Veteran on women’s golf tour from Langhorne starting to consider what happens next
Neshaminy High School graduate Brittany Benvenuto has played in more than 100 events on the Symetra Tour, but she's starting to consider life after that career is over.
Brittany Benvenuto has played more than 100 events on the Symetra Tour. She continues to enjoy life as a touring golf professional -- the competition, the travel, being introduced to new communities along the way.
However, the former Langhorne resident and Neshaminy High School graduate has begun to think about what happens next. At 30, she would like to have another chance at the LPGA Tour after losing her card at the end of last year.
“I’m going to give Symetra one more shot and see how it goes, trying to get back on the big tour,” Benvenuto said Tuesday after playing 10 holes at Raven’s Claw Golf Club in Pottstown, site of the $125,000 Valley Forge Invitational beginning Friday.
“I think it’s just more of a personal decision as to what I’d like to do in the future. I could keep playing for as long as I wanted to, as long as I was healthy, but we’ll see. Eventually I would like to settle down maybe and do some different things. So we’ll see if golf is in the future or not.
“Right now, I’m still enjoying it. I’ve always told myself, ‘When you stop enjoying it is when you’ll hang it up.’ So I definitely have not made any decisions yet.”
Benvenuto is off to a good start this season on the Symetra Tour, the official qualifying tour of the LPGA, making the cut in each of her first eight tournaments. Her best finish came earlier this month, a tie for second place at the Symetra Classic near Charlotte, where she fired a closing 66.
She enters this weekend 19th on the money list with just over $22,000. A top-10 finish at the end of the season earns her an LPGA Tour card for next year.
Benvenuto gained her card for 2017 but played in only one event because of a herniated disk in her neck that prevented her from swinging a club for about eight months. She earned a medical exemption allowing her to play last year but made just one cut in nine tournaments.
She ended the season making the finals of the LPGA Qualifying Tournament but did not finish high enough to retain her status.
“I still love to compete,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re playing on LPGA or Symetra, you’re still competing each week and trying to win. I still enjoy traveling. I still enjoy going into different markets and try to make an impact in different communities. So the whole ‘tour life’ is still very enjoyable to me.”
Benvenuto, who played multiple sports as a youth, first picked up a golf club at age 12 and learned the game at Middletown Country Club in Langhorne, across the street from her home. She taught herself how to play just from watching others.
She got real good, real fast. She was captain of the boys’ golf team at Neshaminy and played No. 1 as a junior and a senior before heading off to college at Arizona. She has since settled near Tucson but will have a large contingent of family and friends watching her this week.
That includes possibly a delegation from Middletown. Friends from the course followed her at last year’s ShopRite LPGA Classic at Seaview, and she called it “one of coolest experiences I’ve had in my career.”
After five runner-up finishes on the Symetra Tour, Benvenuto continues to search for her first win. She said the 66 she recently carded makes her think it could happen soon.
“It actually just gives me more confidence,” she said, “that ‘OK, I can do it, I can contend, I can be in contention.’ I’m just waiting for that time when it’s my time.”