MyTurn
by JIM DUCIBELLA
Becca DiNunzio was
the recipient of the
2019 Red Speigle
Award, a VSGA-VIP
Scholarship Foundation
grant that goes to an
elite scholar from the
Tidewater area.
T
hree shots into her attempt to
claim a place in the field of the
Pure Silk Championship Pre-
sented by Visit Williamsburg
on May 20, Becca DiNunzio was 1-under-
par on Kingsmill’s River Course and well
on her way to grabbing one of the two avail-
able spots in the $1.3 million LPGA field.
But as you would expect from a high
school student who was still days from
donning her commencement cap and
gown, 73 wind-buffeted strokes later,
the only place DiNunzio was headed was
back home to Norfolk.
Hey, no shame there. Quite the oppo-
site. The LPGA qualifier was merely the
conclusion to a memorable trio of trips
around a River Course that would send a
slew of seasoned play-for-pay competitors
back to the practice range with their tails
between their legs.
Two weeks earlier, DiNunzio’s 4-under-
par performance in the Pure Silk Junior
Invitational won the event and thrust her
into the LPGA qualifier. The last 18 was
memorable for what she achieved and for
showing her the speed bumps she must
work her way past.
One of those is handling adrenaline
surges. Her birdie on No. 1, which conclud-
40
ed with a 10-foot putt into the center of
the cup, gave her an understandable jolt of
emotion that had her, she said, hitting the
ball longer distances than she was accus-
tomed to. Ultimately, that led to trouble on
the 401-yard eighth hole.
After a drive down the middle, DiNunzio
found herself with a dilemma. The wind
had picked up considerably by then and
was at her back. What to hit? Picking
a hybrid, she bounced her approach
through the green, leaving her with
a tough chip back to a down-sloping
green. That shot rolled past the
flag more than she wanted, and
she needed two putts to come
in with a bogey.
“I definitely learned a lot,”
she said. “I made bogeys and
those were my mistakes, but
those things happen. But I was
glad to avoid the really big num-
bers. I learned that playing in the
wind is something I need to work on.”
That’s something she’ll get plenty of
practice doing once she gets to Blacks-
burg and Virginia Tech in August.
For a kid whose family has moved from
Portsmouth to Hawaii to Belgium to Nor-
folk, and experienced different coaches at
V I R G I N I A G O L F E R | J U LY / A U G U ST 2 0 1 9
every stop, earning a scholarship to an
ACC school that’s earned back-to-back
NCAA regional bids is heady stuff.
DiNunzio is no product of a silver-spoon,
country-club assembly line. When living in
Portsmouth, DiNunzio’s mom used to take
her children to City Park. The place has
tennis courts, boat ramps, playgrounds,
a train, a picnic area, a play stage—and a
9-hole executive golf course.
That’s the direction her young daughter
wandered one day, attracted by the gleam
of children’s putters encircling a practice
green. Mom offered the chance to pursue
ballet, swimming and golf.
“Golf took over,” DiNunzio said, “and
I’ve been in love with it ever since.”
Love. Passion. It ’s likely those are
two qualities Virginia Tech coach Carol
Robertson saw in DiNunzio—the winner
of the VSGA-VIP Scholarship Founda-
tion’s Red Spiegle Award in 2019—when
she decided to pursue the Granby High
School product.
“It was as much her work ethic and
attitude as her talent that sparked the
belief she will be a great addition for us,”
Robertson said. “She has lots of talent, but
she also will have the ability to make her
teammates around her better due to
her character and ethic.”
DiNunzio has an ambi-
tious pre-college schedule
that includes the Virgin-
ia State Golf Association
Junior Girls’ and VSGA
Women’s Amateur events
in late July. And there
are a variety of Middle
Atlantic PGA and Amer-
ican Junior Golf Asso-
ciation events that have
piqued her interest.
Not that she needed added
motivation, but walking the King-
smill fairways with professional golfers
only added to her passion to join their
ranks one day.
“It’s been a dream,” she said, “and I’m
going to pursue it as long as I can.”
vsga.org
Kingsmill Qualifier the Start
of Something Big for DiNunzio