Old Barnwell caddie earns full Evans Scholarship to college

A teenage caddie at Old Barnwell, a private club in Aiken, S.C., has been awarded a full Evans Scholarship, a needs-based award that will cover her tuition, room and board for four years at the University of South Carolina.

Who is Daniella Penaloza?

Penaloza took up caddying at Old Barnwell after a stretch of family hardship: her father died suddenly in November 2022, an uncle became quadriplegic and her grandfather was diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer in the same period. She had stepped away from golf entirely after her father's death before a former swing coach told her the new club up the road was hiring student caddies and paying well. Caddiemaster Alex Beegle hired her without knowing her backstory, and she quickly built a reputation among members as an unusually capable looper for her age. Beegle has said he could tell she would be good for the job from her first Saturday morning shift, before he learned anything about what she had been through. Members began asking specifically for her, and within about a year she had become one of the program's standout caddies despite standing just five-foot-three next to a caddie yard mostly made up of teenage boys.

How did she end up in contention for the scholarship?

Old Barnwell's caddie program, built around local Aiken teenagers rather than career caddies, is designed, in founder Nick Schreiber's words, to benefit the caddie. As Penaloza's standing at the club grew, a member she calls Barry gave her free tickets to the final round of the Augusta National Women's Amateur after learning about her caddying work. She was later elected captain of her high school golf team.

The scholarship path opened when Penaloza's mother planned to relocate to California before her senior year of high school. Rather than leave Aiken, Penaloza stayed and lived with a friend's family. Ed Brockner, Old Barnwell's mission director and a former decade-long staffer with the First Tee, told her about the club's push to get its standout caddies into the Evans Scholarship program, a fund that pays for caddies' full college costs.

What happens in an Evans Scholarship interview?

Penaloza's final interview took place on March 4, 2026, in front of a chapter of scholarship officials and local golf figures. Applicants are asked to explain what the scholarship would mean to them and their families, a question organizers say reveals the most about a candidate's character.

It would feel like, oh my god, it really did pay off.

Three days later, a package confirming the award arrived by mail at her old address in Aiken. Back at Old Barnwell, Beegle and the rest of the caddie yard, the ones who had watched her build her reputation from scratch, greeted her with the club's version of a formal honor: a royal blue bib given to Evans Scholarship recipients at a ceremony held for her. She began her freshman year at the University of South Carolina this week, one of roughly 7,800 incoming students, pursuing a degree in occupational therapy, and says she plans to keep picking up loops at Old Barnwell whenever she is back in town.

The LoopGolf angle

Old Barnwell is a private club and isn't part of LoopGolf's bookable inventory. Its pipeline from local caddie yard to a fully-funded scholarship is a reminder that caddie programs at private clubs can carry stakes well beyond a single summer job, and it's worth asking any club with a caddie program whether a similar scholarship track exists.