KEY POINTS:
There's nothing like a botched airline booking to bring you back to earth after the greatest day of your life. Just over a week ago, St Cuthbert's College student Larissa Eruera won the New Zealand Women's Amateur Championship. She's 14 years old and the youngest winner in the
event's 113-year history.
After beating Pakuranga's Da Som Lee 5 & 3 at the Taupo Golf Club, Larissa went to the airport for her flight back to Auckland. She had what she thought was a confirmed booking made in August by NZ Golf's travel agency.
Whoever was at fault, the result was that the country's newest golfing star was stranded far from home on a Friday night. So she did what every teenager in a similar situation would do. She rang Mum and Dad to come and get her. And they did. Again.
For Aaron and Maureen Eruera, ferrying their only child to golf tournaments has become a way of life. While a six-hour return trip to Taupo might not be every parent's ideal way to spend an evening, not many parents have a daughter who's achieving like this one.
This year Larissa has won the Australian under-14 title, the New Zealand under-15 championship, beat Sarah Nicholson and other top players in the prestigious Ruth Middleton tournament and capped it off with the biggest prize. It's a title all the famous names in this country's women's golf have won. Oliver Kay in the 1930s, Una Wickham in the 1950s and 60s, Brenda Ormsby and Lyn Brooky in the 1980s and 90s and now, among a bevy of Australians and an Englishwoman, Larissa Eruera is just the third New Zealander to win the trophy this century.
She started "mucking around" at the Aviation club when she was "about seven," joining the junior section when she was eight because Dad played there. She says he's about a nine handicapper now, but he used to be much lower.
When did you first beat Dad ? "I think when I was about 11 or 12."
Being a golf champion at 14, especially a female, needs a particular kind of determination and single-mindedness as few females of her age are in the game at all.
She is close friends with Whakatane's Zoe-Beth Brake who's the same age and experiences similar problems. They'll be together again in the New Zealand Junior team to play in Tasmania next month.
Larissa Eruera wants to continue on her academic scholarship at St Cuthbert's where she's already accrued some NCEA credits in year 10. Before she leaves school, she wants to play in the national senior team at a world championship, an Asia-Pacific tournament and in the Tasman Cup against Australia.
Once she's finished school, she'd like to go to an American college on a golf scholarship.
But, after she turns 15 in February, there's a fair chance her parents would just like her to learn to drive - even back from Taupo on a Friday night.
