TEEN PHENOM LEADS PACK
15- year- old Lydia Ko is missing school, but making the grade at the Canadian Open.
It has been a terrific summer holiday for Lydia Ko, the 15- year- old amateur sensation who has a share of halfway lead at the CN Canadian Women’s Open. Just one problem. It’s not summer back home in New Zealand, where Ko’s absence from her Grade 11 classes has been duly noted.
“I’m missing a lot of school,” Ko said after her second straight 68 at Vancouver Golf Club left her eight- under par through 36 holes. “At this age, I should be going to school every day. But I see my report [ card] and I was there I think for two weeks, so my absent days are like 75 days or something.”
Right about now, an impressive gathering of the world’s top pros is ready to take up a collection and send the world’s top- ranked amateur back home to Auckland for her studies.
Ko, who two weeks ago won the U. S. Women’s Amateur Championship, has a chance to become the first player since Hall of Famer Joanne Carner way back in 1969 to win as an amateur on the LPGA Tour.
“It feels like you are being beaten by a kid,” said Norwegian Suzann Pettersen, who trails Ko by four shots heading into the weekend.
“I know she’s good. The problem is she’s too young to understand where she’s at.”
Actually, Ko seems to get it. She has already won a significant pro event, capturing the New South Wales Open in Australia earlier this year when she was still 14, and hopes that experience will help her this weekend.
In addition to her win at the U. S Amateur, Ko was the low amateur at this year’s U. S. Women’s Open and made the semifinals of the U. S. Junior Girls Championship.
“I mean, I played three [ USGA] events in the States and I’ve gotten a medal for each one of them,” she said. “So hopefully I will bring home the medal in this tournament.”
That’s about all Ko can win this weekend at Vancouver Golf Club. As an amateur she’s not eligible for the $ 300,000 first- place cheque, but seems a lock to leave town with the Marlene Streit Medal that Golf Canada presents to the low amateur.
Judy Rankin, the former LPGA star and longtime TV golf analyst, wouldn’t be surprised to see Ko hang in and contend this weekend.
“What a summer she has had,” said Rankin, who is working CBC’s telecast this weekend. “Every time they come along at this age and they look so good you are kind of flabbergasted.
“I think we have come to these generations now that see all the best players in the world all the time, from the time they are little kids on TV, and not only are they benefiting from great teaching, but they are great imitators. Thirty years ago, that wasn’t available. It wasn’t the same.”
Not surprisingly, the women Ko is trying to imitate are Michelle Wie and Lexi Thompson, who were also teenage phenoms. Actually, Thompson, at age 17, still is.
“I really look up to them and think they are awesome players and coincidentally they turned professional early,” said Ko, who insists she has no such plans.
Ko’s play overshadowed a terrific round by South Korea’s Cella Choi, who fired an eightunder 64 Friday to grab a share of the lead. Like Ko, Choi did not have a bogey on her card Friday. Choi and Ko have a three- shot lead over Americans Moira Dunn and Angela Stanford, and South Koreans Inbee Park and Na Yeon Choi.
It turns out Ko was almost a Canadian. When her family decided to leave their native South Korea nearly 10 years ago, it came down to a choice between New Zealand and Canada. New Zealand’s favourable climate was the deciding factor.
“My sister [ Sura] was attending school in Canada, and we were going to move there, but when I started playing golf regularly, we decided New Zealand would be the best place to come because of the weather,” Ko said recently.
Ko is getting some local help. Her caddy is Brian Alexander, one of Vancouver Golf Club’s top senior players, and earlier this week Meadow Gardens head pro Scott Rodgers worked with her on the range.
“She is a delightful young woman, bright and obviously very talented,” Alexander said. “I just try to stay out of the way. We did most of our planning during the three practice rounds and I just tell her left or right and she does the rest. She is remarkable.”
There have been reports that Ko might turn pro early, but she insisted she will finish high school — Grade 13 in New Zealand — and hopes to attend college. She’d like to follow Wie and go to Stanford University.
“In California it doesn’t snow, so I want to go there,” she said.
Ko hasn’t found the courage to seek out any career advice from some of the LPGA Tour regulars.
“No, I’m too scared to talk to them,” she said with a laugh. “I look up to them so much and respect them so much. Hopefully, if I have time I will ask them those kinds of questions.”
Ko’s summer — or winter back home — isn’t over yet. She has a spot in next month’s Ricoh Women’s British Open and will then represent New Zealand in late September at the World Team Amateur Championship in Turkey.
Then it’s finally back home, where she knows she’ll have to hit the books.
“I printed a couple of papers and brought a few books,” she said. “But to be honest I haven’t done much.” Too busy making birdies. CHIP SHOT: Marlene Streit’s ninth- place finish in 1968 is the best- ever finish by an amateur in the Canadian Women’s Open.