THE odds on a Pakuranga Country Club member coming away with a win at this week’s women’s under-23 national golf championship are strong with eight of their members listed to compete.
Pakuranga College student Cecilia Cho is one of the favourites to take out the national golf tournament to be held at the country club starting this Wednesday.
At the age of 14 Cecilia has already accomplished a number of achievements. Last year:
• She was the number-one player in Auckland’s women’s golf side that competed at the Inter-Provincials played in Nelson. Cecilia was also named player of tournament.
• She won the Auckland ‘Champion of Champions’ play for the second time. The first occurred when she was 11.
• She was named Auckland’s woman player of the year, which also led her to be ranked number three in golf’s New Zealand Order of Merit for women. This means she is third best amateur woman player in the country.
• And she has reached a plus-three handicap, which is astonishing for someone her age.
Cecilia, who first got interested in golf six years ago when she played with friends on the driving range, says that knowing the course the championship is to be played on inside out has boosted her confidence of going home with another title in her hands.
“I guess I have a strong advantage over most of the other players with this being my home course, so I am confident that I’ll do very well here,” says the Korean-born golfer.
“I have one goal and that’s to win the tournament and I believe I can do that.”
Cecilia is hoping to turn professional soon and she will get her first taste of what it’s like to come up against the big guns when she competes later down the track at the New Zealand Golf Open.
She received a surprising invite to the professional tournament, which she knows is her chance to show the pros what she can do.
Making it into the Top 20 at the NZ Open is one of the goals Cecilia has set for 2009, along with making the national representative team and, of course, becoming the NZ under-23 champ.
