GOLF: Local golf sensation Louise Landgraf continued her mightily impressive upward trajectory in the sport after a hugely successful recent tour of the United States where she competed in four international tournaments in the girls 13-14 year age group.
After an 18-hour flight from Phuket to Los Angeles via Singapore, Louise, accompanied by her father and mother, headed to Las Vegas to compete in the Sean Foley World Star Junior Golf tournament, which ran June 28-30.
Playing at the Angel Park course, Louise and her fellow competitors not only had to contend with extreme temperatures hitting the 45°C mark but also strong winds that affected the players’ games and scores.
However, Louise managed to find her focus to eventually win the competition with a hugely impressive 13 shots after posting even par for the first round, +2 for the second and +7 for the third. Louise clearly feels comfortable on the course, despite this year’s challenging conditions, as she won the same event last year.
The Landgraf family then traveled to San Marcos to take part in the FCG International Golf Junior Championship at the St Mark Golf Club on July 6-7 where Louise finished with a final score of +3 after shooting -1 in her first round and +4 in her second round. Louise and her family stayed with good friends Kim and Ryan Green while in San Marcos who they said helped make the trip such an amazing and successful one.
Next stop was the Country Club of Rancho Bernardo for the IMG Academy Junior World Championship on July 12-14, considered the most prestigious junior golf tournament in the world. Scoring -1 after round 1, -1 after round 2 and even par after round 3, Louise finished in third place overall with a score of -2, meaning she automatically qualified for next year’s tournament.
There was then an opportunity to step back from competition as Louise was invited to play at the exclusive Bridges Golf Club at Rancho Santa Fe. In the past this venue regularly hosted the “Battle at The Bridges” tournament which saw superstars from the golfing world compete such as Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia.
Louise’s final tournament of the tour took place in Palm Springs where she took part in the FCG Callaway Junior World Championship at the Desert Princess Country Club. Shooting scores of -5, -3 and -1 in rounds 1, 2 and 3 respectively, Louise eventually finished in third place with an overall score of -9.
It rounded off a great tour which provided the young talent with invaluable experience, even if trying to balance finding time to rest and recover after back-to-back tournaments with other activities such as seeing friends, sightseeing and shopping was a challenge.
Louise is now continuing her studies back at the British International School, Phuket where she is part of the High Performance Golf Academy.
A member at Loch Palm, Red Mountain and Phuket Country Club, she is continuing to work with her coach Pawat Prachoomsrisakul, known as “Pro Golf” and is further mentored by golf coach experts Laurent Cabanne and Thierry Abbas at Le Kempferhof Golf Club in Plobsheim , France. Louise has elected to represent the French girls national team at under-14 age level.
Next up for Louise are a couple of regional and national junior golf events in Thailand before she heads to France to take part in the under 14 age group at the Amundi Evian Junior Cup on Sept 20-22 at the Masters Course in Evian-les- Bains.
The tour of the United States may have only just concluded but already Louise is looking forward to next year where she will undertake a six-week trip, playing the same tournaments as this year but with plans to add in a couple more.