Stenson is ‘one good week’ from No 1 spot
@AllBlacks friend @Izzy_Dagg #LOVEGolf,” Ko tweeted. All Blacks back dagg spends the entire video, that lasts almost five minutes, asking Ko when she would make the decision to turn professional as they played a round at a course near her home on Auckland’s north shore.
“when are you going pro? I want to be the first one to know,” dagg asks, only for Ko to tell him she still had things to work on with her game. Ko finally confirms the decision after making a long putt to ‘beat’ dagg in their round. “Okay I’ll do it, turn pro,” Ko says. “Right now, right this second. definitely.”
Ko’s decision had been expected after she finished second at the evian Championship, the fifth major of the year in women’s golf, last month. Her mother, Tina, then confirmed as much earlier this month when she said they had asked the LPGA for an exemption for her seoul-born daughter to become a member. The LPGA restricts the number of tournaments for players under the age of 18.
Ko was the youngest player to win a professional tournamentwhen she clinched the new south wales Open in sydney aged 14. she has won three other sweden’s Henrik stenson believes he is one good performance away from becoming european no 1 for the first time.
stenson holds a lead of £362,660 over Graeme Mcdowell at the top of the Race to dubai heading into the BMw Masters in shanghai, the first of four events in the inaugural Final series.
“It’s four big weeks coming up starting here at the BMw Masters,” said stenson, who was second in the Open at Muirfield, third in the Us PGA Championship at Oak Hill and then won the deutsche Bank Championship and Tour Championship professional tournaments since, including the defence of her Canadian Open title in August.
If she’d been professional, Ko would already have won more than $1 million in prize money.
despite her protestations that turning pro could wait and she still wanted to attend stanford University like her idol Michelle wie, coach Guy wilson had said it was only a matter of time.
wilson began coaching Ko at six, when they were initially restricted by language difficulties as she had not yet been immersed in new Zealand schooling. Ko had up to four lessons a week with wilson, working from about 50 metres away from the green because anything else to capture the £6.2m bonus for winning the Fedex Cup.
“There’s a lot of points and money up for grabs in these events. It’s only one top finish from any one of the guys or a couple of the guys behind me to catch me or move beyond.
“so I’m just going to focus on my game and try to have some good weeks and hopefully I can get one really good week out of these four, and that should hopefully give me a shot at the overall title by the time the four weeks have finished.
“Obviously I’m delighted with my season. It was the best even before winning the Fedex Cup, I had all those good finishes and a nice win. Of course, the Tour Championship and winning the would have been too daunting, and he was amazed at the youngster’s focus, motivation and ability to keep working at her game.
The moment he felt she would “make it” was when she made the cut at the new Zealand Open as a 12-year-old. “she was the youngest person to make the cut and. . . she finished seventh,” wilson said. “That was the pinnacle of golf – to play your national open against a professional field, to make the cut and finish as the best Kiwi by miles. It just showed to me that this kid could be pretty freakish.
“The only thing that could limit us then was getting Lydia to other events because of the finances and invitations, because Fedex didn’t make it any worse. It’s quite nice to sit there at age 37 – I’m not old, old but I’m not young, young, either. It’s nice to have my best year at this point.”
stenson has been struggling with a wrist injury recently but added in a pre-tournament press conference: “It was feeling quite bad for a while there but my physios managed to do some work yesterday and the movement came back and most of the pain is gone.” no-one knew who she was.”
wilson added that he and Ko had spent a lot of time this year working on conditioning in order to attack more greens and, while her first Canadian Open victory in 2012 propelled her to prominence, people were still amazed at the level of her game.
“I think her age does not match her ability,” wilson said, while adding that she could also be a “typical teenager” in her mannerisms and attitude.That has been the way she has been since she was seven. That’s why people are astounded she’s only [a teenager]..”
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