With just a semester left in her collegiate career, Kaiyuree Moodley is pondering life after university. Having been based in North Carolina for the better part of four years, the temptation to stay in the United States and play her way through the feeder tours to the LPGA Tour is strong. However, Moodley is leaning in a different direction

“I’ll be coming home to turn pro,” she says. “The cost of Q-School in the States is really expensive and I feel like there will be less pressure if I start my professional career in familiar surroundings. I’ll play on the Sunshine Ladies Tour and in the Standard Bank Series, on familiar courses and against players I know.

“There’s something of a safety net in this and I know that one day I’ll be good enough to come back to the US and compete on the LPGA Tour.”

If the plan sounds sensible, it’s because Moodley is blessed with a wise head on her young shoulders. She chalks this down to her time in the green and gold blazer.

“I think maturity has always been a strength of mine,” she says. “I’ve been representing South Africa and GolfRSA from a young age and I think all the travel and juggling of schoolwork makes you grow up a lot faster.”

Moodley’s travels have taken her all across the world, including a prized trip to Argentina in 2018 as part of the South African squad that competed at the Summer Youth Olympics. She finished a creditable tie-22nd.

For the past four years, the 23-year-old from Johannesburg has made a home for herself at Charlotte, North Carolina, emerging as a natural leader within the school’s golf team. Despite many individual wins and accolades, she refers mainly to the team environment when talking about her career.

“My teammates are my closest friends,” she explains. “I live with some of them and we travel most weekends as a team to play at tournaments. We all eat, breathe and sleep golf but it’s also given me the opportunity to learn about other cultures from them.

“Golf is an individual sport, but I also know I am playing for my teammates – they make me want to practise harder and play better so that I can make the team better.”

Moodley will graduate with a degree in International Business, majoring in economics and finance. Sensibly, this is something she knows she can fall back on should her pro career not work out.

“It’s my backup plan,” she says. “You never know if your career is going to be cut short by injury or if you can’t play for whatever reason.”

Given how much her game has improved since she moved to the US, there’s every chance she won’t have a job behind a desk. She has worked hard to pick up some important distance and even her short game – a real strength of her play – has improved in her four years at Charlotte.

This has all resulted in a huge leap forward in her results, with Moodley racking up no fewer than nine top-10 finishes in 2023, including two wins.

“My consistency has definitely improved,” she says. “I’ve been getting myself into contention to win more often and that has helped boost my self-confidence. Getting the two wins last semester has instilled a belief that I have what it takes.

“The competition is so strong here,” she continues. “It’s something I probably wasn’t ready for when I first came over, but it’s forced me to work even harder and improve my game. The lifestyle of the student athlete is very different to what I was used to in South Africa, but I can definitely say I’m a better golfer and I have a lot more confidence in my ability.”