Sands Point Club golf pro raises $42K for cancer research

Rose Weldon
Brittany Ferrante of Huntington, who serves as director of junior golf at the Village Club of Sands Point, played 200 holes in 13 hours to raise $42,000 for the American Cancer Society. (Photo courtesy of the Sands Point Village Club)

Brittany Ferrante says she’ll always remember Sept. 14, 2020.

“It was one of the best days of my life,” she said in a phone interview. “It’s up there with the day I graduated from college and the day I played the Pebble Beach course.”

That was the day when Ferrante, an assistant golf professional and director of junior golf at the Village Club of Sands Point, played a marathon 200 holes in 13 hours to raise over $42,000 for the American Cancer Society through the club’s Babes Against Cancer Committee.

A native of Huntington, Ferrante first fell in love with the game as a child, learning to play in a program at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow.

She then played on the boys’ varsity team at Walt Whitman High School, and on the Division I team at the University of Hartford, where she graduated from in 2018 with a degree in elementary education.

“I’d worked at the club in college, they asked me if I’d like to come back once I graduated, and I said yes,” Ferrante said.

Since taking up the position permanently, Ferrante, 23, has been coaching younger players. She’s also participated in events fundraisers with the club’s Babes Against Cancer Committee.

When COVID-19 made a fundraiser impossible, Ferrante agreed to perform a marathon, with the date set for Sept. 14.

Sporting a white skirt and sneakers, pink socks, a pink polo, and a pink bow in her hair, Ferrante teed off at 6:20 a.m. on Monday morning.

Her original plan was to play 100 holes from sunrise to sunset, but as the day went on, she found that she was speeding up instead of slowing down, averaging four minutes per hole.

“Just before 7 p.m., I was told that I was close to 200 holes,” Ferrante said. “So I decided to play through.”

Shortly after completing her final hole, Ferrante hugged her dad, who had been among the group following her

“It meant so much to my dad to see it done,” Ferrante said. “He lost his mother to cancer when he was 17, and my other grandmother is a breast cancer survivor.

She says that over 70 members of the club have donated so far and that donations by the end of the week should total over $43,000.

As for her future, Ferrante says that in 2021 she’ll be taking a temporary job with the Professional Golf Association in Florida, but will return to Long Island, much to the delight of some of her younger students.

“One of my students said that the day I leave will be the day he gives up golf,” Ferrante said with a laugh.

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