Former LPGA player Cheyenne Woods was recently inducted into the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame. The 2012 graduate played in all 38 events of her collegiate career, totaling 125 competitive rounds, and finished with the then-lowest single season (73.47) and career scoring averages (74.31) in program history. She won the 2011 ACC Championship as a junior.
Now a 34-year-old mother of two married to MLB player Aaron Hicks, Woods brought the whole family back to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for the induction, including son Cameron (2) and daughter Maya (1).
“To be able to be a women of color in the game of golf, to be able to now take my kids back to Wake Forest Univeristy and show my name and my picture to them,” said Woods during her acceptance speech, “to have something for them to look up to really, really means a lot to me. I come from a family with a very large name in the world of golf being Woods, and it’s really nice to be able to bring my kids back and see a woman Woods, a female Woods, who has been able to accomplish something and carry on the family name.”
Cheyenne Woods is the niece of Tiger Woods and first learned the game from her paternal grandfather Earl Woods. Growing up in Phoenix, Cheyenne told the crowd in North Carolina that she didn’t know much about Wake Forest other than Arnold Palmer and Tim Duncan.
But choosing Wake Forest changed her life.
Woods said she came into college as a shy freshman and knew that she wasn’t always the best in her class. There was a phrase in the Wake Forest practice facility that became somewhat of a life motto for the self-described underdog: “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
As a professional, Woods won the 2014 Volvik RACV Ladies Masters and became the sixth African-American to compete on the LPGA.
Woods thanked her family, especially her mom Susan, who as a single mother sometimes worked two to three jobs to support her dreams.
“Wake Forest University, who would’ve thought?” she said, smiling. “My husband makes fun of me because my degree is in our office, so big, the biggest thing in our office. I’m just so proud to be able to say that.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Cheyenne Woods recently inducted into Wake Forest Hall of Fame
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