Women’s Open, defending her title while still playing as an amateur. “Winning the Canadian
Women’s Open twice, it’s not something I expected to do in my whole career,” said Ko, who is the second-youngest winner ever on the LPGA Tour. “It’s been really cool. Two years went fast. It’s been about five or 10 years’ worth of experience.” Ko’s upset at Lake Merced
brings to mind another ama- teur prodigy who competed at Lake Merced. The only U.S. Junior Amateur that Tiger Woods failed to win was at Lake Merced in 1990—when he was also 14. Perhaps Ko, now 16, has
some unfinished business at Lake Merced? “Playing here in 2012 is
definitely helping me now,” said Ko, who turned pro five months ago and is already ranked No. 4 in the world. “It’s always a bit of an advantage to come back to a course you’ve played. “It was a good experi-
ence. I had never played that championship before. My first match play tour- nament was the 2011 U.S. Women’s Amateur and I didn’t go that far, so it was nice to improve.”
The last time the LPGA
played in the Bay Area, Ko was just 12 years old. This year’s Swinging Skirts field is already loaded, with verbal commitments from each of the top 10 players in the world. “This event is up there with the World Series,
America’s Cup and the Super Bowl,” said San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, an avid golf fan. “Four years is too long to go without the LPGA in the Bay Area.” Pleasanton’s Paula
Creamer, Santa Cruz’s Juli Inkster, Stanford graduate Michelle Wie, San Jose’s Christina Kim and Sacra- mento’s Gulbis all have local ties, but it might be Taiwan’s Yani Tseng who becomes the hometown favorite. The Swinging Skirts is the first LPGA Tour event co- sanctioned with theTaiwan LPGA, so its field will fea- ture 120 LPGA golfers, plus the top 10 players on the Taiwan LPGA Official Money List and seven addi- tional exemptions to players of Taiwanese descent.
Tseng—the former No. 1
in the world and the youngest player ever (male or female) to win five majors—had a throng of Taiwanese media tracking her every move during a visit to Lake Merced in March. “I can’t believe we’re
moving the Swinging Skirts to San Francisco and the biggest stage in the world,” said Tseng about Swinging Skirts, the Taiwanese non- profit focused on growing women’s golf. It’s certainly a stage fitting for the best female golfers in the world. –K.M.
SPRING 2014 /
NCGA.ORG / 17
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