,” Alysa says. “Even if I was struggling, he made me believe I could figure it out.”

As her game improved throughout high school, so did her resilience. Away from the course, Alysa spent countless nights caring for her great-grandmother in hospice while her parents worked the night shift. Between preparing meals, administering medicine and calming her nana’s cries, she learned how to stay strong when life felt heavy.

It was hard to balance school, golf and family responsibilities.

“Golf became my escape,” she says quietly. “When things felt heavy at home, golf was where I could breathe.”

For Martinez, that side of Alysa – the empathy, the steadiness – is what makes her special. “She’s got all the talent in the world, but what I’m most proud of is her heart,” he says. “That’s what’s going to make her a great professional, whatever she ends up doing.”

When it came time to look at colleges, Alysa knew she wanted something bigger than just a team to play for – she wanted a path that would connect her love of the game to a lifelong career. The PGA Golf Management University Program at UMES offered exactly that.

Now 18 years old and a freshman, she’s fully immersed in campus life as a collegiate athlete. Early morning workouts, afternoon classes, team practices that stretch until sunset and late-night study sessions. 

“It’s a lot,” she admits. “But I was prepared. Angel, my family and my support system gave me the tools. I’d been working out, so my body was strong. I travelled for tournaments all through high school across different groups, which built structure into my days. Everything I’m doing now feels like I’m building on that.”

Every PGA Professional, or aspiring one, has a PAT (Playing Ability Test) story. It’s one of the most challenging and stressful parts of the process. Alysa’s story shows her grit and dedication to the game. She travelled hours south, deep into Virginia, to play 54 holes over the course of two days. Then, it was back to campus, where she hopped on the team bus for another 10 hour road trip across Pennsylvania for a tournament.

“In the span of six days, I played 108 holes and was in the van for 28 hours. I was exhausted,” she explains. “But I pushed through and only had one bad round the entire trip. I felt so proud of how I handled myself, I was like ‘OK, I’m doing this.’”

She passed the PAT on her first try.

Through it all, even though she’s thousands of miles from Los Angeles, Martinez is never far from her day-to-day life. 

“After every tournament, I call him,” she says. “We talk about what went well, what I need to work on. And sometimes, we don’t even talk about golf – I just call to vent or to laugh. It’s comforting to know he’s always there.”

Martinez feels the same way. “I tell her all the time – these are life lessons. Life’s not easy; you have to face obstacles. We’ve had those heart-to-heart talks. Whether it’s about golf, school or just life, she knows she can come to me and I’ll give her a straight answer, but I’ll also support her. We’ve built a strong bond, and I really cherish that."

Alysa made the traveling team her first semester at UMES, having competed in three tournaments at the time of this article. Admittedly, she’s not played her best golf, but she’s maintained the optimism and enthusiasm for the game that’s carried her this far.

“Our team is very young – we have six freshmen and two sophomores – so I feel like it was expected for us to have growing pains,” she says. “But I feel like we’re doing really well for how young we are. We have some great players and it’s such a close group.”

Beyond the competition, Alysa is part of a community of students pursuing their PGA membership while growing as leaders and changemakers in golf. She’s proud to represent the only HBCU with a PGA-accredited program, but she’s also dreaming even bigger.

After she completes her four years at UMES, she hopes to attend law school – combining her love for opportunity and advocacy with the discipline she’s learned through golf. “I’ve wanted to be a lawyer and I’m studying criminal justice right now,” she pauses, then adds with a smile. “Golf will always be part of my life. It’s shaped who I am. Even if I’m not competing, I’ll always be around it teaching, mentoring or trying to help more girls like me find their place in the game.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without Angel. He taught me how to play, sure. But more than that, he taught me how to believe in myself.”

For Martinez, the feeling is mutual. “As a PGA Professional, watching one of your students grow into their potential – that’s everything,” he says. “That’s why we do what we do.”

Alysa Davis’s journey is proof of what happens when opportunity meets mentorship – and when a coach sees more than just a swing.