The U.S. National Development Program, now in its third year, was founded with a lofty mission: to foster future generations of American golf talent by providing a pathway to success.
While the launch of the National Junior Team and State Junior Team programs have merited the majority of the program’s headlines, one relatively unheralded element of the USNDP is its grants, which are distributed in the form of annual, reimbursement-based funding for families with competitive junior golfers who have the potential to progress through the USNDP development pathway and demonstrate financial need.
In 2025, the grant program’s second year, 109 athletes — 52 girls and 57 boys from 32 different states (52 percent of whom are athletes of color) — and their families received an annual grant from the USNDP, totaling more than $865,000 provided by the USGA and made possible thanks to donors and partners like Ally. Three grant recipients are U.S. National Junior Team players.
How does a player receive a grant? The program begins with a pre-screening application, which establishes a family’s basic income level. If qualification for need-based support is established, the player can move on to a more comprehensive application, which includes a performance component (current handicap requirements are set at a 2.4 or better for boys and 5.4 or better for girls) as well as a letter of intent on how the player or family plans to use the funding.
Four USGA staffers are charged with evaluating applications, and annual funding decisions are made by a a larger group in a round-table session at the end of each year.
“We know not all of our players are going to become professionals and we’re okay with that,” said Heather Daly-Donofrio, the U.S. National Development Program’s managing director player relations and development. “We want to help these athletes achieve their goals in the game wherever those goals take them, particularly with our grant recipients. A lot of them, when they started with our program, never thought they’d play at a D1 college and they’re getting offers at D1 colleges now. So that’s really encouraging for us too, just to get these players from a good high school level to be able to compete at the collegiate level.”
MODERN-DAY ELITE JUNIOR golf requires extensive travel. For many players, getting on a college coach’s radar means entering tournaments all across the country. The financial burden can be heavy for families, which is why the USGA also partners with the AJGA to help grant recipients get into AJGA tournament fields close to home. Grants can also be used for various categories of game-development, such as coaching, gaining access to practice facilities or even visiting a sports psychologist.
But using the money for travel expenses and tournament entries is a popular choice. In addition to the grant, recipients are also welcomed into the USNDP ecosphere, where they have access to athlete development webinars on topics like nutrition, values, and picking targets into greens. Seventeen such sessions were available to players in 2025, led by the USNDP’s staff of expert coaches and consultants.
“The kids that are really gravitating towards those extra resources are a lot of the kids that we’re seeing really improve,” Daly-Donofrio said.
Just how significant is the grant program to these players? Two recipients make worthy case studies. For Ventura, Calif. , resident Austin Dennis, the availability of grant funding has been a game-changer — literally.
“The USNDP helped transform my game,” he said. “The resume that I have this year is completely different than last year. I think I maybe had like five red numbers the entire year of last year, and I’ve had about five red numbers in the last month.
“The financial side of it has helped. Especially being able to help me get into AJGAs, because those are the top events, so I’ve been able to have a lot better competition.”
Austin recently tied for second at the AJGA Senior Showcase, and over the course of the year, posted five wins, 10 top-5 finishes, 13 top-10 finishes and climbed 54 spots in his class ranking. In addition to playing in 21 events, Austin has been heavily involved in USNDP Grant Program webinars and has been diligently stat-tracking using the program’s free data app, Accel Golf.
When Austin was accepted as a grant recipient, it not only enabled him to purchase new equipment but it also granted him the exposure he’d been craving in tournaments.
“[The grant] just opened the door for basically everything that we had been wanting to provide for him, but we couldn’t do it,” said Austin’s mother, Summer. “We just couldn’t figure out how to get his rankings and everything up to his peers in his class, because we couldn’t afford to do those tournaments. This year’s been a game-changer.”
The level-up in tournament field strength was also a confidence boost for Austin.
“I always tell myself this quote: ‘I apply pressure, I don’t let pressure apply to me,'” he said. “[The grant] leveled the playing field out. The only reason that these kids, to me, felt like they had an advantage was just because of the resources they had. They could go to their coach once a week. They could go to the nicest facilities and practice, and I’m over here, not saying it’s bad or anything, but like, I’m at a public course having to to figure when I can go out and play just because there’s so much public [play].
“I can only see my coach once a month. So being able to get this money, I was like, man, I have the resources now that some of these kids have. Just give me a little bit of time. I’m gonna be catching up to all of you.”
While Austin hasn’t yet landed on a college golf home for next fall, he’s currently weighing his options after receiving offers and interest from a number of schools.
“Whichever program Austin ends up playing for, they’re going to be in luck,” Daly-Donofrio said. “He will be a great teammate. He’s a hard worker. He’s one of our most engaged athletes from the perspective of entering statistics and working with our coaches based on his statistics, attending webinars, and you can see it in his record. He’s been playing great golf the last few months because he’s working hard, he’s engaging with the program. He wants to get better. He’s driven, and it’s showing in his scores, and he’s going to find a great home.”
Austin is nothing if not confident about his future prospects.
“I’m gonna be on Tour one day,” he said. “It’s a matter of when.”
OHIO-BASED MEADOW TIAN has a similar story. Meadow, who is committed to play golf at the University of Illinois next fall, is a member of Ohio’s State Junior Team and utilized her grant primarily to travel to tournaments in the Southeast.
This year, Meadow has recorded four wins, including two AJGA victories, in 12 total events (7 AJGA, 5 other), and has a 73.06 scoring average.
“Being able to go outside of just Ohio and just like surrounding regions, being able to travel, maybe to the West Coast or the East Coast, especially down south, has been really eye-opening,” she said. “Being able to practice on grass, it’s a miracle in the winter. Last year was my first year of being able to travel down [south] for tournaments, and being able to compete during December, January, February, those kinds of months, it’s just nice not to have a super long stretch of not being able to compete and not being able to practice on grass.”
Playing tournaments outside of her local area had a big impact on her recruitment, Meadow said.
“It opened a ton of doors for me, being able to go up and meet some coaches, being able to play in front of them, and just getting to introduce myself and eventually reach out and connect,” she said.
The USNDP grant program’s goal is to triple in growth over the next several years. And while professional golf and major championships are obvious aspirations, Daly-Donofrio says the program is ultimately about a lot more than chasing tournament titles.
“When we get an email from one of our grant recipients that says, ‘I just signed with ‘X’ college,’ we literally do a dance in the office, because we’re so excited for them,” she said. “And who knows where that will lead. It might lead to professional golf, might not, but we hope that the kids have a lifelong love for the game, that they may give back to the program at some point, that they may work in the game, work in sports, teach golf. Really, cultivating that love of the game for a lifetime.
“Our job’s not done when we reimburse those funds. Our job isn’t done until we help get these kids where they they want to go.”
