When Carla Bernat Escuder walks across the stage at Sunday's Card Ceremony at Indian Wells Golf Resort, the moment won't belong to her alone.

Her parents are flying 16 hours from Spain to watch her receive her 2027 LPGA Tour card. Back home, her brother is starting his second year of medical school, with help from his sister that he doesn't know about yet.

Bernat Escuder has quietly been putting part of her Epson Tour earnings toward her brother's medical school tuition. Those same earnings are what made her parents' trip to the desert possible.

The decision goes back to the start of the season. Bernat Escuder didn’t know if a first year on the Epson Tour was going to include a win, but she made herself a promise that whatever she earned would go toward the people who got her here.

"Obviously this year is not a year of making big money or anything, but all I make was going to help everybody in my family," she said. "It is my work, but my parents and even my brother have helped me get here, so I need to be grateful. They gave so much when I was a kid, so much time and effort, that now I need to give back to them when I can."

Her brother has known what he wanted to be for almost as long as Bernat Escuder has been playing golf. The calling came early, and it came from a family moment.

"He knew since he was four or five, super young, that he wanted to be a doctor," she said. "I think my grandma had a problem when we were kids and we were alone with her, and I think he got inspired by the doctors who took care of her."

He wants to work in emergency medicine and urgent care, and he just started his second year of medical school in Spain.

He also has no idea his sister is helping pay for it. That's by design.

"I'm a very quiet kind of person. If I do gifts, I'd rather them not know," Bernat Escuder said. "Whenever you tell somebody you're doing this, they feel like they need to give back to you, or like they're in debt. So I just want him to know that I'm there without really knowing it."

She does plan to tell him eventually, with a smile. "When I'm older, I'll tell him. I'll be like, 'You remember that? Now take care of me.'"

On the course, Bernat Escuder has rewarded that family support. The native of Castellón de la Plana, Spain, won the 2025 Augusta National Women's Amateur and played college golf at Tulane and Kansas State before turning professional last August.

In her first Epson Tour season, she shared the lead at the IOA Championship in April and led the Reliance Matrix Championship presented by Epson after the first round in May. On Sept. 14, she broke through at the Guardian Championship in Prattville, Alabama, for her first professional title.

She arrives at the Epson Tour Championship fifth on the Race for the Card. For the first time all year, she can exhale.

"I didn't think I was going to have it fully secured," she said. "My life normally, I always need to do well at the very end. It's never relaxing. So this is a very nice place to be in my mind. I feel like I achieved all I wanted to achieve this season, so now I get to just play relaxed golf."

Her brother won't be in Indian Wells on Sunday. He's staying in Spain to focus on his classes, where the stakes are financial as well as academic.

"I wish he could be here, but he's putting so much time into making sure he passes all his classes, because if he doesn't pass, we need to pay extra, too," she said. "But it's so nice that my dad and my mom are flying 16 hours just to come see me play golf. I don't know how I'll play. I hope I play good for them, but I'm going to be so happy."

For a player who spent the season an ocean away from home, the payoff is a reminder of why the hard stretches were worth it. It's also the message she hopes other international players take from her story.

"All the bad moments when you feel alone and you wish maybe you were with your high school friends and your family and all your cousins, yeah, they're hard," Bernat Escuder said. "But you just have to get through those moments, because the big thing that you're chasing, you're going to get there. Just make sure the bad moments are little compared to the good moments."

The 2026 Epson Tour Championship runs Oct. 1-4 on the Players Course at Indian Wells Golf Resort. The top 15 players on the final Race for the Card earn LPGA Tour membership for 2027 and will be honored at the Card Ceremony following the final round.

For Carla Bernat Escuder, an LPGA Tour Card Is a Family Achievement

Related Articles