Golf: Ko stymied by travel costs for US Amateur qualifier

Golfing superstar Lydia Ko, 14, says she loves being challenged by Cecilia Cho, 16. Photo / Getty Images

How much cachet is there to having 'world No 1' alongside your name?

For Lydia Ko, the hope is that it could open a door directly into the US Women's Amateur championship at Rhode Island in August.

A request for Ko to get a spot in the field when she was world No 3 was rejected. All players have to go through qualifying was the answer.

So might being top of the world squeeze produce a change of American minds? Ko's coach, Guy Wilson, is waiting for the answer.

If Ko has to go through pre-qualifying, about a month before the event, they won't go.

Funding is the problem. If she qualified, it would add up to two unaffordable trips to the eastern seaboard.

Next year the regulations will change, allowing the top players on rankings into the US Amateur.

"If we're lucky enough to find funding for both trips then we'll go," Wilson said. "That's the only thing stopping us making it manageable."

The British Amateur at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland on June 7-11, and the quadrennial Astor Trophy at Fairhaven Golf Club in Lytham St Annes from June 15-19, as part of a New Zealand team, are in place.

The world is opening up for the 14-year-old from Auckland's North Shore, who this week became the youngest winner of the New Zealand Amateur championship. That sat nicely with winning the strokeplay three days earlier.

How does Ko rate her form right now?

"It's now like wow, super," she said yesterday. "But I think I am in a really consistent phase at the moment, and not playing too bad."

The Ko card makes remarkable reading, but in her story there is no show without Cho, Cecilia that is.

The 16-year-old from Pakuranga beat Ko to the world No 1 ranking by a few weeks, is now No 3 and the pair have performed remarkable deeds in the last couple of years.

The highpoints, in a nutshell ...

In February Ko finished fourth in the New Zealand Open in Christchurch.

A month later, Ko became the youngest winner of the Australian strokeplay champs, beating Cho on the second playoff hole at Huntingdale in Victoria (Cho was defending champion) and the pair shared the foursomes title.

Ko was second in the New South Wales Open, having been 1 up to Sweden's Caroline Hedwall playing the final hole. She would have been the youngest winner of an Australian Tour event.

Ko defended her North Island strokeplay title last month.

Ko won the New Zealand strokeplay and amateur titles at Russley, with Cho runnerup both times. Cho had won the previous two national amateur crowns.Add in Cho winning the Riversdale Cup in Melbourne, four shots ahead of Ko in March - the first New Zealander to do so - and pocketing the Aaron Baddeley international junior title in China in November, and then pause for breath. It's been some year.

For the moment, the momentum is with Ko, who is playing catch-up with her lessons at Pinehurst school in Albany.

That's when she's not doing her 30 to 40 hours a week practising on the course, much of it with Albany-based Institute of Golf coach Wilson.

That's a lot for a just-turned-14 year old? "It's not too bad.".

The relationship with Wilson is important.

"We're like friends," she said. "I enjoy our lessons and that's how I improve. I personally don't like strict things, I don't want people to boss me around.

"It wouldn't make me enjoy my golf. We have a few jokes and still get on to the things I need to work on."

Wilson concurs.

"We have a ball. The last thing she wants is to come in and have a headmaster type looking over her saying 'you should be doing this or that', and I've never done that."

Wilson remembers the day the five-year-old and her mother came into the pro shop at Pupuke where he was working.

"Neither of them could really speak English but they said they wanted her to be taught, three times a week. I said okay, this could be interesting."

Ko knows that without Cho she would not have made the progress she has.

"I really love having someone there to give me a challenge. I wouldn't be able to improve. I'd have to thank Cecilia."

Next up for Ko is the Muriwai Open from May 11, then the North Shore 54-hole tournament, before heading to Ireland. The US would be an ideal next step, if it comes off.