{"id":38391,"date":"2025-06-04T14:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T18:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=38391"},"modified":"2025-06-23T10:43:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:43:03","slug":"furman-womens-golf-scholarship-named-for-dottie-pepper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-womens-golf-scholarship-named-for-dottie-pepper\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman Women’s Golf Scholarship Named for Legendary Paladin Dottie Pepper"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a donor considered supporting women\u2019s golf at Furman University in honor of a former player, he had just one name in mind: the CBS Golf analyst, former LPGA and Furman women\u2019s golf standout Dottie Pepper \u201987<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDottie is an icon,\u201d said Alec Taylor \u201975<\/a>, who established, with his wife Susan Taylor, the Dorothy L. Pepper \u201987 Endowed Scholarship for Women\u2019s Golf. \u201cShe\u2019s the best announcer in professional sports. She\u2019s modest, a worldclass golfer. Her comments are so insightful. Everything about her epitomizes Furman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope this is the impetus for others to come along and donate,\u201d said Taylor, a former chair of Furman\u2019s Board of Trustees. The women\u2019s golf endowment is open to contributions from donors who want to support and expand scholarship funding for women\u2019s golf.<\/p>\n

Cindy Davis \u201984<\/a>, Pepper\u2019s former teammate at Furman, a former president of Nike Golf and a current Furman trustee, points out that Pepper, who holds the lowest score relative to par in any major tournament at 19 under, is the perfect ambassador for women\u2019s golf as she reached the pinnacle of the sport as a player and now, in front of millions of viewers, in broadcasting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all proud of Dottie\u2019s accomplishments on and off the golf course. Her authenticity, integrity and preparation shine through in everything she does,\u201d Davis said. \u201cWe always knew she was special. Now, everyone else does too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFurman Women\u2019s Golf has achieved transformational success on and off the course as one of the premier programs in the nation,\u201d said Jason Donnelly<\/a>, vice president for Intercollegiate Athletics at Furman. \u201cDottie Pepper is the embodiment of these accomplishments as both a person and a professional. Congratulations to Dottie on this remarkable honor and thank you to our generous donors for making this inspirational gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pepper was surprised and humbled by the scholarship in her name. It\u2019s a full-circle moment; she played on a scholarship provided by a family she never met. She\u2019s looking forward to mentoring players who benefit from the Dorothy L. Pepper Endowed Scholarship. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to touch so many networks that golf provides and open doors to, and to provide a valuable education, too. You can graduate with a degree from Furman and know that you\u2019ve applied yourself. It means something,\u201d Pepper said.<\/p>\n

Pepper was heavily recruited out of high school in Saratoga Springs, New York. Furman had seen remarkable success with players such as Betsy King \u201977 and Beth Daniel \u201978, who had won the NCAA championship in 1976. Brad Faxon \u201983 was an all-American on the men\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

Pepper chose Furman, a top-10 team at the time, because \u201cMy interests were golf, to get a degree in four years and to get an education that was worth something,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Pepper was low-amateur at the U.S. Women\u2019s Open after her first year at Furman. In the NCAA Championship she finished in the top-five three times, including runner-up in 1985. She was a three-time All American, graduated with a degree in health sciences and turned professional the day after commencement. On the LPGA Tour she won 17 times, including two major championships. As an analyst with CBS Sports, hers is one of the clearest voices offering keen insight, shot-by-shot on the course and on bigger issues through her blog, Pepper\u2019s Perspectives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Furman \u201cpunches above its weight\u201d in a lot of areas, Taylor said. \u201cAt the top of the list would be women\u2019s golf.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2020 Natalie Srinivasan \u201920, now a medical student, won consensus National Player of the Year honors. Anna Morgan \u201924, who won eight collegiate titles, was named SoCon Female Athlete of the Year three times. This year, Audrey Ryu \u201927, a concert pianist and biology major with a 4.0 GPA, played in the NCAA Championship in a field full of golfers from Stanford, Vanderbilt, Tennessee and other large schools. She made the cut and finished her three rounds eight over.<\/p>\n

These players stand out even though women\u2019s golf is more competitive than it was in the 1980s. Davis said, \u201cthe landscape for women\u2019s sports has changed dramatically, and college sports especially.\u201d The number of teams have increased, and it\u2019s more competitive to attract top talent.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Furman opened the Davis and Faxon Training Facility at REK<\/a>, a state-of-the-art indoor complex that elevates recruiting potential. Endowed scholarships through giving, Davis and Taylor said, are another way to maintain the excellence of the women\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

Whether players become professional or not, golf scholarships can still boost their careers and enhance their educations. \u201cThe Furman network is very strong,\u201d Pepper said. She has mentored several Furman student-athletes, and helped some who were interns with her at CBS. She walks the links with a Furman-branded yardage book tucked into her back pocket that was a gift from former intern Marra Burton \u201920.<\/p>\n

Pepper is \u201cso Furman,\u201d Taylor said. To honor her legacy through scholarships is \u201csupporting a group of women and a coach who do it the Furman way. The players know their first job is to get an education,\u201d and they represent Furman at the highest levels of sport.<\/p>\n

The scholarship named for Pepper helps \u201cshine a light on Furman\u2019s program and makes a commitment to make sure the program stays super competitive,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dorothy L. Pepper \u201987 Endowed Scholarship for Women\u2019s Golf is open to donors who want to support women’s golf at Furman. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":38393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,24,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics","category-health-sciences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38391"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38448,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38391\/revisions\/38448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}