LaRee Sugg - Deputy Director of Athletics for Policy and Sports Management/Senior Woman Administrator/Chief of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - Women's Track & Field Support Staff

LaRee Sugg

Title:
Deputy Director of Athletics for Policy and Sports Management/Senior Woman Administrator/Chief of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Email:
lsugg@richmond.edu
Phone:
287-6371

Sugg joined the Spiders as the first head coach of Richmond Women's Golf in 2001 and has spent more than 20 years serving UR in a variety of coaching, administrative, and leadership roles. She now holds the titles of Deputy Athletics Director for Policy and Sports Management, Senior Woman Administrator, and Chief of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Sugg came to Richmond following a trailblazing playing career that saw her win a collegiate national championship and become the third African American woman to play on the LPGA Tour. In 1987, Sugg received the Amy Alcott Scholarship to attend the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). During her time there, she helped her team win the 1991 PAC-10 title as well as the 1991 NCAA Women's Golf Championship, when she made the winning birdie putt on the first hole of a 10-person sudden-death play-off. She earned All-American and All-Pac-10 accolades that year and also had the honor of representing the United States in the 1991 Shisedo Cup International Team Championships. Throughout her amateur career, Sugg competed in numerous prestigious amateur championships winning 3^rd place medalist honors in both the 1991 U.S. Women's Amateur Championship and U.S. Women's Public Links Championship.

Sugg graduated from UCLA with a degree in English in 1991 and turned professional. She competed on the LPGA Tour (1995-96, 2000-01), the Women's Professional Golfers European Tour (1992-1994), the Future's Ladies Golf Tour (1991-1994, 1997-1999), the Kosaido Ladies Asian Tour (1993, 1997) and various other mini tours. She qualified for six U.S. Women's Opens (1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2006) and four Women's British Opens (1995, 1996, 2000, 2001). Under the instruction of her husband, Paul McRae, she won the 1998 Aurora Health Futures Classic during a sudden death play-off. Her best finish on the LPGA Tour was an eighth-place result at the 2000 Wegman's Rochester International LPGA Golf Classic. Sugg was the third African American to play on the LPGA Tour, following Althea Gibson and Renee Powell.

Sugg was hired as Richmond's first Women's Golf Head Coach in 2001. One year later, she was named CAA Coach of the Year. In 2005, she switched to athletics administration, becoming Assistant Athletics Director/Senior Woman Administrator at UR. Sugg was promoted to Associate Athletics Director/Senior Woman Administrator in 2008, and in 2019 she was elevated to Deputy Director of Athletics.

For her record of achievement in golf and higher education, Sugg was inducted into the National Black Golf Hall of Fame in September 2023.

A native of Petersburg, Va., Sugg was introduced to golf at the age of six by her grandfather, the late Dr. James C. Nelson, Professor Emeritus at the Virginia State University. Under his tutelage, she was a four time Golf Magazine Junior All-American (1981, 1983-1985) winning over 30 junior titles including the North and South Junior and the Ohio State Junior Championships. At age 16, she qualified as an amateur to participate in the United VA Bank Golf LPGA Golf Classic in Portsmouth, VA.

Sugg was featured in Arthur Ashes' Hard Road to Glory, and Pete McDaniel's, Uneven Lies. She is the former national spokesperson for Epochs of Courage and Champions for Kids, Inc. She is a current member of the Petersburg Chapter of the Links, Inc. and the University of Richmond Chapel Guild.

Sugg attributes her success to the love of her family, especially that of her grandparents, the late James and Maggie Nelson, and her mother, Cynthia Nelson Sugg. She is married to Paul McRae, a PGA teaching golf professional at the Resorts of Pinehurst, and the son of Willie McRae, a 2004 inductee to the World Golf Caddie Hall of Fame. She is the proud mother of a son, James McRae.