Texas Children's Houston Open

Memorial Park Golf Course



News

Stephen Curry's seven-figure donation to Howard University will help launch its golf program

Ellie Mae Classic - Round Two

Lachlan Cunningham

A press conference Monday morning at Langston Golf Course in Washington, D.C. will mark a landmark day for Howard University athletics. Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors guard—and avid golfer—is set to make a seven-figure donation to the historically black college, which will allow it to launch men's and women's golf teams, according to the Washington Post. It will be the first time in 40 years the university has a golf program, and fittingly, the announcement will come at Langston, the historically black, public golf course in D.C. The team will be established for the 2020-2021 season.

This will be the first Division I golf program at the school, too, according to the school. Though Curry's representatives wouldn't confirm exactly how much money he is donating to the school, they did confirm it will be a seven-figure commitment over the next six years.

“No matter where you come from or what socioeconomic background you had, we all were that kid once upon a time that was just excited about finding out who they were as a person through athletics,” Curry told the Washington Post.

Curry has continually shown his passion for golf over the past few seasons, recently launching his own line of Under Armour golf apparel earlier this year, and playing in Web.com Tour and PGA Tour events in the past few seasons on sponsor's exemptions. Curry constantly discusses golf in his press conferences during the season, and he launched a TV show on ABC about miniature golf this year.

As the Washington Post reports, the donation started when Curry attended a January screening of a documentary detailing the 2015 shooting of nine black worshippers in a Charleston, S.C. church. After the screening, a group of Howard University students approached Curry and one student in particular, Otis Ferguson, started a conversation about golf. Ferguson, who had established a club program at the school, told Curry how he passed on playing golf in college to attend Howard, which led to Curry having conversations with the university about establishing the sport as a D-1 program, which starts Monday in Washington, D.C. at the press conference.

“To hear somebody as passionate about the game as I was, all the while still pursuing their education at Howard . . . impacted me,” Curry told the Washington Post.