15-year-old Lydia Ko stands out
15-year-old Lydia Ko is not just going to be a tour de force of golf in the coming future; she is one now. Let us face it; she was the youngest player to win the Ladies Professional Golf
Association in the history of the Tour.
Ko is also the first amateur to make it big on the Tour too. And that is saying a lot.
An amateur winning on the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour? That is news that should not recede from our memories easily. Strangely enough, it has. Or it has not caught the attention
of the public’s eye the way it should have done.
It has been opinionated that the win, though historic, is celebrated in Kiwi circles alone. That does put a damper on things, considering the great potential Lydia Ko has.
At 15, and yet to turn professional, Lydia Ko has been exceedingly adaptive to the challenges of the game. What her greatest strength has been, however, is steady toil over the years and
not just sporadic bursts of energy followed by huge swaths of the year devoid of performance.
No, she is a rising star alright. At 14, she competed in the New South Wales Open, which she won. Following the New South Wales Open record win (which was smashed later on), in August she
clinched the Canadian Open trophy.
This young gun is just going from strength to strength. Her successes have secured for her investments worth well over $230,000. This public funding will be split over the next two years,
but, hey diddle diddle, that is one great way to turn professional.
Ko, originally from South Korea, and currently enrolled at the Pinehurst School in Auckland, held onto her youngest person to win a professional event record until it was broken by Japanese
Ryo Ishikawa.
Ishikawa was a year younger than Ko had been at the time of setting the record.
It looks like Lydia Ko has really stood out. She is New Zealand’s greatest golfing asset, not just for 2012; she may as well be the greatest woman golfer New Zealand has produced. Let us
watch.
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