Have clubs will travel

Here’s a thought. How would you fancy, in the next two months, lugging your golf clubs to Australia, Hawaii, Thailand, Singapore, Mexico, Arizona in the United States and back home to South Africa.

To some it might sound like fun, but not if your career depends on how you do and especially not if you’re a 19-year-old girl heading off into the unknown.

But that’s exactly what is happening to Ashleigh Simon, the wonder girl of South African women’s golf as she sets off on the next and most important part of her career in professional golf.

Having, in typical fashion, knuckled down to earn her LPGA card when the chips were down late last year Simon has been able to properly plan her schedule – and when you’re chasing the dollars that means only one thing, plenty of travel.

Simon will start off her year in the ANZ Ladies Masters in Brisbane, Australia and then swing through Hawaii for the SBS Open at Turtle Bay, followed by two tournaments in Thailand and Singapore before again heading across the oceans to start the LPGA proper in Mexico and Arizona.

However for her the emotion is excitement rather than trepidation.

“It has always been my dream to play on the LPGA Tour and I can’t wait to get started,” she told me shortly before leaving on the first leg of her tour. “My first aim must obviously be to make cuts and keep my card but I also want to do well enough to qualify for the majors.

“Having a card makes planning your year so much easier. You know where you’re going, you know how to prepare, you know what to expect at a venue. It will be a big help to be going back to courses I’ve seen before. When I was first out there it was quite difficult coming to terms with different types of grass, different sand in the bunkers, not knowing the correct lines off the tee and the right yardages.

“It’s exciting to know that at quite a couple of the events I’ll be able to just go out and play,” she added.

Simon, who started winning titles at the age of 12 and had won national colours by the age of 14, turns 20 on May 11.

She was determined to win her card to play on the American tour and did so by coming though strongly with a 68 in difficult conditions in the final round of the qualifying tournament – again demonstrating her knack of being able to produce the goods under pressure.

In 2004, at the age of 14, she completed the SA Ladies Amateur Stroke play/Match play double and the following week she became the youngest ever winner on the European women’s tour when she carded an incredible 63 in the final round at her home course, Royal Johannesburg and Kensington, to win the SA Ladies Open – coming from eight shots off the pace.

She has represented South Africa in all three Women’s World Cups staged to date and, after turning professional on the day after her 18th birthday, showed that she can cope by winning the Catalonia Open in her rookie year.

Her ambition however was to earn the right to play on the LPGA Tour and she proved a good few of us wrong (myself included!) who had wondered whether she should not be concentrating on the European Tour.

Ashleigh has played a major role in the boom that has overtaken local women’s golf and her overriding dream is to emulate Sally Little by winning a women’s major.

Professional golf is one step at a time, shot by shot, hole by hole, but the one thing “Ash” has already shown is that when she gets a chance to win she knows how to take it.