When their firstborn Ethan was 6 months old, Matt and Jerlyn Shepherd moved to a house on the 18^th fairway at Dye’s Walk Country Club in Greenwood, Indiana. It’s the course Matt grew up on, and the back nine happens to be the first nine holes Pete Dye ever designed.   

Matt strapped a car seat to their family golf cart so that Ethan could join him. Erica came along two years later.

When Erica was old enough to hold a club, Matt put a bucket of range balls between his two kids and had Erica hold her plastic yellow club from the left side. He figured if the siblings were facing each other, they wouldn’t accidentally whack each other with a club.

That’s how Erica Shepherd, who is right-handed in every other way, became a left-handed golfer.

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This season, 25-year-old Shepherd will debut as an LPGA rookie boasting two distinctions: the tour’s only lefty and only Indiana native. The last Indiana native to earn an LPGA card was former Big Ten champion Danah Bordner in 2011.

“It is crazy because there’s so many guys that are lefty,” said Shepherd of her distinction. “I mean, there are so many people on tour that I’m sure are left-handed. There’s got to be at least like 10 percent of the tour has to be, like, naturally.”

On Monday, Erica and her parents will attend the College Football Playoff National Championship game in Miami to watch their beloved Hoosiers. Matt is a 1985 Indiana graduate, and the family has had basketball season tickets for 37 years and football season tickets for 22 years. The Bloomington campus is only 45 minutes from their house. (Mom graduated from Purdue.)

“Oh my gosh, this is just un-,  people don’t understand,” said Erica. “I was pretty much raised going to IU sporting events and the football games were just sad. … so this is incredible.”

Erica’s dedication to golf is a familiar tale. Like many younger siblings, she wanted to be like her older brother. And Ethan wasn’t about to let her win, either. Matt says his son always found an extra gear when playing against his sister.

“When they went out to play,” said Matt, “we knew someone was going to come back unhappy.”

Erica never felt burnout in golf because the Indiana winters forced her to put her clubs away. She played tennis, basketball, soccer and raised sheep for 4-H with Ethan.

Oreo, Daisy, Petunia. The sheep taught Erica a deep level of responsibility and a respect for the life her mother’s parents built on the family farm. When it came time to show the sheep at the county fair, she’d sleep in the pen.

On the basketball court, Erica was the first one on the floor diving after a loose ball. The talented, aggressive guard ultimately stopped playing after her freshman year, in part, to avoid serious injury. In choosing Duke and winning the 2017 U.S. Girls’ Junior, she followed in the footsteps of her mentor, longtime family friend Leigh Anne Creavy (nee Hardin), who is a member of both the Indiana Basketball and Golf halls of fame.

“I was her flower girl,” said Erica. “My middle name is Leigh, Erica Leigh after her, and she picked my first name.”

Erica graduated from Duke in 2023 while her brother played collegiate golf at Indiana University. Ethan now works in auditing at Ernst and Young in Cleveland, Ohio, where his fiancée is in medical school.

After a sparkling amateur career, professional golf hit hard. Erica missed the cut in her first seven events on the Epson Tour in 2024 after developing a bad case of the shanks.

“Those two years on the Epson Tour just tested every ounce of mental toughness and faith that I think I’ve had,” she said. “I mean, like amateur golf, junior golf, college golf was all just such a high. There was really nothing to worry about, nothing to lose. … But then on the Epson Tour, I mean, it’s obviously a very lonely life, like, it’s great too, but very lonely.”

She set out to find someone new to look at her swing and began working with Patrick Bedingfield at Bethesda Country Club in Maryland. The diagnosis: Her swing had gotten too flat.

“Since I started working with Pat, I didn’t hit another shank,” she said.

In addition to Bedingfield and her parents, of course, Erica credits her dog, Cody, with helping her through the darkness. He came on the scene in late 2024.

In her second season on the Epson Tour, Shepherd won the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout in Arkansas for her first professional title. In December, she headed to the final stage of LPGA Q-School for the first time, where the cold and rainy conditions must have felt somewhat familiar to all those years growing up at Dye’s Walk.

Weather shortened the 90-hole event to 72 and when Shepherd came back for the final day of play on Tuesday, she only had seven holes left to complete. A frost delay gave her even more time to think about what needed to be done. She was in tears driving to the golf course as she thought about ending the day with her LPGA card.

 “On the last hole, I had like a 5-foot par putt to kind of seal the deal, and I kind of felt like that was one of the biggest putts of my life, and I just knew I had to make it,” said Shepherd, who made birdies on two of her last five holes to make the cut on the number.

“I’ve always played my best when I know what I need to do.”

Shepherd lives in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and plays out of Hobe Sound Golf Club with LPGA players Brooke Matthews and Lauren Hartlage. She could make her rookie debut in China at the Blue Bay LPGA on Hainan Island in March. If that doesn’t work out, she’s hoping to get into the Fortinet Founders Cup later that month in California.

A goal-oriented, cerebral player, Shepherd isn’t shy about what she wants to accomplish in the game. Since the age of 7, she’s said that she wants to win every major, and that desire hasn’t changed. This year, she has her sights set on Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year honors.

When golf became unbearably hard not too long ago, Shepherd questioned whether or not professional golf was really her path. She found herself imagining that she had her down daughter one day, and wondered which would make her prouder.

If she gave up her dream and made the courageous decision to pursue something else? Or if she stuck to her dream, trusted God and gave it everything she had?

She decided on the latter.

“I just trusted that there was a purpose in the pain,” said Shepherd. “Throughout my whole life, that’s always been the case. There’s never been pain that I haven’t been able to see a greater purpose, and I just continued to trust that.”

MIAMI — When Indiana rolled past Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bowl, it wasn’t Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza or dynamic receiver Elijah Sarratt who was named MVP.

Instead, it was center Pat Coogan — one of the five men on the offensive line Mendoza affectionately calls his “Hoggies.” They are responsible for keeping the QB upright and maximizing opportunities for Indiana’s skill players.

It was the first time since 1944 that an offensive lineman — typically overlooked and underappreciated — won MVP at the Granddaddy of Them All, and Mendoza was overjoyed when he heard the news.

With Indiana hoping to make more history in Monday night’s College Football Playoff title game against Miami, Mendoza and his teammates believe the secret to the Hoosiers’ success can be found in the trenches — even though only one player, left tackle Carter Smith, gets much buzz as an NFL prospect.

“I would die for those guys,” Mendoza said Saturday. “Those guys put their bodies on the line to protect myself or the running backs every single play, and it means so much to not only have great skill and talent but also great character. … It’s just such a special connection that we have with each other.”

Mendoza has thrown for 3,349 yards, 41 touchdowns and only six interceptions while completing 73% of his passes. He’s been praised for his accuracy and decision-making, but he says it’s the protection that makes his success possible.

“Without those guys, I wouldn’t be able to do it. With them, I’m able to get through my entire progression,” Mendoza said. “I think that’s why my completion percentage has been so high, because I haven’t really had to throw the ball away much, just because they’ve been efficient up front. Also, I have such great teammates, such great receivers, tight ends, running backs … the offensive line, I just get to be a point guard.”

Roman Hemby, who leads the Hoosiers with 1,060 rushing yards, came to a similar conclusion.

“The offensive line is really great,” Hemby said. “I feel like we wouldn’t be in this position without them, without them protecting Fernando, without them opening up holes to kind of make it easy for myself and Kaelon Black to run. Without them, I don’t think I would have the success that I’m having.”

Indiana (15-0) is seeking the program’s first national title, having dominated its two CFP opponents by a combined score of 94-25. Meanwhile, Miami (13-2) squeaked into the playoff and knocked off Texas A&M, defending champ Ohio State and Mississippi en route to the championship game — and the Hurricanes can thank a standout defense for their improbable run.

Miami has an FBS-high 47 sacks, two more than Indiana. Ahkeem Mesidor leads the team with 15 1/2 tackles for loss, 10 1/2 sacks and four forced fumbles. Rueben Bain Jr. has 13 tackles for loss, 8 1/2 sacks, an interception and a forced fumble.

Coogan acknowledged the challenge ahead.

“It’s an elite front. Across the board, their front four is just extremely explosive,” Coogan said. “Certainly, you know, just the caliber of players on the outside and the inside — just across the board, just extremely violent, twitchy, explosive, long, great with their hands, great at working an edge.”

For Indiana, finishing its season with a championship will mean doing what it’s done all year, even against traditional powers like Alabama: winning the battle in the trenches.

“It all starts up front with those guys,” offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan said, “and we’re going to need them to have a big game for us on Monday night.”

Chris McKeon, the athletic director at Columbus High School (Florida) — home of the Explorers — understands the magnitude of having seven people representing the school when Miami and Indiana square off in the CFP National Championship game Monday.

What he didn’t anticipate was that those connections would prompt others to assume game tickets would magically appear on his desk.

“Oh man, they’re coming from everywhere thinking I have ’em,” McKeon said. “I’ve got no better chance at getting a ticket to that game than anyone else. We’re just proud to be so well represented on such a big stage.”

The school is 5 miles from the University of Miami and 20 miles from Hard Rock Stadium.

Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza is among the five players who once patrolled the gridiron for the Explorers, in addition to Miami head coach Mario Cristobal and Miami assistant head coach Alex Mirabal.

All five players won a state title at Columbus, including the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and his brother, Hoosiers backup quarterback Alberto Mendoza. Miami rounds out the quintet of ex-Explorers with defensive back Bryce Fitzgerald, offensive lineman Ryan Rodriguez and backup quarterback Vinny Gonzalez.

Further strengthening the Explorers’ CFP title game connection, Cristobal and Mendoza’s father, Fernando Sr., were teammates at Columbus.

The web of south Florida connections doesn’t stop there.

Another Miami-area program is also tied to the CFP title game. Miami quarterback Carson Beck’s high school team, the Mandarin Mustangs, defeated Columbus in the 2018 Florida 8A state championship game — a matchup that included Mario Cristobal’s nephew Luis Cristobal Jr. on the field for the Explorers.

One year later, the Explorers reclaimed the title, winning the state championship with Indiana’s current quarterback on the roster.

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“It’s pretty cool to have that many ties to the national title game,” Columbus football coach Dave Dunn said. “I coached all five of our players in the game. Coach Cristobal’s sons are on our team. I worked with Coach Mirabal at Columbus and Marshall, and I had three of his nephews play for me. It’s like a family. It’s going to be fun to watch.”

Dunn is not just saying that because he managed to score a ticket to the game. He has already committed to walking into Hard Rock Stadium decked out in Columbus gear.

“I was lucky enough through connections to get a ticket, so it’ll be a fun experience,” Dunn said. “Of course, that just makes more people ask for tickets, but we’re having a watch party, so that helps.”

Fans will be able to watch the Canes and the Hoosiers on the Explorers’ scoreboard at the football field with no concern about a potential late-night finish because Columbus will close for students in observance of the big game.

“They can stay up late and enjoy the game and not have to worry about coming to school the next day,” McKeon said. “The president and the principal thought it would be a nice thing to do for everybody because of our involvement.”

On the flip side, it’s because of Columbus’ involvement that McKeon and Dunn can’t — for the life of them — choose a side.

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Dunn likened it to picking a favorite child, while McKeon said relationships alone “won’t even let me go down that road of rooting for a particular team.”

“Ties are too close, too deep,” McKeon said. “The best part is that at the end of the game, whether it’s the Canes or the Hoosiers, it’ll be the Explorers. This is the one game we here at Columbus can’t lose, and that’s a game we’re all excited about.”