Inside Golf Content Creator Gabby DeGasperis’ Instagram Rise After Turning Down Division I Scholarships (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Gabby DeGasperis turned down college golf scholarships to focus on growing her social media career

• Her viral golf content has led to collaborations with stars such as Stephen Curry

• DeGasperis spends over 10 hours daily creating content and hopes to grow the sport for future generations

For most of her life, Gabby DeGasperis was working toward the same goal as countless elite junior golfers: earning a Division I scholarship. But when the offers came in, the 18-year-old turned them down.

Instead, DeGasperis decided to pursue the social media career she had spent years building, convinced she owed it to herself to find out just how far she could take it.

“I know that I would regret not giving it everything that I have if I was in school next year,” DeGasperis tells PEOPLE. “I just can’t have that regret. I have to go all the way.”

Golf has been at the center of DeGasperis’ life since the age of 2, when her parents first introduced her to the sport. By the time she reached elementary school, weekends were spent traveling to and from tournaments as she continued to establish her game.

But it was during the hours-long sessions at the driving range that her father found creative ways to make the practices feel more like a game, stacking quarters on the mat and rewarding her every time she hit three good shots in a row.

“I would come out with like $6,” DeGasperis recalls with a laugh. “I was obsessed with money. I just wanted to be motivated to go out to the golf course. I think that was kind of the entry point, and then I fell in love with the sport when I got older.”

Although golf consumed much of DeGasperis’ childhood, social media piqued her interest when she reached her teens after seeing another content creator quickly build an audience by posting every day. That inspired her to take a swing at age 14 by sharing golf workout videos, vowing to quit if nothing transpired.

Then, as the six-month mark in her online endeavor approached, a friend encouraged her to change things up, suggesting she talk directly to the camera while playing instead. “I posted it and it got like three million views overnight,” DeGasperis says. “And I gained like 100,000 followers in two weeks. I was like, ‘What is this?'”

The viral success quickly snowballed into something much bigger than a hobby. Midway through her freshman year of high school, DeGasperis transitioned to online classes so she could dedicate more time to building her platform while competing at junior golf tournaments.

But when college recruiting began, DeGasperis — who, at this point, had learned to navigate the coexistence of golf and social media — was pressed to choose between the two. “A lot of the offers came in and they were like, ‘We love what you’re doing, but don’t bring the social media to our school. We want you for your golf,'” she recalls. “That never occurred to me that they were gonna ask that. I thought they would want the eyes and the views.”

While DeGasperis declined those offers, one of the country’s top Division I programs took a different approach, encouraging her to bring both her golf résumé and online following to campus. Although she seriously considered making it work, she recognized something would have to give in balancing a stacked schedule of Division I athletics, academics and the demands of a rapidly growing business.

“I thought, ‘How am I gonna do this?” she recalls. “Am I gonna be able to create content at the rapid speed that I am right now and still play D1 and also commit to the team and also bring the eyes to the team and then school?’ It was just so much. I was kind of overwhelmed.”

Instead of making a decision out of fear, DeGasperis trusted her instincts and took a leap of faith. The result? A full-time social media career that has DeGasperis spending an estimated 10 hours a day editing videos, managing brand partnerships and brainstorming new ideas for her 1.2 million Instagram followers before heading to the golf course to film content.

“Usually the content is what I’m doing that day,” she says. “I find if you schedule it out, the level of authenticity is just not there as much, and it just does better when you’re actually doing what you’re posting.”

Although she practices less than she did while competing on the junior circuit, golf remains the foundation of everything DeGasperis creates, which includes collaborations with celebrities and one-on-one driving range challenges with strangers.

“I was like, ‘Why don’t I just go up to regular people? Nobody’s doing that,'” she says. “I’m never gonna fake it. Every match that we do is going to be 100% realistic.”

Those videos eventually led to an opportunity with Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry, whom she describes as “the nicest guy ever.”

Although working with the likes of professional athletes is nothing new for DeGasperis, the moments that have made a lasting impact are the interactions she shares with young girls and their families, with parents and guardians often telling the golf personality how their children have picked up the sport after watching her videos.

“When I see the little girls and their dads, it makes me almost tear up because it’s exactly like me and my dad,” she says.

“I wanna bring more girls to the sport and I wanna blow the sport up the best I can,” DeGasperis adds.

Although people frequently ask where she sees herself in five years, DeGasperis says she’s learned not to focus too much on distant milestones.

“I always do this six-month trial with everything,” she says. “I don’t really look five years ahead. I just look about keeping everything scheduled day by day by day.”

“Whatever that takes me, that’s the goal,” she continues. “If I love what I do and I love creating content, I don’t know if that’ll keep me in the golf space or take me to podcasting. Whatever it may be, that’s the goal, is to enjoy what I’m doing.”

Read the original article on People