Savannah Grewal admits she was shaking when she opened the package, because it wasn’t just any piece of mail.
It came from Augusta National Golf Club, and it contained a dream, realized.
“It didn’t feel real. There were a lot of emotions that built up, like, ‘I actually did this,’” says Grewal. “’I’m going to play at Augusta National.’”
Grewal, who is Canada’s top-ranked female amateur, will tee it up at the third annual Augusta National Women’s Amateur March 30 – April 2. She will be the second Canadian to participate after Brigitte Thibault was Canada’s flag-bearer in the first two iterations in 2019 and 2021. The event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Luckily, Grewal says with a laugh, she wasn’t alone that day when the mail arrived.
“I have a roommate who also got invited and we opened them together,” she says. “She opener hers and I opened mine and we were both just freaking about it.”
Grewal is no stranger to the bright lights of Augusta National, however, as she won the Girls 14-15 division of the Drive, Chip, and Putt National Finals in 2017.
The native of Mississauga, Ont. started playing golf when she was six after her mom signed her up for a golf camp at her home course of Piper’s Heath. She fell in love with the game at that point, but really started taking it seriously when she turned nine. Already, she says, she wanted to make a life out of being a professional golfer.
“At such a young age I wasn’t sure if my parents took me seriously, but they did everything they could to support me,” she explains. “They got me golf lessons, they got me a membership… my dad and I would just go to the driving range and hit balls all day.”
At 10 Grewal started playing tournaments and at 12 she started travelling to the U.S. frequently for more events. She played in plenty of American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) events as a youngster and that’s when some big schools started knocking on her door. She was about 16 when she first visited Clemson University (a school founded in the late 1880s that boasts the second-largest student population in the state of South Carolina) and immediately fell in love with it.
She was the first Canadian to ever join Clemson’s women’s golf team and became the first golfer in the school’s history to make a hole in one when she aced the fourth hole at The Reserve @ Lake Keowee in March of last year.
This year marks Grewal’s first year on the national team and she’ll have the team’s assistant coach, Salimah Mussani, caddy for her during the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
The event itself takes place over three rounds of competition. The first 36 holes are contested at Champions Retreat Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. Everyone – no matter if they make the cut or not – will get a chance to play a practice round at Augusta National on April 1 (no April Fools’ joke, there!) before the top-30 competitors who made the cut will tee it up for real at Augusta National to determine a winner.
Grewal says she’s been in touch with Thibault by text, who told her she would be watching and rooting her on.
But what about her own game?
Turns out, Grewal says, Clemson is hosting a large event the week prior to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur (the Clemson Invitational is set for March 25-27) which Grewal will play in. The next day Grewal will jump in her car and drive to Augusta for Monday’s registration before practicing Tuesday. There are also plenty of other events that week, like a gala with the Chairman of the iconic course.
Regardless of her busy schedule Grewal says she’s always been someone confident in her game and she’s hoping, no matter the stage, that’ll translate well.
“I have a lot of trust in my process and the work I’ve put in. It’s been 12 years since I started playing so everything I’ve worked on has prepared me for this moment,” she says. “I’m excited to go out there and do what I know I can do and hopefully have a chance to win on Saturday walking up 18 at Augusta National.”