Orlando, FLA. - If you follow junior golf, then you are certain to have come across the name Bella Dovhey. The sixteen-year old Orlando native has quite the impressive golf resume. In 2023 alone, she finished in the top-3 in each Florida Junior Tour event that she competed in, which included the 64th Girls’ Junior Championship. Dovhey made Team Florida for the third consecutive year for demonstrating not only an exceptional talent for the sport, but also for displaying and upholding the utmost standard of sportsmanship and etiquette. In addition, she captured a win at the 54-Hole Rio Pinar Junior Open and the Sunshine State Amateur. Not to mention, she also captured a win and a top-5 finish at her first two events played on the NXXT Women’s Professional Golf Tour.
Should we even start to list her accolades in 2022? To name a few, she captured six top-10 finishes in Florida Junior Tour events, advanced to the Round of 32 at the 93rd Women’s Amateur Championship, tack on another top-10 at the Women’s Dixie Amateur, and she competed in the Florida Women’s Open.
It is unmistakably evident that Dovhey has a talent for the game of golf, yet she does have another unique hobby that hides in the shadows of her golf accomplishments. A hobby turned business venture that has aided in her travel expenses for the sport that she loves so dearly; Dovhey finds and refurbishes golf balls to sell to the public and then uses the money she makes to pay for her golf expenses.
But let’s rewind to learn exactly how Dovhey embarked on this journey. Dovhey started in golf at four-years old when her father would bring her to the course where they lived every day. It began as purely a fun adventure, she only had a few clubs that she would play with. However, over time she became more serious about the sport and she fell in love with the game. She explains,
“I had a putter and a few other clubs and I loved just playing around with my dad. I began to get a little more serious and my dad would have me work on my fast twitch muscles, so I would always try to hit the ball as far as I could.”
Dovhey loved spending time on the course, even at night when she was not playing. She and her dad would set out almost every night to find golf balls, and they quickly found too many balls that they knew what to do with. Subsequently, the father and daughter decided to clean up the good ones and sell them. Dovhey, who lived on a par-3 with an island green, built a golf ball stand in her backyard. She states,
“We can’t keep up with the good balls, people buy them so quickly. Especially living on a par-3 with an island green, people will lose their balls in the water and then stop by my yard to buy more.”
Three years later, and Dovhey is using the money she has made selling used balls to pay for all of her international flights for tournaments around the world. Yes, you read that right. In 2023, Dovhey competed in the R & A Girls Amateur Championship in England, the German Girls Open, and the Italian International Ladies Amateur Championship. Dovhey explains how special her time in Europe is,
“This summer we went to Italy and brought my grandma who is 87 years old. She got to see all of her sisters and our family over there and it was such a cool experience.”
Dovhey certainly is creative when it comes to making money, and she has found a way to make it fun as well. She has big dreams of playing golf in college and then turning professional, but first she still has a bright junior and amateur career ahead of her. Look for her name on the FSGA leaderboard in 2024 as she says that she is most looking forward to playing in the 95th Women’s Amateur at the Bears Club. And if you are ever in need of a golf ball in Orlando, maybe you will come across Dovhey's golf ball stand located in her backyard.
