King aiming for Triple Crown
BY Liz White | Australian Ladies Amateur Tour | 2009 Women's Lake Macquarie Amateur | Preview | 11 Jan 2009
All eyes will be on Sarah King when the Ladies Lake Macquarie Amateur gets underway this week at Newcastle’s Belmont golf course.
The South Australian will be aiming for her third title in a row after taking out the Tasmanian Stroke and the prestigious Dunes medal late last year.
But if King is feeling the pressure she is not letting on.
“Not really it is more maybe the pressure I put on myself,” she said.
“I am just going into it as I have my last few tournaments and hopefully I will come out as well as I did the last two tournaments.”
King says in order to win at the seaside Belmont you must manage the winds, which can whip up from the Pacific.
“Last year I played in it and the weather was just horrendous,” she said.
“I have been practicing a lot of short game, pitching and a lot of low wind shots.”
Also practising hard is the defending champion, AIS squad member, Julia Boland.
Now that she has completed her University Sports Science degree, her focus is now solely on golf.
“I wasn’t performing as well as I would have liked because of the uni,” she said.
“Thank goodness uni is finished and I have got back into it and started to enjoy it again.”
Boland agrees that managing the wind will be one of the critical factors for success this week.
“There is probably ten of us that could win it is just the person who plays the smartest that gets to hold the trophy,” she said.
“It’s like any golf course you play for position and hopefully if you get into trouble you can still get a chance to make par.”
The Ladies Lake Macquarie Amateur boasts several big names winners, including Sarah Kemp, Vicki Uwland and Sarah Oh.
It is a national rankings event so has attracted all of Australia’s leading amateurs including Claire Choi, Stacey Keating, Ashley Dewhurst and Bree Arthur.
The inclusion of these girls doesn’t faze the confident King who currently sits atop the Karrie Webb points ladder.
“I think anyone is capable of winning it, any of the national squad girls but to be honest I am not really thinking about what they are doing,” she said.
“I am definitely going to go into the tournament hoping to win but having said that you never know what can happen and you just have to take each shot and each day at a time and see what happens.”
Boland, who is one of the bigger hitters on the circuit, has adopted a similar approach.
“My chances are the same as any tournament I would like to think that I will play well, I feel like I am in good form but who knows .. you can play well and lose tournaments.”
King has surprised many by jumping out of the blocks very early in the current season, none more so than Boland.
“Far out, the last tournament I called her Claire Choi because she took out the double first two of the year,” she laughed.
“I played against her at interstate one on one match play and I was fortunate enough to win against her but I was quite contentedly up midway through and then she came back with four birdies in five holes,” she said.
“I just remember thinking wow she has put in a lot of work.
“It was quite evident the way she played the Tassie stroke and then to do the double is just ridiculous really.”
There is no doubt the back to back wins has given King what every golfer craves – confidence.
“The last couple of months have given me a lot more confidence and self-belief in myself that I can match it with the girls at the top,” she said.
“I know now whereas before if I got a bogey I used to get a bit aggro and that sort of thing but now I know I can get back and make a birdie.”
Belmont Golf course, while giving plenty of birdie opportunities on the relatively short par fives, will certainly test the mettle of the girls.
If the wind does get up, patience will be critical.
And with King’s newfound belief in her ability to handle things when the going gets tough, three in a row is not out of the question.
