Bon sets sights on breaking into tour

Northland's Caroline Bon wants to build on her recent transtasman success to put in a top performance at what she hopes will be her last New Zealand Amateur Strokeplay Championships in Hawkes Bay next Wednesday.
Bon was a rare beacon in the gloom - winning both of her matches in the senior singles - in yet another trainwreck of a Transtasman Golfing Challenge in Wellington earlier this week where the Kiwis lost 31-17 overall to Australia.
The 22-year-old Northland Golf Club player hopes to break into the Ladies European Tour (LET) later in the year and is looking for a good finish to her season at the strokeplay championships.
"I'm certainly looking for a top placing, a top-three finish would help me to achieve my aim of having a really successful amateur year to build up my confidence before I head back over to Europe," she said.
Bon, playing as the New Zealand  No2 behind Whakatane's Zoe Brake, beat Australian national strokeplay champion Stacey Keating and  No2 Jessica Speechley in matchplay competition, during the fourth Transtasman Golf International at Royal Wellington Golf Club.
"It was great to beat Stacey, who'd just won the Australian Amateur the week before, because I travelled around Europe and the UK with her last year and I learned heaps off her there," she said.
It was the friends' first competitive match but may not be their last as they will once again retrace their steps later in the year to build up to the LET qualifying tournament.
Bon has enjoyed a good year competitively. She led the Australian Amateur in Perth after the first round but couldn't keep up the pace to eventually finish 14th. .
"I think [my competition results are better] because I've been playing so much this year and that has put me under the pressure and conditions I've needed to improve at tournaments," she said.
The presence of her long time caddy Colleen Atchison in Wellington was another reason that helped her startling Wellington form.
"She always helps me to learn things as we go and I always feel like I'm in a better space when she's around," Bon said.
Brake lost both matches heavily to Keating and Speechley but will still be on the New Zealand team for next week's Queen Sirikit Cup in Hamilton, along with juniors 15-year-old Cecilia Cho and 12-year-old Lydia Ko - who both made their debut for New Zealand in the Wellington tournament after their recent naturalisation.
Their addition to the junior girls team helped them win their first Junior Tasman Cup but Bon can consider herself unfortunate - given her current form - not to be in the three-player team for the annual Asia Pacific teams tournament, where she is instead the non-travelling reserve.