Carlee Shoemaker was playing the best golf of her life.
As a senior at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Ky., Shoemaker made her presence known. She won five tournaments, shot a five-under 67 at the Heritage Hill Collegiate (the lowest single round in program history), finished T-16 at the NAIA National Championship and broke the UC record for single-season stroke average at 74.21.
A three-time All Mid-South Conference first-team selection and two-time All-American, she was ready to take the next step with the aspirations of going professional. Thanks to an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID pandemic that shortened her junior season, Shoemaker transferred to Eastern Kentucky University, an NCAA Division I program in the Atlantic Sun Conference, for the 2021-22 season.
“I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself,” Shoemaker said. “I just wanted to perform and I wanted to prove to myself I could do this. I had one year left so I said, ‘I want to win this, I want to win that.’
“And, in reality, I shouldn’t have done that.”
Not only was she putting unnecessary pressure on herself to succeed at a higher level but she felt the extra weight of not wanting to let down her growing social media following. Away from school during the height of the pandemic, Shoemaker, like many others, spent as much time as she could on the golf course. Luckily for her, her family lived on Central City Country Club in Central City, Ky., where she was able to not only hone her craft but begin her budding content creation career.
Having amassed a following by showcasing the ups and downs of the game while leveraging trending sounds and songs into golf-related videos, Shoemaker’s most successful video recorded a day in the life of a collegiate golfer ahead of a tournament. It garnered 706,100 views on TikTok.
“A lot of the competitive golfers you see on social media always show perfect golf and it never feels like they make a mistake so I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m a good player sometimes but sometimes I’ll hit five shanks in a row and make a triple and I’m going to show that.’ So showing that golf is real and people are real.
“I also like to go into fashion stuff. I love golf clothes, I love golf shoes and kind of inspiring women. Being a positive light in the golf community by being a real girl, being a real golfer and just showing that.”
While her season as a graduate student at EKU wasn’t what she hoped for, she still loved the game deeply, thanks in part to the support of family, friends, coaches and followers.
Initial Attraction
Shoemaker didn’t grow up with aspirations of becoming a professional golfer. Her parents, Wade and Peggy, played baseball and basketball, respectively, so Carlee’s initial priorities were basketball and softball. Golf came later despite her family moving to the community surrounding Central City Country Club when she was very young.
After seeing her sister Breanna become more involved in golf, Carlee began to take the gamemore seriously. It wasn’t until midway through her high school career that she began getting lessons to complement working on her swing with her father while watching YouTube videos.
“My swing was pretty much all self-taught,” Shoemaker said. “I don’t think I realized how much goes into a golf swing and I fell in love with studying my swing, figuring out what was wrong, researching and seeing all the ends being tied together. It was such a big challenge for me. Then being able to see all the work I was putting in coming to life on the golf course and actually improving, I was like, ‘This is so much fun.’”
As she grew in confidence and her scores shrank, Shoemaker began thinking of her future. Noticing girls on her team committing to colleges and universities, Shoemaker planned for her next step, securing a spot on the team at the University of the Cumberlands.
A New Career
She has since fallen back in love with golf after the grind of competitive collegiate golf as evidenced by her video series titled Falling in Love With Golf Again. Shoemaker has leveraged her social media success—102,900 followers and 1.7 million likes on TikTok and 77,300 followers on Instagram—to a new career path around the game.
Shoemaker worked with the NCAA on content and coverage around the Division I men’s and women’s golf national championships in Arizona as well as with NBC Sports and Golf Channel for the 2023 Solheim Cup in Spain. While she wasn’t offering analysis of the action on the course, Shoemaker was giving viewers behind-the-scenes access to the tournaments by interviewing fans, starters and volunteers about the action and atmosphere.
“I wasn’t expecting (those opportunities) at all but I don’t think I could be any more grateful for them because they really opened up doors for me and showed me another side of golf and another golf career I didn’t picture myself in,” she said. “… I would love to keep doing stuff like that in the future.”
As she continues to post content that highlights golf fashion as well as encourages more women to play the game through work with brands like DICK’S Sporting Goods and PGA TOUR Superstore, Shoemaker, who has a master’s degree in business, has her sights set on a new venture in the future.
“I want to start a golf business here soon, maybe in the next year or two, so that’s something to look out for. I’ve been thinking about doing shoes. I don’t know how easy that will be for me but I love golf shoes and my last name is Shoemaker. I think it makes perfect sense.”
Michael LoRé 