The Assistant Professional at Ballarat Golf Club in Victoria for the past seven years, Tatt has been selected to represent the PGA of Australia at the Women’s PGA Cup in New Mexico later this month.

It is a path to playing on the world stage that she has dreamed of since she was a junior at Buninyong Golf Club and which has been inspired by family throughout.

Angela’s father, Chris Tatt, represented Australia at the 1983 Sloan Morpeth Trophy and won the 2009 Victorian Senior Amateur Championship. Angela herself was a member of the Victorian state squad and in 2005 was the Victorian Country Champion and Victoria Golf Club Women’s Club Champion.

After completing high school, Tatt spent a year doing little more than playing golf.

Her progress led to victories in amateur events and the suggestion by a family friend that she could forge a career as a PGA Professional, a nudge that would prove to be life-changing.

At the age of 20 she began her PGA training under Phil Hodge at Portarlington Golf Club on the Bellarine Peninsula but her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis necessitated a move closer to home.

Tatt continued under Michael Cooke at Midlands Golf Club, revelling in the pro shop environment and interaction with – generally – happy members.

But playing competitively runs deep in the Tatt bloodlines.

Which is why, when you ask her what it means to represent Australia at the Women’s PGA Cup, there is so much emotion lying just beneath the surface.

“I’m going to get emotional straight away,” answers Tatt, whose brother Travis is currently undertaking the Membership Pathway Program at Ballarat.

“To represent your country as a golfer, there are very few opportunities to do that.

“This is huge for me.”

Tatt began to play pro-ams after commencing the PGA traineeship. Towards the end of her three years, Tatt shot four-under to win the Castle Hill Country Club Pro-Am on the Australian Ladies Professional Golf circuit.

That paved the way to play in the 2009 Women’s Australian Open and 2009 Australian Ladies Masters, tournaments won by Laura Davies and Katherine Kirk respectively.

Yet an experience at the LPGA’s Duramed Futures Tour Qualifying School later that year – where she says she “mentally blew up” – challenged Tatt’s passion for playing.

She returned to her retail position at The Good Guys in Ballarat, completed a Diploma in Management and was on the verge of opening a franchise of her own.

And then golf came calling.

A chance dinner with the David Wallis, Head Professional at Ballarat Golf Club, and the recent departure of his resident Teaching Professional presented an opportunity to return to her first love.

“I rang my parents and talked it through,” Tatt said of once again utilising her PGA qualifications.

“I had a mortgage on my own so it was a big risk to take financially.

“By the end of the weekend I had accepted the job.”

For the past seven years Tatt has been an active promoter of women in golf in the Ballarat region, a position she hopes to advance through her participation in the second iteration of the Women’s PGA Cup.

“The thing I am most looking forward to is the networking. Really picking the brains of all the other girls,” Tatt adds.

“Everyone has got so many different ideas and we all learn so much about golf and what we can do to develop the game when we’re all in it together, no matter where we are in the world.

“I’m definitely an advocate for women in golf – that’s my main thing in Ballarat – so I just can’t wait for that part of it.

“And to play with some of the girls that, back in the day, you used to play with, it’s like getting the old band back together.

“It means a hell of a lot.”

Tatt will tee it up alongside Anne-Marie Knight, Nicole Martino, Katelyn Must and Paige Stubbs at Twin Warriors Golf Club in New Mexico October 24-29. The field, comprised of teams from six world PGAs, will compete in a 54-hole strokeplay format, with each team’s lowest three scores counted after each round.