Emma McMyler: Remarkable Rise to LPGA Rookie at 23

Emma McMyler follows through on a tee shot during the second round of the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout on the Epson Tour in 2025 (Photo:  Isaiah Bell / Epson Tour)

The San Antonio native didn’t pick up golf seriously until she was 15. Eight years later, she birdied four straight holes to secure her 2026 LPGA Tour rookie season by a single stroke.

By Todd Spaziani | Fairwayqueens.com

Emma McMyler doesn’t look at leaderboards. Ask her where she stands on any given hole, and she’ll probably shrug. She learned a long time ago that the numbers will sort themselves out if she just plays golf.

But on a December morning in Mobile, Alabama, even she couldn’t avoid the giant scoreboard near the first tee at Magnolia Grove. The cut line for the LPGA Q-Series Final Qualifying Stage stared back at her. She was on the wrong side of it.

“I knew I had work to do,” McMyler says now, her voice steady and matter-of-fact, like she’s recounting a grocery run instead of the most pressure-packed nine holes of her life. “I started that last day with a bogey. So I really had to make some birdies coming in if I wanted to give myself a chance.”

What happened next was the kind of thing that separates the professionals from everyone else. Down to her final six holes with her LPGA dreams hanging by a thread, McMyler birdied five of them. Four in a row to finish.

When she signed her scorecard and finally allowed herself to look at the leaderboard—the first time she’d checked it all week—she was inside the cut line by one. One stroke. The margin between a childhood dream realized and another year grinding on the developmental Epson Tour.

Her dad, Brian, was on the bag. He’d been there from the beginning, back when Emma was more interested in chasing soccer balls than golf balls. Back when professional golf wasn’t even a consideration—just something Dad did for work.

“The first person I called was my mom,” McMyler says. “Put her on speaker. Me and my dad were there, just celebrating. A lot has gone into this. Both my parents have sacrificed so much.”

They drove home to San Antonio that night. Ten hours on the road, riding the high, calling everybody, fielding messages from family and friends. Her mom, Donna, and sister, Claire, were waiting. It didn’t fully sink in until the next morning.

“I woke up and I was like, I’m really going to be playing on the LPGA Tour.”

Emma McMyler’s Journey: From Soccer Pitch to Golf Course

The thing about Emma McMyler is that she wasn’t supposed to be here. Not like this, anyway.

She grew up in San Antonio playing every sport she could get her hands on. Soccer was the main thing—club teams, travel teams, the whole nine. Basketball too. Track. Softball. She was the kid who showed up to every CYO league her church offered, not because she was chasing scholarships, but because that’s where her friends were.

“Sports was just the culture where I grew up,” she says. “Everybody played. That’s how I saw my friends.”

Golf? That was Dad’s thing. Brian McMyler had been a serious player himself—Southland Conference Golfer of the Year at Stephen F. Austin back in 1993, followed by a stint trying to make it as a touring professional before settling into life as a PGA teaching pro in San Antonio. He’d take Emma to the occasional summer camp at his club, let her hack around when she wanted to. But he never pushed it.

“There was never any pressure around it whatsoever,” McMyler says. “Which I’m so thankful for. I know a lot of girls have very different experiences with their parents in golf. My dad knew how hard professional golf was. He tried it. He knew what it takes. He never wanted to push something that difficult on me.”

So while other future LPGA players were grinding through junior tournaments at age eight, Emma McMyler was out on the soccer pitch, working on her footwork and watching her friends tear ACLs.

“A lot of my friends were tearing their ACLs, getting concussions,” she says. “That was a little bit of a hesitancy with pursuing soccer long-term.”

By her sophomore year of high school, she’d made a decision. Not because she had visions of LPGA glory—nothing that dramatic. She just saw more potential in golf. A lifelong sport. A way to connect with people in business someday. Something sustainable.

“I didn’t see it as, ‘Oh, I’m going to play professional golf.’ I just felt like my ceiling in golf was higher than maybe soccer. And I decided it was time to focus my efforts and see how good I could get.”

She was fifteen years old.

A Late Start by LPGA Standards

In women’s golf circles, that’s ancient. The prodigies who dominate college golf and fast-track to the LPGA usually have a decade of competitive junior golf under their belts by the time they’re fifteen. They’ve been working with coaches and sports psychologists and nutritionists since elementary school. They’ve played Augusta National in their dreams a thousand times.

McMyler was still figuring out her grip.

But she had something else going for her: she was a math kid. Type A to her core. The kind of person who loves when there’s one correct answer to a problem.

“I’ve always loved numbers,” she says. “It’s probably because I’m very Type A, and I love whenever there’s one answer. Golf is such a numbers-based sport. That part clicked for me.”

She also had her dad—not as a helicopter parent mapping out her junior golf career, but as a resource when she had questions. Someone who understood the game at a deep level and could help her improve without the pressure of expectations.

And she improved fast.

By her senior year at Brandeis High School in San Antonio, she was a two-time district champion and a two-time Texas 6A state qualifier. Golf San Antonio named her their Junior Girls Player of the Year in 2019. She qualified for the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at SentryWorld.

Then the world shut down.

“I didn’t have a graduation,” McMyler says. “Didn’t go to prom. Didn’t get to do any of the things you think of from the movies about senior year.”

But here’s the thing about McMyler: she finds the silver lining. COVID, with all its chaos and isolation, turned out to be one of the best things that happened to her golf game.

“All the courses were still open where I live. You just had to walk. The ranges were closed, so I just learned to play golf. I was out playing pretty much every single day. Looking back, that time was really beneficial for me.”

While other high school seniors were doom-scrolling and learning to bake sourdough, McMyler was walking 18 holes a day in the Texas heat, figuring out how to score without the luxury of beating balls on the range.

“I also got to spend time with my family before I went off to college,” she says. “Getting better holistically. COVID, looking back, was a really great thing for me.”

Dominating Big East Women’s Golf at Xavier

She’d already committed to Xavier University before the pandemic hit. Not a powerhouse program, not a place that churns out LPGA players, but a good fit—small school, strong academics, a chance to develop.

McMyler showed up to Cincinnati in the fall of 2020 and promptly dominated. She won Big East Freshman of the Year and Big East Women’s Golfer of the Year, becoming the first player to sweep both awards since Notre Dame’s Lindsey Weaver in 2013.

And then she did something no one in Big East history had ever done: she won Golfer of the Year the next year. And the year after that.

Three straight Big East Golfer of the Year awards. First woman in conference history.

“I didn’t calculate the odds,” she says with a laugh, referencing her actuarial science major. “But if you just continue to play good golf, they have no reason not to vote for you.”

The individual success at Xavier was staggering. Six tournament wins. Seventeen career top-10 finishes. The highest-ranked Big East golfer in the GolfStat rankings year after year.

But there was a hole in the résumé that gnawed at her: the NCAA Championships. Every year, McMyler made a run at qualifying as an individual from a mid-major program. Every year, she came up just short. One stroke her freshman year at the Louisville Regional. Within three strokes each of her three seasons.

“I finished top 10 at regionals all four years I played in college,” she says. “And I only got to Nationals when I was at Duke, as a team. That was always the goal—get to Nationals as an individual representing Xavier. It just never happened.”

The near-misses stung. But they also lit a fire.

“That one stroke,” she says, remembering her freshman year. “That was devastating. I had chances coming down the stretch. The putts just didn’t drop. But it drove me. It kept pushing me to get better.”

Emma Mcmyler at Duke University (Photo:  Emma McMyler X)

The Duke Women’s Golf Transfer

By the spring of 2023, Emma McMyler had earned her degree in actuarial science—a year early, because of course she did—and faced a crossroads. She could turn pro right then, head to Epson Tour Q-School, start grinding.

Or she could take one more year.

“I still didn’t feel like I was the best golfer in college golf,” she says. “I felt like with a change of scenery, putting myself around great coaches, a great program, I could continue to develop and prepare myself for professional golf.”

The opportunity that presented itself wasn’t just any program. It was Duke. Head coach Dan Brooks. The Fuqua School of Business.

“One of the best universities in the country and one of the best programs in the country,” McMyler says. “I couldn’t pass that up. And I mean, you can’t turn down two degrees in four years.”

At Duke, she finally got what had eluded her at Xavier: a trip to the NCAA Championships as part of a team. She earned All-America honorable mention from both Golfweek and the Women’s Golf Coaches Association. She got warmer weather after three Cincinnati winters.

“That was the number one thing when I was looking at schools,” she laughs. “It needs to be warm. Growing up in San Antonio my whole life, I didn’t have a lot of experience with snow. North Carolina was about as far north as I was willing to go.”

She graduated in May 2024 with a Master of Management Studies from Fuqua. Two degrees in four years. But she wasn’t quite done with amateur golf.

Birthday at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur

McMyler had played in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur during her final semester at Duke in April 2024, but missed the cut. The experience only made her hungrier.

So she did something unusual: she delayed turning professional to come back for one more ANWA in April 2025. It was a calculated risk. She could’ve been earning money, building her professional résumé. Instead, she remained an amateur for a few extra months, just for another chance to compete at Augusta National.

This time, she made the cut.

Her 23rd birthday fell during tournament week—April 3rd, right in the middle of the competition at Champions Retreat. Not a bad place to blow out the candles.

“That’s a pretty tough birthday gift to top,” she says. “A pretty special 23rd. One I’ll never forget.”

Two days later, she teed it up for the final round at Augusta National Golf Club with her dad on the bag. She remembers the nerves on the first tee. The way her hands were shaking slightly as she set up over her opening drive.

“I was so nervous. I hit my first tee shot, and it was right down the middle of the fairway. After that, I kind of let myself relax and just enjoyed the walk.”

The walk from that first tee shot to her second was when it hit her. She heard her grandpa’s voice cut through the patrons—“Way to go, Emma!”—and got chills. Her dad was right there beside her, the same guy who’d introduced her to the game without ever forcing it on her, who’d watched her choose soccer for years before coming around to golf on her own terms.

“It was pretty emotional, that first walk. But then I kind of regrouped and got back into the zone. I was there to compete and play golf.”

She finished tied for 27th. Not the result she wanted, but she’d accomplished what she came back for: a competitive round at Augusta National, experiencing the place properly, not just a practice round after missing the cut the year before.

“This is what I wanted,” she said afterward. “To come back here and play a competitive round. It was awesome.”

The course lived up to its reputation and then some.

“It’s hard, but in a different way,” McMyler explains. “Your typical course might be hard because you catch a bad lie or get unlucky. Augusta, there’s nothing out of place. Every single blade of grass is manicured to perfection. What makes it hard is the slopes and the greens. Small little undulations here and there—if you hit it in the wrong spot, you’re in trouble.”

She pauses, searching for the right words.

“And the hills. Walking up 18 to your second shot, you’re huffing and puffing. On TV, everything looks flat. When you’re there, it’s way more slopes than you’d ever expect. It looks completely different than you imagined.”

The Road to the LPGA Tour Card

After Augusta, Emma McMyler turned pro and headed to the Epson Tour. She posted three top-25 finishes in a truncated season—solid, not spectacular. Enough to qualify for LPGA Q-Series.

The LPGA’s qualifying gauntlet is brutal. First, you survive an initial qualifying stage in Venice, Florida, where 197 golfers fight for 45 spots. Then you head to Mobile for the final stage—a marathon week of golf in December, often in miserable weather, where the pressure compounds with every round.

The 2025 Q-Series was especially chaotic. Rain and cold plagued the week, rounds were shortened, schedules shifted. You had to be at the course from sunup to sundown without knowing how much golf you’d actually play.

“You had to have a lot of patience that week,” McMyler says.

Heading into the final day, she had work to do. A 74 in round three had left her outside the cut line. She’d only completed nine holes of round four before play was suspended due to darkness.

That night, she knew exactly where she stood. Nine holes left. Probably needed to go several under to have a chance.

She started the final day with a bogey.

“I knew I really had to make some birdies coming in. I couldn’t be complacent. I couldn’t step off the gas pedal.”

And then something clicked. The way she describes it, she just got in the zone and stayed there.

“Once I made that first birdie, I was like, okay, let’s go get another one. I don’t care what I’m at relative to par. I just want to keep making birdies.”

She birdied five of her last six holes. The final four in a row.

“All week, I’d been hitting the ball really well,” she says. “I just wasn’t quite getting the most out of my putter. The putts weren’t dropping. That last day, I was ball-striking the same way I had all week. But I just started making putts. Once that first one went in, I kept telling myself—I’m putting great. Just keep doing it.”

The 21-footer on the final hole was a downhill slider. She knew if it went in, she’d probably be safe.

It went in.

“I just felt like that was securing my card. But I didn’t know officially until after I signed my scorecard. I looked at the leaderboard for the first time all week, and I was inside the cut line by one.”

Getting to Know Emma McMyler

Emma McMyler is not a particularly flashy interview subject. She doesn’t have wild stories or controversial takes. She doesn’t listen to music while she warms up—“I like to hear the contact”—and when asked about her favorite songs, she just shrugs and says “anything country.” Her guilty pleasure TV show is Below Deck Mediterranean. She travels so light for Epson Tour events that she fit four weeks’ worth of stuff into a carry-on suitcase. The one item she can’t travel without? An AirTag. “You gotta know where your luggage is.”

She’s practical. Grounded. The kind of person who majored in actuarial science because she likes when problems have one correct answer, and who chose professional golf partly because she saw it as a lifelong skill that could connect her to people in business someday.

When asked who she’d most want to be paired with on the LPGA Tour, she says Nelly Korda. When asked what she’d do if golf hadn’t worked out, she says she’d probably be an actuary. When asked about the best advice her dad ever gave her, she doesn’t hesitate.

“Pursue what makes you happy.”

That advice shaped everything. It’s why she played soccer for years before discovering golf. It’s why she never felt pressured into the game, which is probably why she still loves it after all the grinding. It’s why she chose Xavier over bigger programs, and why she transferred to Duke for a master’s degree instead of turning pro a year earlier.

And it’s why, when she thinks about what success looks like for her LPGA rookie season, she doesn’t lead with wins or money or rankings.

“Just a season of growth, really. Not only as a golfer but as a person. I know I’m going to have a lot of new experiences, and I’m looking to soak up each one and learn from each week.”

She pauses.

“But obviously, maintaining my card, playing on the LPGA for 2027—that’ll be a success. Winning tournaments, top-10 finishes, that would all be great. But that’s the outcome goal. I just want to get better every day and stay in my process.”

Emma McMyler’s Message for Late Bloomers in Golf

There’s a message McMyler wants to leave for other late bloomers out there. The fifteen-year-old girls in San Antonio who are still playing soccer, still figuring themselves out, still years away from discovering what they’re meant to do.

“Work hard at what you enjoy doing. If that’s sports, or school, or art, or whatever—just continue to work hard at what you enjoy. Maybe one day it’ll become a job. Because it still doesn’t feel like I’m ever at work. I’m just doing what I love.”

She thinks about her own path. The rec leagues through her church. The travel soccer teams. The friends who tore their ACLs. The dad who introduced her to golf without ever pushing her toward it. The pandemic that gave her time to develop. The near-misses at NCAA regionals that fueled her. The one stroke that separated her from her LPGA Tour card.

“All of the success and the things I’ve been able to accomplish—it’s truly been because of hard work,” she says. “And the people around me who’ve helped me along the way.”

You get the sense that Emma McMyler would’ve been fine if golf hadn’t worked out. She’d have her two degrees, her actuarial skills, her work ethic that allowed her to dominate a conference in a sport she barely played until high school. She’d have figured something out.

But golf did work out. The late bloomer bloomed. And now the LPGA rookie gets to spend her days doing what she loves, competing against the best women golfers on the planet, chasing a dream that didn’t even exist for her a decade ago.

“If you’d told me when I was fifteen that I’d be playing on the LPGA Tour, I would’ve said you’re crazy. A far-fetched dream that I never thought would be reality. But here we are.”

Quick Facts: Emma McMyler

Full Name: Emma Nicole McMyler
Born: April 3, 2002, Houston, Texas
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
College: Xavier University (B.S. Actuarial Science, 2023); Duke University (M.M.S., 2024)
Turned Pro: 2025

Notable Achievements:

• 3x Big East Women’s Golfer of the Year (first in conference history)
• Big East Freshman of the Year (2021)
• Augusta National Women’s Amateur participant (2024, 2025)
• Golfweek & WGCA All-America Honorable Mention (2024)
• Golf San Antonio Junior Girls Player of the Year (2019)

Fun Facts:

• Didn’t play golf seriously until age 15
• Was a competitive soccer player through freshman year of high school
• Favorite TV show: Below Deck Mediterranean
• Dream LPGA pairing: Nelly Korda
• Dad Brian was Southland Conference Golfer of the Year at Stephen F. Austin (1993)

Emma McMyler begins her LPGA Tour rookie season in 2026.