Pilz Scholarship

George and Edith Pilz Memorial Scholarship

The United States Blind Golf Association is pleased to offer up to $5,000 in scholarship funding for the school year 2022 / 2023. This scholarship, established by the USBGA, is in memory of George and Edith Pilz. George and Edith were advocates for the advancement of blind and legally blind students. Our goal is to ensure that blind and legally blind students have an equal opportunity to participate and succeed in academic and athletic endeavors. The George and Edith Pilz Memorial Scholarship rewards outstanding high school and college students financial aid to assist with pursuing their career.

These scholarships are available to anyone who is blind or legally blind, as defined by the United States Social Security Administration (Understanding SSI – SSI Eligibility (ssa.gov)). Applicants must have at least a 2.0 GPA and show documentation of their visual acuity.

The scholarship may be used to attend a community college, vocational school or a four-year college.

Complete the application form and attach two (2) letters of recommendation, documentation of your visual acuity or visual field limitation and an unofficial school transcript. Please contact the Scholarship Committee with any questions you may have.

Scholarship recipients will be announced on (March 15, 2023).

Previous Winners

2023

Amanda Cunha

As a kid growing up in Hawai’i golf was a huge part of my life, I played in junior golf tournaments for different programs and organizations. In the summer between my junior and senior year of high school I lost the majority of my central vision. It was a struggle to learn how to adapt to being visually impaired and golf was an after thought. I also had to learn how to learn and still be a full time student at an IB high school. I had no exposure to anything related to people with disabilities, let alone a student with disabilities, so it was a trial and error to attempt to finish my senior year of high school. I also stopped golfing for a decent amount of time, only getting back into it with the encouragement of my dad and my family wanting me to be outside. When trying to figure out where I would go to college we were looking at a school to support me in my academic accommodations and we came across The University of Arizona’s Disability Resource Center. With that we also learned that they had an adaptive athletics program. I was amazed to find that there were other student athletes who went through hardships and were playing collegiate sports. I then wanted to play golf for that team, and so I practiced harder in my last year of high school. I decided to give it a try and play my senior year of high school golf. It was a challenge navigating how I would go about playing and my dad and I learned the rules that other visually impaired golfers played by.

After graduating high school I was excited to go to college. I am planning to be a Communication major and I’d potentially like to work with a golf organization. Some of my goals for the future is to connect with different schools for the blind and create opportunities for them to learn how to play golf, and if golf is not their thing then connecting them with people who can help them learn different sports and activities. I was fortunate enough as a child that I was put into a lot of different sports and activities, I want to give kids with visual impairments that same opportunity in a way that can help them be comfortable with themselves.

Skylar Pash Koehler

A graduate of Henry Clay High School in Lexington, Kentucky and is attending the University of Kentucky. Skylar participates in Central Kentucky Riding for Hope, she served as a camp counselor at Leader Dogs for the Blind and was recently elected chair of the Consumer Advisory Council of UK’s Human Development Institute. Skylar worked as social media assistant on the Transportation Initiative, a project supported by the Commonwealth Council on Developmental Disabilities last summer. She currently works weekends as a veterinary assistant at an equine hospital in Lexington. Skylar was a participant in the World Equestrian Games in 2010. In her spare time she enjoys horseback riding and trying new restaurants!