Women’s Golf | Peter Stone Golf

Prodigy

It was at The Grove course in Hertfordshire just outside London in the final round WGC American Express Championship in 2006 when I saw Tiger Woods up close and personal from the privileged position inside the ropes for the first time since he came to Australia a decade earlier as quite agreeable 21-year-old with a massive future ahead of him for our open championship at The Australian Golf Club.

What I saw that day in England as he went head-to-head with Adam Scott in the final grouping – with Woods winning the tournament by eight shots – appalled me. His cursing with foul language that would have made a sheep shearer blush, his spitting and his club throwing were not the stuff of a world No 1 golfer, and idol and role model to so many kids.

Lydia Ko

Her media commitments fulfilled after an astonishing first round 10-under par 63 in the opening round of the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open on Thursday, Lydia Ko sat upstairs in the Royal Canberra clubhouse with her mother Tina, her grandmother and caddie Steve Mowbrey giggling like a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

That she is just that puts the enormity of what she’d done on the aesthetically beautiful RC layout almost beyond belief, yet in the short couple of years we’ve known her we’ve been witnessing a true phenomenon of the great game of golf.

Karrie Webb

A couple of weeks ago Karrie Webb declared that it is the 2016 Rio Olympics – and of representing Australia when golf returns to the Olympics – that drives her most these days with, of course, the added benefits flowing as a result, but in recent months she’s also been thinking of what lies ahead post Olympics.

Webb, now 38, certainly won’t be quitting playing, but the schedule might be cut back – “Golf is a sport you don’t necessarily have to say you’re going to retire, but my long term vision ends at the Olympics but it doesn’t mean I’ll end playing,”