In surfing, they call it a battle paddle. Before a surfer can take on the task of riding the perfect wave, she must first claim it. The competition might pull her leash, splash water or even yell during the mayhem.
“There are things that happen in the water that would never happen in golf,” said Patricia Ehrhart, a former LPGA player who raised three competitive surfers.
Ehrhart’s oldest daughter, Mason Schremmer, is one of the top 10 professional longboard surfers in the world. Her youngest, Scarlett Schremmer, won three national titles while growing up on Hawaii’s North Shore.
Now, 18-year-old Scarlett is one of the nation’s top junior golfers and one of 33 players making their debut in this week’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Scarlett compares the skill of golf course management to wave selection, except for the part where she had to fight off other girls in the water.
“I’ve been under those pressure moments before,” said Scarlett of the spotlight. “I just wasn’t holding a golf club.”
When Scarlett won her third national title in Huntington Beach, California, she told her mom when she got out of the water that she was done surfing competitively. Her older sister had turned professional and moved to Australia, her middle sister, Lola, had gone off to college, and Scarlett was lonely and burnt out.
As fate would have it, her family had moved to Hoakalei Country Club, site of the LPGA’s Lotte Championship. Scarlett played her first golf tournament at age 12 but didn’t start to play with regularity until 14. After mom got her amateur status back, the gritty Scarlett began caddying for her in USGA events and got the bug to compete.
Ehrhart, 59, plays up a tee box these days when she takes on Scarlett. From the start, however, mom has never let her daughter win. In the week leading up to the ANWA, the two spent hours on the chipping green at Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama, getting dialed in for the demands of Champions Retreat and Augusta National. The family splits time between Alabama and Palm Springs, California, where Scarlett plays out of Bighorn.
Outside of competition, mom and daughter have the same laid-back approach to life. They don’t sweat the small stuff. The late great Jimmy Buffett was a close family friend and supporter. In fact, Schremmer originally committed to the University of Miami to live close to Buffett before he died two years ago.
“I didn’t really realize how popular he was until he actually passed away,” said Schremmer, adding that “he was light-hearted, didn’t take himself too seriously. He was a bad golfer, I’m going to be honest. And he was not a very good surfer. But he brought a lot of joy to both games, and I think that sums up who he was.”
As a freshman in high school, Scarlett switched to online school, and she graduated in the run-up to Augusta. With nothing but golf on her mind, the Texas A&M commit is one of three members of the U.S. National Junior Team in the field this week, joined by 16-year-old Asterisk Talley and 17-year-old Nikki Oh.
Scarlett says her biggest takeaway since joining the national program last year is that she’s a much better putter than she once believed. An introduction to stats helped give her a better perspective on her putting, which she now ranks as one of her greatest strengths. She also enjoys the camaraderie of the development team at individual events, noting the new mindset of, If it’s not me, I hope it’s you, among the ranks.
Since Scarlett joined the program last May, her World Amateur Golf Ranking has skyrocketed from No. 467 to 80th.
LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer Beth Daniel captained Scarlett last fall on the Junior Solheim Cup team and appreciated her inquisitive nature.
“She asks a lot of questions,” said Daniel. “She’s inquisitive, which I think for a teenager is a good thing. So many of these kids, you can’t tell them anything. Scarlett was a sponge.”
Daniel lauded everything from the fundamentals of Scarlett’s swing to the professional way she went about practice rounds, throwing down two or three balls and hitting to potential hole locations. At times, she’d hand Daniel her wedge and say, “How would you hit this shot?”
“Only two players asked that kind of question,” said Daniel. “I think that’s a pretty important question.”
Scarlett wants to play on the LPGA. She’s been transparent with A&M head coach Gerrod Chadwell from the start that she might only stay one or two years, but she wants to get better and believes that can happen at College Station.
Only one mother-daughter duo has ever made it to the LPGA – Myra and Mallory Blackwelder. Ehrhart spent most of her professional years playing on the mini tours but earned her LPGA card for the 1998 season.
Scarlett doesn’t just want to be on tour, though, she wants to help grow it.
“I want to be a reason that people watch women’s golf, truly,” she said, “and to do that you have to go through all these stepping stones, and some of them are good, some of them suck and that’s just the reality.
“Every golf shot that I’ve hit, I’m not really thinking of anything other than, how am I going to hit the next one better? I feel it’s kind of cute, looking back knowing that all the shanks and tops and bad shots I hit when I was 14 and these other girls were absolutely striping it, have kind of led us to the same spot.”
When Scarlett was 7 or 8, Ehrhart recalled taking her to the North Shore to meet her shortboard coach on a day the waves were so huge, mom didn’t even want to put a toe in the water. Scarlett came in after one ride with tears streaming down her face. Mom said, “You don’t have to do this. Let’s just sit here and watch.”
“Oh, I’m not crying mom, I’m fine,” said a determined Scarlett as she went back to the ocean.
“She was terrified,” said Ehrhart, “but she was so sure of herself that she was going to ride.
“And she did. I couldn’t believe it.”
Ehrhart grew up one of six kids in Quincy, Illinois, across the street from Westview Golf Course. She picked up the game after mom got tired of everyone pulling at her skirt all day and said they could either go play golf or pull weeds and fold laundry.
Her father, Robert, was a scratch golfer who worked for Kmart Corporation. In the spring of 1986, she came home from college to attend a wedding and watched Jack Nicklaus win his sixth and final Masters with her father in the family living room. Robert died a few weeks later.
“You think back and it kind of chokes you up a bit,” said Ehrhart, who always dreamed of one day going to Augusta National.
She just never imagined she’d get there as a caddie for one of her children.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Jimmy Buffett’s friend is making Augusta National Women’s debut
In surfing, they call it a battle paddle. Before a surfer can take on the task of riding the perfect wave, she must first claim it. The competition might pull her leash, splash water or even yell during the mayhem.
“There are things that happen in the water that would never happen in golf,” said Patricia Ehrhart, a former LPGA player who raised three competitive surfers.
Ehrhart’s oldest daughter, Mason Schremmer, is one of the top 10 professional longboard surfers in the world. Her youngest, Scarlett Schremmer, won three national titles while growing up on Hawaii’s North Shore.
Now, 18-year-old Scarlett is one of the nation’s top junior golfers and one of 33 players making their debut in this week’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Scarlett compares the skill of golf course management to wave selection, except for the part where she had to fight off other girls in the water.
“I’ve been under those pressure moments before,” said Scarlett of the spotlight. “I just wasn’t holding a golf club.”
When Scarlett won her third national title in Huntington Beach, California, she told her mom when she got out of the water that she was done surfing competitively. Her older sister had turned professional and moved to Australia, her middle sister, Lola, had gone off to college, and Scarlett was lonely and burnt out.
As fate would have it, her family had moved to Hoakalei Country Club, site of the LPGA’s Lotte Championship. Scarlett played her first golf tournament at age 12 but didn’t start to play with regularity until 14. After mom got her amateur status back, the gritty Scarlett began caddying for her in USGA events and got the bug to compete.
Ehrhart, 59, plays up a tee box these days when she takes on Scarlett. From the start, however, mom has never let her daughter win. In the week leading up to the ANWA, the two spent hours on the chipping green at Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama, getting dialed in for the demands of Champions Retreat and Augusta National. The family splits time between Alabama and Palm Springs, California, where Scarlett plays out of Bighorn.
Outside of competition, mom and daughter have the same laid-back approach to life. They don’t sweat the small stuff. The late great Jimmy Buffett was a close family friend and supporter. In fact, Schremmer originally committed to the University of Miami to live close to Buffett before he died two years ago.
“I didn’t really realize how popular he was until he actually passed away,” said Schremmer, adding that “he was light-hearted, didn’t take himself too seriously. He was a bad golfer, I’m going to be honest. And he was not a very good surfer. But he brought a lot of joy to both games, and I think that sums up who he was.”
As a freshman in high school, Scarlett switched to online school, and she graduated in the run-up to Augusta. With nothing but golf on her mind, the Texas A&M commit is one of three members of the U.S. National Junior Team in the field this week, joined by 16-year-old Asterisk Talley and 17-year-old Nikki Oh.
Scarlett says her biggest takeaway since joining the national program last year is that she’s a much better putter than she once believed. An introduction to stats helped give her a better perspective on her putting, which she now ranks as one of her greatest strengths. She also enjoys the camaraderie of the development team at individual events, noting the new mindset of, If it’s not me, I hope it’s you, among the ranks.
Since Scarlett joined the program last May, her World Amateur Golf Ranking has skyrocketed from No. 467 to 80th.
LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer Beth Daniel captained Scarlett last fall on the Junior Solheim Cup team and appreciated her inquisitive nature.
“She asks a lot of questions,” said Daniel. “She’s inquisitive, which I think for a teenager is a good thing. So many of these kids, you can’t tell them anything. Scarlett was a sponge.”
Daniel lauded everything from the fundamentals of Scarlett’s swing to the professional way she went about practice rounds, throwing down two or three balls and hitting to potential hole locations. At times, she’d hand Daniel her wedge and say, “How would you hit this shot?”
“Only two players asked that kind of question,” said Daniel. “I think that’s a pretty important question.”
Scarlett wants to play on the LPGA. She’s been transparent with A&M head coach Gerrod Chadwell from the start that she might only stay one or two years, but she wants to get better and believes that can happen at College Station.
Only one mother-daughter duo has ever made it to the LPGA – Myra and Mallory Blackwelder. Ehrhart spent most of her professional years playing on the mini tours but earned her LPGA card for the 1998 season.
Scarlett doesn’t just want to be on tour, though, she wants to help grow it.
“I want to be a reason that people watch women’s golf, truly,” she said, “and to do that you have to go through all these stepping stones, and some of them are good, some of them suck and that’s just the reality.
“Every golf shot that I’ve hit, I’m not really thinking of anything other than, how am I going to hit the next one better? I feel it’s kind of cute, looking back knowing that all the shanks and tops and bad shots I hit when I was 14 and these other girls were absolutely striping it, have kind of led us to the same spot.”
When Scarlett was 7 or 8, Ehrhart recalled taking her to the North Shore to meet her shortboard coach on a day the waves were so huge, mom didn’t even want to put a toe in the water. Scarlett came in after one ride with tears streaming down her face. Mom said, “You don’t have to do this. Let’s just sit here and watch.”
“Oh, I’m not crying mom, I’m fine,” said a determined Scarlett as she went back to the ocean.
“She was terrified,” said Ehrhart, “but she was so sure of herself that she was going to ride.
“And she did. I couldn’t believe it.”
Ehrhart grew up one of six kids in Quincy, Illinois, across the street from Westview Golf Course. She picked up the game after mom got tired of everyone pulling at her skirt all day and said they could either go play golf or pull weeds and fold laundry.
Her father, Robert, was a scratch golfer who worked for Kmart Corporation. In the spring of 1986, she came home from college to attend a wedding and watched Jack Nicklaus win his sixth and final Masters with her father in the family living room. Robert died a few weeks later.
“You think back and it kind of chokes you up a bit,” said Ehrhart, who always dreamed of one day going to Augusta National.
She just never imagined she’d get there as a caddie for one of her children.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Jimmy Buffett’s friend is making Augusta National Women’s debut
