Four weeks ago, former Longwood University student-athlete and class of 2015 graduate Blake Carter officially signed with Fairway and Green as well as Titleist to become a professional golfer. Since going pro, Carter has played in one tournament and is expected to play in two more between October and November.
“I pretty much get to wake up every morning and play golf. That’s my job. I get to do that,” said Carter.
Carter, who has been playing golf since his dad introduced him to the game at two years old, said he always wanted to be a golfer. After trying out almost every sport when he was little, Carter admitted that he was “awful at every single one of them except golf.”
As he grew up, his passion for golf became stronger, especially when he began to strive to beat his older sister Cameron Carter, a former pro golfer, collegiate golfer and 2012 Longwood graduate, at one of the few sports that allow men and women to compete against each other – golf.
After playing throughout his childhood and at Bassett High School in Bassett, Virginia, Carter chose Longwoodas the university where he would continue his journey to becoming a professional golfer and earn a degree in political science.
According to Carter, he was not very good at golf until his junior year at Longwood, using the first two years to practice and improve his skills. Most of the improvements Carter made were in his short game, including putting, pitching and chipping.
Longwood men’s golf head coach Kevin Fillman said, “What he did by the end of his [college] career is cut out most of the bad things because he realized that those [bad things] were the things that were killing his game.”
He also said he made the final decision to play professional golf the first semester of his senior year in college, when he was finally “100 percent” sold on the idea. His decision became that “100 percent” after he told his sister Cameron that he was going to wait until January 2016 to go pro, but she heavily encouraged him to start his career earlier.
He likes golf for many reasons, but the one thing he loves the most about it is seeing his hard work and practice pay off in major ways.
Carter said, “There is something about getting rewarded and being able to see that extra work you put into it. It takes a long time to get good at golf, so practice actually pays off.”
In addition to improving his skills as Longwood, Carter “made so many friends playing golf,” and also said that “team at Longwood is probably the circle of my best friends.” He placed second at the Big South tournament his senior year and won a major college golf tournament at Cornell University that same season.
But one of the highlights of his time at Longwood was that he got the opportunity to play alongside his younger sister Haley Carter, who is a senior member of the Longwood women’s golf team and is one of Blake’s biggest fans.
Haley, who was thrilled when Blake went pro, said,“It is a super exciting thing. It’s a huge deal and I think a lot of people when they hear stuff like this they have a lot of doubt. I don’t think it is just because I am his sister, but I do believe that if anyone can do it, Blake can.”
Carter explained that now after going pro, he finds it to be a lot harder than college, not just because of the better competition level, but because each tournament can gain or lose him a lot of money. Since each tournament requires players to pay an entrance fee, the money can easily be lost if they do not finish inside the “cut line,” which is the tournament’s top spots.
Currently residing in his hometown of Martinsville, Virginia, Carter looks to his dad and Fillman, as his main influences.
Fillman said, “I think this is what he has worked for basically his whole life. He and I talked about it numerous times during his playing career, especially over the last year and a half of his playing career, and continued over the summer.”
Despite being injured for the majority of the summer after he tore his triangular fibrocartilage complex in his left wrist and missing most summer amateur tournaments, he took that the time to practice more, rehab and get into some late season events.
After signing professionally, the next steps for Carter are practice, practice and more practice, in order to perform well at Qualifying School (Q-School). Q-School is the annual qualifying tournament for golfers who want to qualify for major golf tournaments such as the PGA Tour and the European Tour. New professionals must attend in order to gain status and be able to travel internationally as a professional.
Haley said, “Blake has never had a plan B, he’s always had one plan and that was to go pro.”
He hopes to perform well at Q-School, which will take place in March in Boca Raton, Florida, and continue his career as a professional golfer for a long time.
Carter said, “If I don’t play professional golf for very long, I hope to have a job in the golf industry [a professional golf coach] somewhere. I don’t see myself doing anything other than golf.”
Carter is ranked in the top 5 Longwood University golf players of all time.
