For most players in the field this week at the Wildhorse Ladies Golf Classic, the road to Wildhorse Golf Course ran through a Race for the Card standing. For three, it ran through an HBCU campus in Baton Rouge, a collegiate all-star field in Houston and a sisterhood built on a Carter Cup trophy.

Salma Ibrahim, Alexis Faieta and Alexa Phung are competing this week thanks to the Epson Tour's MVP Invites/Exemptions program, which since 2021 has partnered with events including The John Shippen, the Mack Champ Invitational, the PGA WORKS Collegiate Championship and the National Women's Collegiate Golf Championship to open doors into LPGA and Epson Tour fields for women and girls from diverse backgrounds.

Representing Southern, and Something Bigger

Ibrahim arrives at Wildhorse off a breakout stretch: SWAC Freshman of the Year and SWAC Individual Champion in 2025, followed by medalist honors at the 2026 National Women's Collegiate Golf Championship — the exemption that punched her ticket into this week's field. A sophomore at Southern University, an HBCU, Ibrahim said the biggest shift this season has been mental.

“It's about finding my momentum and being able to stay calm,” she said, describing how she tunes out the expectations that come with early success. “Knowing that those expectations are simply expectations, not a rule you have to follow, helps me stay on the same rhythm the entire round.”

That calm, she said, is rooted in where she found her game. Ibrahim grew up competing in junior golf around a diverse pocket of Los Angeles but said she didn't feel fully at home in the sport until she got to Southern.

“I kind of felt like an outsider my whole life playing golf,” she said. “When I got to my HBCU, I felt like I was at home, and that's when I really started to play well.”

Back home, Ibrahim teaches golf to kids, including camps for young girls, and said representing Southern and SWAC golf on a national-caliber field this week carries weight beyond her own scorecard — a chance, in her words, to show that HBCU golfers “belong in golf, and that we play good golf.”

A Family Blueprint

Phung's path to Wildhorse ran through Houston, where she earned her exemption at the Mack Champ Invitational — a trip that doubled as a visit with her older sister. It's a fitting detail for a golf journey Phung describes as a shared one: her sister won the inaugural Carter Cup girls title before Phung captured it herself this year.

“She's kind of been like a coach to me, and also a mentor,” Phung said of her sister. “We've just kind of grown together — we've always competed together.”

Phung called the opportunity to tee it up at Wildhorse “a dream,” a chance to get an early look at the next level of the game she and her sister have chased together.

A Summer She'd Been Waiting For

Faieta rounds out the trio, earning her way in by winning the individual title at the 2026 PGA WORKS Collegiate Championship — a result that came together, she said, almost by accident. Her UNCW team had just finished second at conference and advanced to regionals, leaving the group “a little bummed out” before Faieta turned her attention to the PGA WORKS field.

“I was really just there to have fun — it's such a fun event,” Faieta said. “I was playing really relaxed, and then I ended up winning it and getting the exemption for this event, which made it even cooler.”

Faieta said she'd been looking forward to Wildhorse all summer, having watched professional events without ever playing in one — and recognizing a number of players in the field from her junior golf days.

A sophomore at UNC Wilmington, Faieta pointed to her freshman year — during which she posted a season-low 215 at the Clemson Invitational — as the foundation for the confidence she's carrying into this week. The biggest adjustment, she said, was simply the grind of college golf.

“It was just adjusting from junior golf to the college team environment — how much we practiced, and traveling so much too,” she said. “I slowly got less nervous and more confident. That's what I'm carrying into this sophomore year.”

Faieta expected the jump into a field mixing professional talent to feel like a bigger leap than it has. Paired Thursday morning with fellow exemption recipient Alexa Phung and another player, Brooke, she found plenty of common ground.

“I thought it would feel a lot more different, but I played this morning with two girls, Alexa and Brooke, and they were so kind — everyone's kind of my age, so it really isn't too different,” Faieta said. “It's just the same kind of golf, with the players at a little bit higher level.”

The free food and the postcard backdrop of Wildhorse Golf Course, she added with a laugh, are “just a level up.”

A Program Built to Widen the Field

Together, Ibrahim, Phung and Faieta reflect the broader aim behind the Epson Tour's exemption program: giving amateurs and professionals from all backgrounds a route into professional fields that might otherwise be out of reach.

For all three, that route leads to Wildhorse Golf Course this week — and, they hope, to more chances beyond it.

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