Pratima Sherpa, who grew up in a shed on a golf course and became Nepal’s top-ranked female golfer, leads the way for a new generation of players in SoCal.

If your child has taken lessons with the SCGA Junior Golf Foundation, you may already know Pratima Sherpa. As the program manager for the San Fernando Valley, she develops and expands the program’s mission of making golf accessible to kids. But her journey to Southern California belies her warm smile, and you would never know it started 8,000 miles away at the Royal Nepal GC in Kathmandu.

For Sherpa, the Royal Nepal GC is a home course in more ways than one. It’s where her mother, Kalpana, and father, Pasang, met and fell in love as employees. She spent her early childhood there, tagging along as Kalpana maintained the course and Pasang worked security. Then, when Pratima was five, the course manager asked if the family wanted to move into a maintenance shed to care for the equipment stored inside. The walls were cinder blocks and the roof was corrugated metal, but they would live rent-free.

Pasang thought it was a “great opportunity,” but Pratima was unsure.

“Back then, the golf course was a jungle. It was so scary to live inside,” she says.

Wild animals lurked nearby — she lost a pet dog to a leopard — and walking to the detached bathroom at night to brush her teeth felt frightening. The living space was about 200 square feet, including a kitchen, and the family ate their meals on the floor.

But this new house offered a view of the third hole, a par 3, where Pratima could watch golfers from tee to green, fostering her curiosity for the game.

Using a wooden branch that Pasang shaped into a club, Pratima began mimicking the members’ swing. That got her noticed by the president of the Nepal Golf Association (NGA). “She has a beautiful swing,” she recalled him saying, and he invited her to a junior golf camp. But another obstacle presented itself. She was left-handed, and clubs were hard to come by. Her coaches made her switch hands.

“It was easy for me,” she says, rather nonchalantly. “I know I was confused, but it took me maybe a week.”

At 11, with a bag of mixed clubs, she won her first tournament. She began dominating the junior events, so she started competing against adults. By 16, she was Nepal’s top-ranked female golfer. At 17, she had won 33 tournaments and played in a NGA Q-School event, as the only woman in the field.

She was offered scholarships for school. The NGA gifted her a full bag of PING clubs. Doors were opening, quite literally, and she was introduced to the Montano family, in Ventura, California, who offered to host her while she competed in junior tournaments against Division 1-level golfers. She played in five events, winning one.

She enrolled at Santa Barbara City College, joining the golf team, and was recognized as the Women’s College Golfer of the Year by the Santa Barbara Athletic Roundtable. At 19, she competed on the Symetra Tour (Epson Tour). She was on a pro trajectory — but then the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
“A lot of people were dying, and I was away
from my parents,” Pratima remembers. “I was like, ‘I need to take care of my parents. I need to find a better way.’”

She transferred to Cal State L.A. to play golf and get her degree, but her perspective had shifted. The pressures and financial risks of the pro dream felt daunting. Her coach found out that she was passionate about mentorship and suggested coaching in America. This was new to Pratima; in Nepal, a golf career meant going pro, or nothing.

“When he mentioned coaching, I was so happy. I felt like I had been looking for something and found it,” she shares.

That led her to SCGA Junior, where she finds a personal connection helping kids who need financial assistance to play golf.

She plans to compete, and she recently played in the Himalayan Open Golf tournament at Red Hawk Ridge GC in Colorado. To her, playing is a way to proudly represent Nepal, especially in light of the devastating floods in August 2026.

“I love Nepal and it breaks my heart,” she says.

It’s why her new dream may eventually bring her back to where it started.

“My biggest dream is to open the Pratima Sherpa Golf Academy back in Nepal,” she says. “And I think I’m on the right path.”