Only the good try young
At 12, Liu processes eye-opening glimpse of what lies ahead
AURORA— She bends down, almost kneeling as if in prayer, and carefully pokes her tee into the turf. With both hands.
Needs to put all her weight into it, you see.
Michelle Liu is that tiny. The remarkable part is that about 30 seconds later, she takes her driver and wallops the ball high into the sparkling August morning sky, more than 200 yards down the fairway.
On Friday, that often still left her 60 to 80 yards behind playing partners Austin Ernst and Jennifer Kupcho in the second round of the CP Women’s Open. Then again, they’re full-time players on the LPGA Tour: Ernst is 27, Kupcho 22.
Liu is just 12, the youngest golfer ever to play in our national women’s championship. She’s going into Grade 8.
With her mother Jenny watching apprehensively, carrying a knapsack and clutching an orange umbrella, Liu played one group ahead of world No. 1 Jin Young Ko, and two groups ahead of American star Lexi Thompson. Four groups back was U.S. veteran Cristie Kerr, who won her second major — the women’s British Open — back in 2006. That’s the year Liu was born.
Yes, it was a unique dynamic watching Liu play at Magna Golf Club. Having never covered a 12-year-old athlete in a major sports competition, it was certainly strange for me, creating conflicting emotions as both a journalist and a father of three girls. One moment you wanted to analyze her swing, the next you wanted to see if she needed a snack. Or a hug. The next you saw Golf Channel showing her performance around the world, almost making a long putt on the 10th hole, and you were left shaking your head in amazement that she could already be this good.
It’s an interesting issue, whether a child that young should be competing in an event this significant in women’s golf.
She earned her way in, and it’s not like she’s alone in that regard — very young and accelerated to the next level of her chosen sport.
Earlier this month, 16-yearold Canadian Leylah Annie Fernandez played in the WTA’s Rogers Cup in Toronto. Once upon a time, swimmer Nancy Garapick was 14 when she won two bronze medals for Canada at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. You might remember another 14-year-old from Romania, Nadia Comaneci, turning a few heads at those Games as well.
Tracy Austin won the U.S. Open at 16. Boris Becker won Wimbledon at 17. Freddy Adu signed with MLS when he was 14. Wayne Gretzky was in the World Hockey Association at 17 when the NHL wouldn’t allow players younger than 20. On and on it goes.
The LPGA says you have to be 18 to be a tour member. That said, there have been all kinds of exceptions to that rule, from Lydia Ko to Brooke Henderson. So what’s right? What’s good for a promising young athlete? What’s the right thing for a 12-year-old girl? The healthy thing for her personal and sports development?
Ultimately, of course, there are so many variables — in terms of how putting children and young teens out there on the world sports stage will impact their lives — that there’s no right or wrong answer. Sure, sometimes you get Jennifer Capriati. Sometimes it’s incredibly difficult and isolating, as we learned with tennis player Rebecca Marino.
Then again, Henderson was 14 when she played her first Canadian Open and she’s not only a superstar golfer at 21, she seems remarkably grounded.
Ultimately, it’s up to Liu’s parents to guide her down the right path, and for her to make good choices. She’s competing this week as an amateur — after finishing as the low Canadian at the Canadian Women’s Amateur tourney in Red Deer three weeks ago.
She attends a Vancouver private school and a lot of educational and golf decisions lie ahead of her. Her two days at Magna were a struggle, although few 12-year-olds could play as well as she did. She shot 81 on Thursday and was a little teary afterwards.
“I’m pretty disappointed about my score,” she said quietly, and it felt peculiar quoting one so young in this context. It probably didn’t help her to know Lorie Kane, a longtime Canadian star on the LPGA Tour, shot 87 in the first round. Kerr shot 76.
There was a quiet request from the Liu camp, that perhaps her score didn’t need to be shown on the hand-held placards that accompany each group — a request that was denied. She said she hoped to play better on Friday, but shot 82 to miss the cut, trying to keep up with Ernst and Kupcho while averaging 207 yards with the driver on the 6,581yard course. She hit 13 of 14 fairways, but struggled getting to the greens in regulation.
About 25 to 30 people followed her around for 18 holes. Her coach, Rob Houlding, again served as her caddy. Her playing partners mostly kept to themselves, and at one point were standing on the eighth tee waiting impatiently while Liu was still putting out on the seventh green. It didn’t seem to bother Liu, who deliberately went about her business without losing her poise.
We won’t know for years whether this was a building block in an exceptional golf career, or whether it was a setback.
Or just a childhood memory about that time she made history.
Damien Cox’s column normally appears on Saturday and Tuesday.