Golf-Few bright spots for The Big Easy in The Big Easy

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Sometimes, they’ll ask her if the bag is too heavy. But Varada Maulkhan, all 5-foot-4 and 90 pounds of her, just smiles, hoists the bag and all those golf clubs on her shoulders and goes about her business, which is caddying at places like Baltimore Country Club or Greenspring Valley Hunt Club three or four times a week. The 18-year-old has even looped occasionally at Caves Valley Golf Club, a course Maulkhan calls “absolutely gorgeous,” where the BMW Championship begins its 72-hole run on Thursday. And that’s where this story gets good. Proceeds from the second event of the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup Playoffs benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, which awards full tuition and housing scholarships to caddies with outstanding character who demonstrate leadership, academic excellence and have financial need. Caddies just like Maulkhan, the daughter Guyanese immigrants who found out in March that she would be part of the inaugural Evans Scholar class at the University of Maryland. Maulkhan, an honor roll student at Catonsville (Md.) High School, will move into her dorm on Sunday. But not before a whirlwind week at Caves Valley where she will speak at the BMW Championship pro-am party and caddie for 14-time PGA TOUR champ Justin Thomas. “This is going to be a lifetime opportunity,” Maulkhan says. “Definitely a memory to remember for the rest of my life.” Maulkhan is one of a record 1,070 Evans Scholars going to school at 21 different schools this fall. The program was founded by the Western Golf Association and World Golf Hall of Fame member Chick Evans in 1930 and has since sent 12,500 caddies like her to college. She was introduced to the game when she was 7 years old by her father Kris, a recreational golfer who took her to First Tee-Greater Baltimore. The program operates from five different facilities, one of which is home to the Caves Valley Golf Club Foundation Learning Center at Forest Park that offers five target greens, practice bunkers and a putting green. Maulkhan liked being outdoors and she thrived on the life skills and core values central to the First Tee experience. She says she was shy at first but has become more comfortable in social situations and meeting new people, which has come in very handy with her part-time job. While she liked golf, though, Maulkhan didn’t begin to take the game seriously until she was a teenager. She’s competitive — earning Middle Atlantic PGA Junior Player of the Year honors in 2020 – but she’s just as comfortable playing casual rounds with friends. “For me, golf is a really good stress reliever,” she says. “If I’m really stressed, I can probably go out and make a tee time and just go play 18 holes with maybe by myself or a couple of girls that I normally play with. “But I like meeting new people. I like honing, forcing a lot of the communication skills I have to balance, and it taught me a lot about responsibility and respect.” Matt Bassler, the executive director of First Tee-Greater Baltimore, said Maulkhan was one of the first students to join the program. A decade later, he was helping the young woman he calls “very driven internally” with college applications – she applied to 14 different schools. “I’ve seen her grow from a 6-, 7-year-old young girl to now going to the University of Maryland at College Park,” he says. “And not only her golf game has got better, but she’s always been so mature. She does great in school. “I just think the world of her, and I think she’s going to do great things in the future.” Several years ago, Maulkhan became involved with the Baltimore Caddie Academy which is a collaboration between First Tee, Baltimore Country Club and the Western Golf Association, which became involved in an effort to grow the reach of the Evans Scholars program. For Maulkhan, it was a no-brainer. She liked golf, she enjoyed being outdoors and she wanted a summer job. But she’s been surprised at how much she’s learned, including honing more formal communication skills in talking with the adults whose bags she carries. “It has helped me tremendously with my golf game,” Maulkhan says. “I learned a lot of tips from the members. They’re so nice and they’re so helpful. “And it’s really enforced my aspect of responsibility because it’s not my clubs I’m carrying; I’m carrying someone else’s property. And I treat it the way I’d want my clubs to be treated.” Maulkhan first heard about the Evans Scholar program during caddie orientation. She wasn’t a rising senior, though, so it wasn’t really top-of-mind at the time. But she started to think seriously about it when an Evans alum who she’s caddied for encouraged her to apply. To be eligible Evans Scholars must have caddied regularly for two years and be evaluated by the sponsoring club. So first, Maulkhan talked with Greg Jones, the director of golf at Baltimore Country Club, about increasing her loops. The application process begins in October each year. Maulkhan had to write an essay and submit transcripts and recommendation letters. She learned she was a finalist early this year and then in March, she got a letter saying she was going to receive the scholarship. The letter took Maulkhan completely by surprise. She actually thought it was one of the credit cards her dad had recently ordered for the family. It came in the same kind of standard 8-by-11 envelope he’d gotten his in – he even told her, ‘Hey, your credit card’s here.” When Maulkhan opened the envelope, there was another smaller one inside. “I was like, okay, well it’s a credit card — maybe it’s because I’m like, a first-time user for this credit card company that they’re sending such a fancy package,” she recalls. “So, I opened it up and I kind of just pulled out the papers. “Then on the left top corner saw the Evans Scholars logo, and of course I screamed because it really shocked me.” Maulkhan’s mother, Sandy, happened to be working from home that day. When her daughter explained her outburst, Sandy called to her husband to come over. “We read it all together and it was a really big happy moment,” Maulkhan says. “It was a really good surprise for us.” Maulkhan plans to double major in secondary education and history, particularly the ancient civilizations like the Mayans and the Aztecs. Had she not gotten the Evans Scholarship, she says she might have had to take a break, find a different job or choose a more affordable college. (The average value of the scholarship is $120,000.) Instead, she’s going to attend Maryland, which is about an hour away from home and was ranked among the top 20 among public universities by U.S. News & World Report last year. She’ll finish up her packing between trips to Caves Valley this week to see favorites like Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau and Jordan Spieth play. And Maulkhan will do a little more work on Wednesday, toting Thomas’ bag. All the caddies in the pro-am are current or former Evans Scholars who donate their tips to the Foundation. And who knows? Maybe Jimmy Johnson, Thomas’ regular looper who was inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame by the Western Golf Association this week, will give her some advice. “I’m a little nervous because normally when I do caddie it’s for members and they know me in some sense, or I’ve met them previously at some event,” Maulkhan says. “And as I said previously, I’m a very tiny person. So, I’m nervous on how me carrying his bag will go. “But I’m sure it will go perfectly fine.”

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The PGA TOUR season begins this week, which means the first Monday qualifier of the season. Here’s a look at the four players who earned spots in the Safeway Open on Monday. AARON BADDELEY (65) Age: 37 Hometown: Scottsdale, Arizona/Australia Alma mater: None PGA TOUR starts: 406 Cuts made: 251 Best PGA TOUR finish: Won, 2006 RBC Heritage; 2007 Waste Management Phoenix Open; 2011 Genesis Open; 2016 Barbasol Championship. Notes: The four-time TOUR winner has conditional status after finishing 132nd in last season’s FedExCup. He made the cut in 15 of 27 starts. His lone top-10 came at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, where he finished 10th. The former Presidents Cup participant led the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green last season. BRETT DREWITT (65) Age: 27 Country: Scottsdale, Arizona/Australia Alma mater: None PGA TOUR starts: 19 Cuts made: 9 Best PGA TOUR finish: T27, 2017 Barbasol Championship Notes: Drewitt finished 196th in the FedExCup in 2016-17, his lone season on the PGA TOUR. He shot a final-round 62 at the Barbasol Championship. Drewitt is a graduate of PGA TOUR China, finishing third on the Order of Merit in 2014 to earn his Web.com Tour card. This year, he finished 71st on the Web.com Tour’s regular-season money list with three top-10s, highlighted by a T3 at The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay. ANDRES GONZALES (66) Age: 35 Hometown: Lakewood, Washington Alma mater: UNLV PGA TOUR starts: 125 Cuts made: 59 Best PGA TOUR finish: T3, 2014 OHL Classic at Mayakoba Notes: Gonzales has qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs once in five PGA TOUR seasons, finishing 115th in 2015. He also is a two-time winner on the Web.com Tour (2012 Soboba Golf Classic; 2014 Utah Championship). He finished 113th on this year’s Web.com Tour money list this year. MARK ANGUIANO (66) Age: 25 Hometown: Whittier, California Alma mater: Cal State Fullerton PGA TOUR starts: 1 Cuts made: 0 Best PGA TOUR finish: MC, 2016 U.S. Open Notes: Anguiano finished 10th on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada Order of Merit this year to earn an exemption into the final stage of this year’s Web.com Tour Q-School. He earned his first career victory at this year’s Windsor Classic. He also played on the Web.com Tour in 2017, finishing 98th on the money list. Anguiano was the 2014 Big West Conference Player of the Year at Cal State Fullerton. He played college golf for the Titans, who reinstated their golf program in 2009-10 after an absence of more than two decades. WYNDHAM CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFIERS MC. T.J. Vogel, 69-69 MC. Mickey DeMorat, 69-69 MC. Stewart Jolly, 70-71 MC. James Driscoll, 69-79 LAST SEASON’S QUALIFIERS Qualifiers: 95 Made cut: 28 Best finish: John Oda, T3 at Barracuda Championship Top-10s: 5 (Scott Strohmeyer, T4 at Sanderson Farms; Trey Mullinax, T8 at Valspar; Julian Suri, T8 at Houston; Chase Seiffert, T9 at Travelers; John Oda, T3 at Barracuda) Top-25s: 7 Most times qualified: T.J. Vogel (8)

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