Su Oh eyes first professional title

SBS World News Radio: At the age of 12 Su Oh became the youngest ever player to qualify for the Women's Australian Open golf tournament and eight years on she wants to show the world she has more than consistency to offer.

Su Oh is eyeing her first professional title.Su Oh is eyeing her first professional title.

Su Oh is eyeing her first professional title. Source: AAP

Su Oh's love of golf arose out of a parental dispute over how much time her father spent out on the course instead of with his children after moving to Australia.

She explains it like this.

"And Mum's like 'you're here for a month and you're not spending any time with the kids'. So she got mad and his choice was to take one of the kids to the golf course because he couldn't give up golf. So, yeah, and I was the one that wanted to go with him."

But she didn't spend time in the golf buggy just watching Dad, she picked up the clubs and had a go too.

And her father soon realised she had talent.

"And then I got ice-cream on the way back. So, I thought it was a really good thing. Because I didn't have anything else to do. I was only in grade three. So it was just school and on the weekends I would go to golf with him. The better I scored the bigger the ice-cream was. So, yeah."

Her life in South Korea is now just a distant memory and having represented Australia at the Rio Olympics last year, Su says her next goal is to get her maiden win on the Ladies Professional Golfers Association, or LPGA, Tour.

"My first win would be good on the LPGA. I think that's my ultimate goal for the year - to get the first win."

If she's to achieve that goal sooner rather than later, Su will have to keep an eye on her work life balance.

She knows all about the need for that.

Her mother won eight national swimming titles back in South Korea while her father owned and ran a sports leisure centre.

Seeing how hard her parents have worked has made her realise what she needs to do to succeed.

But Su says hard work isn't everything.

"Having a balance - just in anything really a balanced life is good. When I'm practicing, then I'm practicing. When I'm having dinner with friends then it's just dinner with friends. Having some good people around helps, too."

Su has a positive approach to all the travelling she has to do now she's on the professional circuit.

In fact, one of the things she loves to do when she visits the various countries on the tour is go sightseeing.

"Since we get to go to so many different places I think it's such a waste if we don't see and get more worldly, as a lot of my older friends say."

She may be seeing the world now, but her move from South Korea to Australia when she was just 8 years old was made all the easier by taking up the sport of golf.

"It just made my transition, migrating to Australia, a lot easier and obviously with golf you get to meet so many people and I've got to meet a lot of great people. A lot of my friends are from golf."

Seeing the world, following her sporting dreams.

Su Oh has already experienced more cultures than the average person her age.

And if she sticks to her work ethic, a rise up the rankings from her current world number 70 doesn't seem too far away.

 


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4 min read

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By John Baldock


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