Tammy Clelland - professional golfer.
A year and a half ago, with a New Zealand amateur ranking of 14, the tag may have been a far-off dream for the 20-year-old from Taupo. However, after mixing it on the United States College circuit for the last 18 months, the former Bay of Plenty representative is proving that an ambitious career in the game is a lot closer to reality.
"I do want to turn pro. Whether it happens or not, I don't know - it's pretty hard out there, you've got to be tough," the second-year University of Toledo student told the Daily Post while home on a break.
It's all been a matter of getting comfortable Stateside for the former Tauhara College student, who has picked up a Taupo Young Achiever of the Year Award and played in the junior ranks for New Zealand.
"I did think it was going to be harder. In my first semester I won two tournaments and I did not think that was going to happen, but then I guess I just got a bit greedier. You want it more, and then better things happen."
Better things indeed. Clelland has played a major role in having her Rocket team, mediocre when she arrived, promoted to the top ranks of College golf, and she qualified for a LPGA Tour event last year. When she played in the 2006 Jamie Farr Classic alongside the planet's best professional women players, she became the first Kiwi amateur to do so.
The sports science major missed the cut, but it was an amazing high, signalling that she was well and truly over the problems she had had when she first arrived. Clelland spent a month during her early days in an American hospital on an IV drip as the self-confessed "home body" battled homesickness and a change of diet.
"When I first got there I couldn't find anything I wanted to eat - [the food's] just horrible ... I just wouldn't eat. I knew the damage I could do to myself but I still couldn't do it - I could not put food in my mouth," she said.
Eventually she got well and now copes better with the local diet. Regular food parcels, including Marmite, Weetbix and Freddo Frog chocolate from her dad Tom, help satisfy her Kiwi tastebuds.
When she left New Zealand in 2004 she was a scrawny teenager who quite often needed to hit a driver and a three wood to a par four green. After a year and a half on the college programme, with golf and physical activity six days a week, she has filled out to an athletic build.
She now regularly finds herself hitting a driver and eight iron to those lengthy on-course challenges.
"It's full-on, I've changed a lot. I used to have stick legs but now I've got a bit of muscle on them ... I find know I can play golf a lot more within myself."
Tammy rockets through the ranks
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