Amy Hodgkins, a Mueller alumnus who is playing golf at college in the USA, just won the 79th Annual Colorado Golf Association Women’s Amateur championship. This qualifies her for the US Women’s Amateur tournament, which is one of the biggest amateur golf events in the world. We asked Amy about her path to this amazing achievement – here is some of her story.

In August 2023, I moved to the United States and started studying and playing collegiate golf at Northern Arizona University. I played at NAU for 3 years – it was so great, and I’m so thankful for my time there. 

At NAU, I was Big Sky Freshman of the Year, Rookie Of the Year, 3x Big Sky First Team selection and 3x WGCA All-American Academic selection. 

In the most recent 25-26 season, NAU won our conference tournament, which sent us to postseason tournaments, and I won my first individual title at the Red Rocks Invitational in March, where I posted my college career-low 65 (-7). 

As of a couple months ago, I made the decision to transfer to the University of Louisville for my final 2 years of D1 NCAA eligibility. Louisville has some incredible practice facilities and a really good tournament schedule as a part of the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference), so I’m very excited to move to Kentucky at the start of August.

Outside of college, for the last few months, I’ve been living in Colorado. Usually, I would come home to Australia over the wintertime (summer in the US) but I have been interning at the Colorado Golf Association for the last 3 months. I’ve loved it!! I do tournament operations, which is like setting up the course, starting players, scoring etc. The people I work with are so great over here, and they’ve been so accommodating with giving me time off to play in summer tournaments in the US.

In the last couple of months, I played in the Arizona Women’s Am (T3) and the Colorado Women’s Am (1st). Winning the Colorado Women’s is certainly my biggest win yet and gave me a direction exemption into the US Women’s Amateur Championship, which is to be held 4-9th August at The Honors Course in Tennessee. 

I had actually gotten an exemption into the US Women’s 3 days before the start of the Colorado Women’s, from a qualifier tournament a couple of weeks prior, which certainly took the pressure off because I really wanted to qualify. However, it was so awesome to have a win, and now I feel like I’ve really earned my spot in the US Women’s field. 

The US Women’s Am is one of the biggest Amateur events in the world, so I’m very excited to go onto the biggest stage and see how I can compete. The format is 36 holes of stroke play and then a 64-person matchplay bracket. The field size is 156 women.

Some challenges I’ve faced over the last few years…

Every now and then I get really homesick. As lucky as I am to be in the US chasing my dreams, sometimes I wish I was back at school with my friends and at home with my family. Nothing beats QLD, and I really mean that. 

It’s also been hard managing the student- athlete lifestyle. It gets really difficult to stay on top of schoolwork when we are traveling for tournaments week in, week out, or have practice/ workouts outside of time spent in classes. 

I also expect that my move to Kentucky will be difficult. Packing up my whole life again and going to a totally new environment will be no easy feat, but I’m super grateful for the opportunity to go to a bigger school and challenge myself in sport and in the classroom. 

When I graduate from the University of Louisville, I will have an Undergraduate degree in Exercise Physiology with a focus in Allied Health, and a Chinese Minor. I am planning to turn professional when I graduate and hopefully play on tour in Europe or the US. 

When I’m back in Australia next, I’ll be sure to drop into Mueller!