PGA Works
Augusta’s newest (and biggest) golf prodigy taught himself the game and wants the world to ‘look out’
It’s hard to miss Shamar Wilson when he’s playing in a golf tournament. Especially when the 27-year-old college junior is driving the golf ball “30 yards” past his competition. Standing 6-foot-5, the Jamaica native is a natural on the course even if he took a somewhat unusual path to get there.
That journey continues next week when Wilson is one of two players competing for Augusta, Ga.’s Paine College (along with Ashley Michel) in the 38th PGA Works Collegiate Championship. The tournament is run by the PGA of America Reach Foundation and looks to “elevate the game at minority colleges and universities by providing student-athletes with the opportunity to compete on a championship stage.” There’ll be some high-level golf, sure, but it’s also a chance to network with golf higher-ups, meet fellow athletes going through parallel journeys and test out your wares on championship-level courses.
This year’s venue is Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, which has hosted three PGA Championships and the Ryder Cup. Wilson has one goal for the event: to finish in the top two.
He’s not preparing any differently than usual in the Whistling Straits run-up but just wants to get in the right headspace and represent his up-and-coming college program and his head coach and mentor, Andre Lacey, in the best light.
“My coach told me to go and rewatch the tournaments that were played [at Whistling Straits],” Wilson said. “So you watch what the weather was like, where the pros play and what decisions they made. And then I compile it, and I go practice exactly that.
“Something I learned early in golf is that 50 percent of the field can't beat you at all. Another 25 percent is worrying about the weather and the conditions. That just leaves you 25 percent to deal with.”
Figuring out a way to excel in the sport has been something Wilson’s strived for since he first took up the game in his youth in one of the most out-of-the-ordinary introductions anyone has had. While walking across a local golf course in Runaway Bay, Jamaica, he had to jump out of the way to avoid a stray ball. Trying to explain his errant shot, the offending golfer went on and on about how difficult the game was, to which Wilson tried his luck and hit two stellar shots in a row. The man inquired if he was interested in trying the sport out, and eventually Wilson’s grandmother urged her grandson to make a go of it. Soon, Wilson demonstrated an innate talent, winning local titles while using mismatched wooden clubs.
“The core fundamental for me, because I did track and field in high school, is repetition,” Wilson said. “So you might not be good at other things, but if you can replicate this one thing over and over and over, that may put you like in a position above the rest.
“I also got help from a lot of older players. Because that's who I surrounded myself with at the time. So they gave me all the knowledge that they had. I played a lot with them, so they could see where my problems were.”
As Wilson began to improve in the sport, it became an opportunity for him to get an education. Wilson initially started his college career at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Conn., only to encounter middling competition and financial struggles from a discontinued scholarship getting in the way of his golf pursuits.
Through the assistance of vice president for student affairs at Albertus, Andrew Foster, Wilson linked up with the Jamaican American Connection, a non-profit with the explicit goal of helping the “Jamaican and Caribbean/West Indian communities in the Greater New Haven area,” and they quickly formed a golf outing to raise money for his higher education and eventually for other students like him trying to make it in the U.S.
“What I realized was if he went back to Jamaica, then all his dreams would basically be over for him to become a pro golfer,” JAC President Karaine Holness told Essence. “The difference between the haves and the have-nots is opportunity, and he had the opportunity. We could not allow him to lose this opportunity, so we decided to jump in feet first, and here we are.”
The JAC raised nearly $20,000 for Wilson, and the golfer couldn’t stop mentioning the foundation and how it’s allowed him to keep on in his journey to the highest echelons of golf.
To continue his golf development, however, Wilson connected with officials at Paine College, an HBCU school whose program appeared to be lost during COVID, only for it to return, partially due to two scholarships endowed by Augusta National. In his first year there as coach, Lacey, an Augusta native and the grandson of 12-time PGA Tour Champions winner Jim Dent, was looking to build a program that preaches a family atmosphere, which sold Wilson.
Over the course of the season, Wilson tied for second in the 2025 Tiger Invitational and finished sixth in the NCCAA Regional. It’s been up and down, but Wilson thinks he’s been playing some of his best golf as of late, the more he acclimates to Paine College.
Wilson’s first year at Paine hasn’t been without some adversity. While playing in a college event early in the season, Wilson was four under only to have his wedges “disappear” for a few holes. While they showed up again a few holes later, Wilson had slid down the leaderboard.
Lacey and Wilson were rightfully upset, but unsure how to handle the suspicious situation.
“Is it one of those things where you stop the course?” Lacey asks. “Do you shut down the whole tournament? How do you mitigate this situation? It’s times like that where we have to be hyper-aware, and some stuff just happens. We can't change the world, but we can change how we react. Especially when you’re being taken advantage of.”
It's another reason why Wilson is looking to stand tall at Whistling Straits, trying to show that he has the resolve of mind and body to succeed in the sport. In a short time at the program, Wilson and Lacey have an opportunity to make some noise at a PGA Championship venue known for accentuating golf’s best. With the Augusta connection and backing, Wilson doesn’t expect his school to be under the radar for too long.
“Look out for Paine College because we’re on the up and up,” Wilson said, to which Lacey definitively added, “I definitely second that motion.”
