{"id":190219,"date":"2026-05-12T15:10:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T15:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/190219\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T15:10:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T15:10:26","slug":"star-high-school-golfer-zoey-smith-has-big-dreams-as-the-pga-championship-comes-to-the-philadelphia-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/190219\/","title":{"rendered":"Star high school golfer Zoey Smith has big dreams as the PGA Championship comes to the Philadelphia area"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the golf world’s best preparing to tee off in her backyard for the 2026 PGA Championship<\/a>, one of the most promising young golfers in the Philadelphia area is taking notes.<\/p>\n

Zoey Smith is a senior preparing to graduate from the Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, before heading off to Howard University.<\/p>\n

For the last three years, she’s won the Philadelphia Public League individual girls’ golf championship. Last year, she shot an 86.<\/p>\n

Smith is also part of the Visit PA Playmakers<\/a>, the state’s “hype squad” for all things America 250. The slate of tentpole events really tees off with the PGA Championship.<\/p>\n

Back in March, she was honored with a Playmakers jersey. And she’ll be up close at Aronimink Golf Club alongside 200,000 spectators as the world’s best make their shots.<\/p>\n

“It’s definitely interesting to see their play style and just how they focus out on the course,” Smith said.<\/p>\n

On a recent afternoon after school, Smith was practicing at the recently renovated Cobbs Creek Golf Course<\/a>, where the goal is to make golf accessible to everyone.<\/p>\n

“I call this Philadelphia’s public golf mecca \u2013 and that’s what it was, and that’s what it’s going to continue to be,” Chief Operating Officer Enrique Hervada said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"zoey-smith-golf.jpg<\/p>\n

Zoey Smith, the three-time Philadelphia Public League individual girls’ golf champion, practices her swing.<\/p>\n

CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n

“Having this space, it also allows more young golfers to have a lot of access to these places,” Smith said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The teen’s love for golf started at 4 years old.<\/p>\n

“My dad, he started with wanting to put me in a nontraditional sport, which was golf,” Smith said. “As a young Black girl, it gave me a lot of freedom out on the course and meeting new people who are the same skin color as me and the same gender, as well.” <\/p>\n

After Howard, she hopes to compete on the LPGA Tour.<\/p>\n

“I just want to pave the way for young Black girls to play golf,” Smith said.<\/p>\n

While Smith’s golfing idol, Michelle Wie West, won’t be at this week’s championship, she’s just as excited to see the tour players. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the golf world’s best preparing to tee off in her backyard for the 2026 PGA Championship, one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[28,43517,52115,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-190219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pga","tag-pga-tour","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}