To say that there is a lot of excitement around Lucy Li in the 2014 LPGA US Open tournament would be a huge understatement. At 11 years, she’s the youngest golfer to ever qualify for the US Open, men’s or women’s, and while she’s currently tied for 71st at 8-over and 10 strokes off the lead (at publishing time), she’s not in last place. In my book, that’s already a huge moral victory, but considering she showed up to play in the first round dressed like a child pageant contestant on the 4th of July, it’s absolutely impossible to not cheer for this young girl to make the cut.
Here’s a video of Li talking to the media at Pinehurst on Tuesday, and she is everything that the LPGA could have hoped for out of an exciting, extremely young star, who could probably clean the course with average golfers in any given round.
Alas, not all is well in the world of women’s golf. Despite the fact that Li won her sectional qualifying tournament by a ridiculous seven strokes to make the US Open, there are some who question the state of the LPGA when a sixth grader can play among the so-called greatest female golfers in the world. But since none of those doubters were named in this Los Angeles Times article from last month, I’m going to assume that it’s false and everyone is cheering for the girl in red, white and blue like I am.
