THAT’S WHAT YOU CALL A SLICE
NOT even a severed finger could keep surging Gold Coast golfer Rebecca Kay down.
The in-form 19-year-old will represent Australia at the Queen Sirikit Cup teams event starting tomorrow in Thailand, just four months after she returned to the course. In October, Kay had the end of the middle finger on her left hand sliced off while holidaying in Hawaii and had to take the severed part with her to hospital to be reattached.
“I got it slammed in a car boot and it just sliced it off basically,” she recalled.
“I freaked out so much. I had never broken a bone before so I was pretty hysterical to say the least,” Kay said.
“It was only like half of the last knuckle so it was only like a centimetre but it has snapped the bone clean and that was off.”
The injury, which will never fully heal, sidelined her for several months before she made an early comeback at the Australian Master of the Amateurs in January.
Despite her finger still being broken, Kay was sixth and has been on an upward trend since.
In order to again win a Karrie Webb Scholarship, Kay needed to muster three consecutive event victories in March – The Riversdale Cup, the Rene Erichsen Salver and the Bowra & O’Dea Women’s Classic – and did so in style.
“I missed golf a lot,” she said of her successful return.
“I knew the month leading up to it I was playing good, I just needed to sort my putting out and everything came together and I just had the confidence that well, I won the last one, I can win this one and the same with the next one.”
Kay is part of a three-person Aussie team challenging for the Queen Sirikit Cup and said the team honours there outweigh individual prizes.
She will then head to Japan for a tour event before flying to the US where she will contest a number of tournaments and catch up with Webb.
“She is awesome. She is so down to earth but she has been my idol since I started golf so it’s a really cool experience,” Kay said of Webb. “I am super excited to do that again.”
Another trip to Japan may precede her return home.