Impact Of A Scholarship: Ludovica Farina

Golf wasn’t readily available for Ludovica Farina growing up in the southern part of Italy, with most of the major courses and top players clustered in the northern section. But that didn’t stop her from making the Italian National Team at 12-years-old and ultimately putting together a highly successful four-year career in College Park. 

Growing up, Farina’s father was always a big sports guy and he had her try her hand at several different ones as a young girl in Siracusa, Italy. Farina was admittedly awful at most of them until she discovered golf. By the time she was six, Farina was playing on a makeshift driving range on her family’s land during the week and traveling two hours up and back with her dad on the weekends to play 18-holes on real courses in Northern Italy. 

“I became so in love with the sport from a very young age and that love just continued to grow,” Farina said.

At 12-years-old, Farina was one of just a few golfers from Southern Italy to make the Italian National Team. As she approached high school graduation, Farina had two options: attend a university and stop playing golf competitively or turn professional and not go to school. For Farina, neither one of those options was going to work. 

“I wasn’t ready for golf to be my whole life,” Farina said. “I wanted to have a background in something else in case golf didn’t work out, but that wouldn’t really be possible to do without going over to the United States.”

Fortunately, several American universities expressed interest in Farina as both a student and an athlete. More than any other, Maryland made her feel confident that she would be taken care of in a completely foreign country.

“I just knew right away that I was going to be cared for as an international student.”

As a result, even with her official visit taking place over Skype, Farina enrolled at the University of Maryland.

“It was a crazy, long journey from practicing in my backyard, to playing for the Italian National Team, to playing at Maryland, but it’s one I wouldn’t trade."

As a Maryland golfer, Farina excelled from fall 2015 to spring 2019. In fact, Farina was so good that she qualified for the Ricoh Women’s British Open, one of the five majors in golf, as an amateur in the summer of 2018. 

“Thanks to my journey as a student-athlete, the Maryland Women's Golf Team, and all the donors that supported my scholarship, I was able to qualify for that event, which has definitely been the highlight of my career,” she said. “Maryland shaped me as a person and as a player, giving me the tools and abilities to qualify for such an event.” 

For as much as she found her place on the golf course, however, she shined within campus life even more. 

“I know other Italian golfers who went to big schools and never really felt part of a community,” Farina said. “For me at Maryland, I felt right at home. UMD itself is obviously so diverse, but also just being so close to DC, I could always take the metro into the city and get a nice Italian meal.”

Farina expanded her international circle even more during her junior year when she founded World Wide Terps, a student-athlete group still in existence today whose mission is to help international student-athletes navigate unique challenges. 

“The times where golf wasn’t at its best or school wasn’t at its best, I could still rely on friends at UMD and all the other international student-athletes. It was nice to have other people who knew what the international student-athlete experience was and to go through it with them.” 

Farina, who still resides in Maryland, remains in contact with her former golf teammates as well as her World Wide Terps friends today. Whenever she travels home to Italy, she invites those who have moved back to Europe over and they all catch up.

“Those relationships I made were not just for those four years, they were for a lifetime.”

Farina’s overall student-athlete experience while at Maryland is something she will cherish forever.

“It meant everything. Not just when I was a student-athlete, but also ever since graduation. I would never be where I am today without the opportunity I was given at the University of Maryland. Being a student-athlete at Maryland defined me in every single way.”

Farina also looks back fondly at the academic assistance programs that were provided to her during her four years as a Terp. 

“Maryland has always been really proactive in taking care of its student-athletes after graduation. For example, Maryland Made, inTERPships and the Gossett Family Fellows all really helped me develop skills that were important once I left the university and started working.”

Farina, who is now married to her college sweetheart, Cole, is still in the golf game today—working as an assistant golf professional at Bethesda Country Club where she has been since 2020. There, she specializes in merchandising and also instructs golf lessons. 

“In my current job what I like the most is teaching talented kids and spreading the game of golf, as well as still competing,” Farina, who recently finished sixth among female professionals in this year’s Maryland Open, said.

In Farina’s eyes, much of that current success and happiness can be traced to her four years as a Terp—a four years that wouldn’t be possible without a scholarship and the donors who funded it.

“Thank you to the donors from the bottom of my heart. There’s a lot of student-athletes who wouldn’t have this great opportunity if it weren’t for them. I encourage those who can to donate because it really changes lives for the better. I’m so grateful for my scholarship and what it did for my life.”