Senior Kayla Gutierrez received a scholarship as a part of the PGA WORKS Collegiate Championship. According to PGA REACH, the 501(c)(3) charitable foundation of the PGA of America, the program is meant to help diversify the PGA. This is not only through scholarships like what Gutierrez received, but also through fellowships, career events and a collegiate championship.
She is the fourth FGCU student to receive this $8,000 scholarship.
“[It’s] an initiative that the PGA started to help highlight underrepresented people from underrepresented backgrounds. I’m actually Latina and Hispanic,” Gutierrez said. “So having that, also being a female in the industry, has made it a lot easier to be a part of PGA WORKS to gain a network.”
As a PGA WORKS scholar, she was able to attend the 107th PGA Annual Meeting in Frisco, Texas last November. She, along with another student, junior Kennedy Daigle, were able to represent the university at the meeting.
This meeting included golf professionals from across the country as well as delegates, board members, the PGA president, vice president and secretary all coming together to vote on bylaws and the constitution of the PGA of America.
She also said they participated in breakout rooms where they were then able to learn from PGA professionals in the process. She said that it was a great experience and special for her to be there and learn.
Gutierrez is the social media manager for the program. She started it on her own three years ago but now, the student-run Instagram account, @fgcupgm, has almost 4,000 followers with 14 different students on the team running the account. She also serves on the executive board as the social media and communications director for the golf management student association.
“I’ve watched our social media grow from nothing to the biggest social media presence in the country, as far as golf management schools go, and we’ve received national recognition,” Gutierrez said. “I go places and people are like “wow, I saw your social media” and like that, to me, has just been so special.”
Two members of her social media team include Daigle and sophomore Jon Seifarth. They both got involved with the PGM’s social media because of Gutierrez. Each of them valued her impact significantly, not only her impact on the program and the social media account and team, but also on themselves.
“Now I’d say our dynamic kind of works and we kind of work together a lot more than we used to. It started as I was working for her and helping her out and anything I could do,” Daigle said. “And now I kind of have a lot of my own stuff going on and she helps me with my stuff, I help with hers. It’s awesome. I’m definitely grateful for Kayla, we’re sad to see her go.”
Daigle and Seifarth said they learned a lot from Gutierrez while working with her.
“She’s on top of everything and everybody, she knows what’s happening, when posts are happening, when events are happening,” Seifarth said. “So just having that better awareness of what’s going on in the program is pretty crucial as her role in the executive board.”
Gutierrez’s goal after finishing college and graduating is to be able to go into her career by using all of the skills she’s learned.
“I want to hopefully find a position where I can merge my interests and passion in marketing, social media management, content creation, with my love for the game of golf. So if I could go into golf media or journalism, marketing, any of those types of roles would be like the dream job for me,” Gutierrez said.
