CLEARWATER — When Nicole Felce made the cut at last month’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, she became just the third club professional to play the weekend at the LPGA major since 2015 — and the first in seven years.
The 21-year-old Clearwater native, an assistant pro at Countryside Country Club, finished as the low club pro at the championship, played the last weekend in June at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota. It was her second straight appearance, following her debut at the 2025 KPMG.
The result capped an unconventional climb. Felce graduated from a virtual high school at 16 and turned pro at 18 after completing a tour-affiliated teaching program. Now, she said, she is ready for the attention — and the pressure — that come with chasing full-time LPGA Tour status.
“My life has changed a lot since the KPMG,” Felce said July 10 from the club’s pro shop, where she helps out between lessons. “My Instagram blew up overnight, and I had a ton of texts and calls. I’m thankful to have received all the love and support and attention. But it’s been nice to get back to a normal routine!”
The road there has not been smooth. Felce first tried LPGA qualifying school at 18, she said, and missed by a stroke. The stretch that followed “has been kinda scary” at times, she said, “because I didn’t know what to do in terms of playing because I had already turned pro, but there wasn’t a lot of options for me to play in terms of travel and expenses.”
Entering the LPGA Professionals Program, a four-semester online course, was the right move, she said, because “it opened a lot of doors. It allowed me to get a job here and gave me a Plan B in a sense that if a playing career didn’t pan out, I still have an opportunity to be a teacher.”
Felce credits her faith and her father — Jim Felce, a former pro baseball player and the longtime athletic director at Palm Harbor University High School — for her work ethic and her love of the game. He also caddies for her.
“At an early age I became good at golf, and I fell in love with it,” Felce said, recalling the set of plastic clubs she got for Christmas when she was 1. “And I always go back to it being faith-based, because I feel God ingrained in me to be good at it, to fall in love with the game. And I was very fortunate to find my gift and my abilities at a very early age.”
Jim Felce said he began preparing Nicole for the pressures of pro sports early.
“I saw firsthand how ruthless pro sports are behind the scenes,” said Jim Felce, who spent two seasons in the Atlanta Braves’ minor league system in the 1990s before becoming Palm Harbor University High School’s athletic director in 1996. He still holds the job, along with coaching and caddying for his daughter.
“So I knew that as a young player, if she wanted to go the (professional) route as a golfer, she was going to have to be tough. So growing up, I always told her she’s got to be tough, thick-skinned and have grit.”
A few weeks after the KPMG thrust her into the spotlight, Felce showed a different side at an informal meet-and-greet her home club hosted the evening of July 16.
Over 90 minutes, she worked the room like a longtime tour veteran rather than a 21-year-old. She recounted her family sleeping in their rental car the night before the tournament began — she had predicted it would make a good story if she made the cut — and fielded questions about competing alongside stars such as Nelly Korda and Brooke Henderson.
“I felt pressure because I wanted to do well,” she said. In between, she signed autographs and posed for photos.
Debbie Nakaerts, a Clearwater resident and board member of a local nonprofit, told the crowd of about 50 that Felce had been central to the group’s spring golf fundraiser. “She was an integral part of us raising more than $2,500 this year,” Nakaerts said, tearing up. “We can’t thank her enough.”
Asked whether she is ready for the tour, Felce pointed to her back-to-back KPMG appearances. “This is where I want to be,” she said. “This is where I belong.”
Her father saw the difference. She “wasn’t as star-struck and wide-eyed this year,” Jim Felce said, adding that the two have worked on “staying in the moment and controlling the controllables.”
“My motto is God’s will,” she told the crowd. “That’s it. Because no matter what happens, it’s going to happen. And I’m still going to play golf the next day.”
With the first stage of LPGA qualifying school approaching in Daytona Beach, Felce is locked in on what comes next.
“My goal is to get to stage two to get some status,” she said of the LPGA’s developmental Epson Tour next year, adding: “Yes, I’m a club pro and I work at a golf club. But my goal is always to be on the LPGA Tour.”
She said she is requesting sponsor exemptions for each of the remaining LPGA Tour events. The one she wants most is close to home: The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican, the November event hosted by World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, a few miles from where Felce grew up.
“Honestly, any one of them would be cool,” she said from the pro shop office. “But The Annika is kinda the one I have my eyes set on. I grew up a mile or two from there. This is my hometown. So it would be so cool.”
She has never met Sorenstam, she said — “unfortunately.” “But I’d love to!”
She does know people at the club, though. She said she has had “conversations” with Pelican’s owners, the Doyle family.
“So I’m going to reach out to them personally,” Felce said. “Because any sponsor invite has to bring some media attention. So I’m hoping after this, I’ll have a chance to get in. And I know I would have a ton of friends and family and staff come out to support me.”