Okay, but we feel their pain. Lydia's first official handicap was a 12 - a mark most club players can but dream of. By age 9, she was on a 7; a year later, a 2. By the time her 11th birthday came around she was on a +2 - a rating that required she shoot two under par to play to her handicap.
At the time of writing, aged 14 years and two months, Lydia had trimmed her handicap by four more shots, making her the number one women's amateur golfer in the world. Luckily, for the ladies of Pupuke, there is only one Lydia Ko.
Er, make that two.
She is so undemonstrative I almost miss Cecilia Cho among the mid-weekers on the practice green at Whitford Park Golf Club. But as I watch, the cherubic teen with headphones plugged into her ears sends a long succession of one-metre putts into the cup with a satisfying rattle. "One metre," smiles Cecilia, "they're the money putts!"
Also the most dangerous - too short to miss, too long to take for granted, they crown or crucify a good round. You know this girl has the right stuff when she nominates golf's cruellest discipline as her most-loved. Asked to nominate her happiest golf moment for a Herald article, she replied: "I love all the nervous moments when I'm under pressure." The girl has ice in her veins.
This next bit, then, should come as no surprise, but the Pupuke ladies might want to block their ears while I whisper that Cecilia had bagged two holes-in-one by her 14th birthday.
She lives in Pakuranga, the other end of the city to Lydia's North Harbour home. They are friends and chief rivals. Says Lydia of Cecilia: "She is the toughest [opponent]. I think because of her my game has improved."
Cecilia, 16, is the child prodigy that Lydia, the even younger child prodigy, snuck past this year with a run of six victories in seven tournaments to claim the number one spot in New Zealand - and in the world. Before Lydia's magic run, Cecilia had the better record. At the moment Lydia owns the superior handicap (+6.2 to Cecilia's +4.7) but experts say either can come out on top on any given day.
Is it tough on Cecilia when a younger young gun comes along?
"I think she [Lydia] deserves it," Cecilia replies. "She worked for it. Sometimes it gets emotional but there's nothing I can do about it - except just work harder."
Says Lydia: "Our rivalry will still be up there, whoever is one and two. Being top two in the world I think is really cool."
Together they have put New Zealand where it's rarely been in any sport - and years before they are old enough to vote. All of which has prompted a universal arching of eyebrows. The august British Ladies Golf Union this month felt it necessary, upon reporting that Ko and Cho had both won the Australian and New Zealand amateur titles, to remind that this was the women's "not girls" competition.
Little wonder former world professional No 1 Laura Davies fixed her eye upon a 12-year-old Lydia at last year's New Zealand Open and opined, "Isn't it past your bedtime? Be a good girl [and] go home and play with your dolls." There are 34 years between Lydia and Davies, winner of 70 professional tournaments worldwide. Lydia finished tied-7th behind the Englishwoman but a year later (in January's New South Wales Open) left the veteran legend in her dust and in the process missed creating more history by a centimetre.
"Final-hole yips cost teen prodigy Lydia Ko a place in history" read the headline in The Australian. Leading by a shot into the final hole, Lydia was a few swings away from becoming the youngest-ever winner of a women's professional tournament.
What happened? "I three-putted and she [Sweden's Caroline Hedwell] one-putted," she matter-of-factly tells Canvas. "One shot costs."
In person, Lydia and Cecilia are at once typical teenagers, who love listening to "K-Pop" (Korean pop music) on their MP3 players while they practise and also scarily grown-up in the way of those who know the plan and are deadset on achieving it. They dedicate 35-40 hours weekly to golf which, with school and homework, leaves little else.
Sport does a nice line in aphorisms.
"Champions aren't normal."
Players are made, states Cecilia's swing coach, Rory Moor, formerly a pro on the European and Australasian tours. Studies about how to become a great player in 10 years all come to the same conclusion, he says. "It's about work ethic, access to facilities and environment - in other words the people around you to keep you stimulated and motivated." A physical programme, physiotherapy, expert advice from a bio-mechanics expert and a psychologist are all in the mix, along with parents who are with them at every strike of a ball. Cecilia also has a specialist putting coach.
"It's not just the swing, the temperament has to be shaped and honed," says Moor. "That's why a mental coach is part of the team. You learn ... good self-talk. This has a lot to do with taking the players to the next level. It gives them tools to cope when things come unstuck."
You are allowed "seven seconds of madness", explains Moor. "Spit it out, get over it, because you can't hit your next shot angry."
The girls learn breathing techniques to help calm themselves. You should never slam your club into the ground, Cecilia tells me, because that will only cause you to dwell on your frustration.
"Hard work beats talent that doesn't work hard."
Psychology and bio-mechanics are fine touches. The core product is hewn through toil. "It's hitting balls 40 hours a week for four or five years," says Moor. "These girls have an amazing work ethic. The line I've picked up on from Cecilia, which I think is great, is, 'if I don't work hard, I get nervous'. She has an expectation to be No 1 in the world, so if she doesn't work, she feels guilty."
Moor, who has coached in Korea, has a firm view on why Koreans have become such a force in golf. "It's population and work ethic." Life in New Zealand, he says, is too easy. "What are we? We're bloody nice guys, we're competitive at the top level when we are on our top game but we are not hardened enough because we don't live in a really competitive environment. In Korea you have 60 million people in an area of from Auckland to Taupo and you have got so many people wanting to take that No 1 spot."
I learn later from Cecilia that there are about 3000 junior female golfers in Korea, compared to 100 here.
Moor coaches another Korean girl of promise and commitment. "I said to her, 'you are the same age as Cecilia. Now you've got to catch her and Cecilia's working 40 hours a week. How hard are you going to work?"' The girl is working overtime and chances are, says Moor, we will hear about her. After only seven months she's down to a 9 handicap."
Sure the parents drive them, says Moor. "Cecilia's life for the next 10 years is planned out. It's not maybes, it's what she will do. What we [Kiwi] Caucasians, say is 'wouldn't it be nice if ...' They say, 'you are going to be a golf professional and not only that, you are going to be a very successful golf professional and this is how we are going to do it'."
Cecilia, who plans to begin her professional career on the lucrative Korean circuit, first played at age 9.
"I was really thrilled when I hit the ball well," she recalls. Back then it was just for fun but she took it up seriously when the Pakuranga College pupil found herself bored after school when her family emigrated to New Zealand - the move primarily to further the education of her brother, an Auckland University engineering student.
She refers to golf as a job, so is it fun or work? "It can be both, even in tournaments," she says. "You have to be serious but if you don't enjoy it, the tournaments will wear you out."
Does she loves the game? "It's a major part of my life and I have decided to go with this for my future."
Any other options? "I thought of chef but I don't think I could be a chef. I used to like eating it but now I like cooking more." But, she protests, with her father, James, working back in Korea and her brother studying late, there's no one to eat it. "She's not going to eat it!" Cecilia laughs as her mother, Agatha, smiles broadly. Mum is her driver, caddy, manager, "everything".
Is the price of their success a lost childhood? "It's what it takes," says Moor. "Like they say, no one wants to die but everyone wants to go to heaven. Everyone wants to be Tiger Woods, but who is prepared to work that hard?"
Golf is four things, he says: mental, physical, tactical and technical.
"Mental is most important. It's about toughness under pressure, about planning and desire and motivation. When I first met both those kids, I could see in their eyes that they have these things."
There's a girl at Pinehurst School, where Lydia is in Year 10, who thinks her schoolmate is famous. "She's like - 'oh, that golf girl'," laughes Lydia. It's a good feeling to be known for your success, she says, even if it means you are too busy to be there when your name is read out at school assembly as Sports Girl of the Year. "I got a DVD of what the headmaster said," she adds.
No parties, little time for friends. "When anybody asks me out, my consistent answer is 'no'," says Lydia. "They know my golf is really important to me. We text each other and stuff and sometimes after tournaments I treat myself with a day out with my friends."
Ditto Cecilia. "Sometimes I get days off," she says. "For example, I had Christmas Eve off and went shopping with my friends [and] spent time bowling."
What was that like? "It didn't feel normal. When I was actually playing with my friends I felt like I had to play golf instead."
Do your friends understand? "They are like 'do you always have to be on golf?' I say, 'I think I do.' You have to focus on it to get to the top."
Moor describes Cecilia as the more inscrutable of the girls. "You look at her and you wouldn't know whether she had just hit a good or a bad shot. Like Bjorn Borg. Lydia's more excitable. She's definitely got a bit of bubble about her."
A Tuesday morning in May at the Institute of Golf in Albany and Lydia is on the driving range which is surrounded by netting, glistening because it's just been raining. Black cap, black top and skirt, hair tied neatly back, Lydia looks the business. Only her clubs, with their grips shaded pink, lime and baby blue, and the covers for her drivers, which feature a Pink Panther and a shaggy dog, remind you that this is a young girl.
She is bouncing a ball up and down on the face of a wedge, repeatedly, expertly, like Tiger in that TV ad, while she and coach Guy Wilson discuss an upcoming tournament in Britain. Wilson speaks quietly; Lydia's voice is sing-song.
Coach and star pupil gel like they've worked together forever, and so they have.
While chance led Cecilia to golf, the making of Lydia Ko into a golf professional was a primary reason her family moved to New Zealand. When her mother walked into the Pupuke Pro Shop nine years ago wanting three lessons a week for her school-entrant daughter, Wilson was behind the counter. He was close to qualifying as a coaching pro and recalls that Lydia stood no higher than his waist. Neither mother nor daughter spoke English well. "What on earth am I taking on?" thought Wilson. He has coached her since that day and become mentor, friend and chief plotter of her stellar trajectory.
Tina Hyon wasn't immediately certain golf would be the thing for her daughter but says, "A couple of months later, I was sure." It wasn't Lydia's swing but her character that convinced her. Lydia was the baby that never cried. "I thought she was different. She was always too active, too happy."
"Aim for the stars because you might just reach them."
Wilson has been quoted to the effect that there is no reason why Lydia's first cheque as a professional shouldn't be for a million dollars. He pinches himself sometimes and can't help but wonder where this may take them.
He tells of challenges convincing golf clubs to allow one so young become a member and of critics who thought there was no place for pre-teens in championship tournaments. "This was just as Tiger was coming through and we first saw videos of him playing when he was 3 years old. That was unheard of."
The realisation that he had a wunderkind on his hands wasn't immediate because Wilson didn't have anyone to compare her with in the first few years. Then Lydia twice (aged 10 and 12) finished second in the world age group championships in the United States.
"That was an indication," says Wilson. She has a special quality, he says, a detachment from pressure. "You can't train a kid not to feel nervous or threatened, stepping up on to a tee in the New Zealand Open playing professionals, but it hasn't been a problem."
When I ask Lydia about her plans she doesn't hesitate. "I want to be a professional on the American LPGA and I want to go to Stanford [University on a sports scholarship] and I want to represent New Zealand at the 2016 Olympics."
The next step is getting regular world-class competition, and when you are an amateur that is expensive. Annual travel costs will run far into six figures per year to round off Lydia's development before she turns professional (most likely at 17). Wilson has prepared a glossy brochure to help find backers for the Kiwi.
"People ask whether I am Korean or Kiwi," Lydia told the Herald in January. "I know more about New Zealand than I remember about Korea. That doesn't mean I want to leave Korea behind ... [but] I will always represent New Zealand when I am playing around the world."
Wearing the silver fern at the Olympics is also on Cecilia's list.
When I ask where she wants golf to take her she says, "To the top, obviously, but to the level I want to be. I want to have, like, the perfect round that has no mistakes. Then I will be happy with my game." She's had a taste already, shooting 60 off the men's tees at her club - an astounding 11-under.
"I have a goal," she chirps. "It's a really big one but ... in any ladies pro-tour tournament, I want to make top-three."
Interview over, she pushes her earphones back in place and returns to the green where her mother uses a tape measure and tees to carefully mark out a metre-wide square around the hole. And then Cecilia resumes work on "the money shot".
Lastly, and in the interests of news you can use, I ask the top-ranked amateur woman in the world what advice she might offer the average club member. "Play the best you can and if there is something that you need to work on don't stress over it," says Lydia. "Just give it time and practise."
Ladies of Pupuke, that tip's for you.
Lydia Ko
Born: April 24, 1997
Ranking:
Youngest to make national squad, age 12
Youngest to make the cut in a ladies European tour event, age 12
Youngest to be ranked #1 amateur in the world, age 14
Reigning New Zealand and Australian amateur champion
Cecilia Cho
Born: November 26, 1994
Training regime:
8.30am-3.30pm: school
3.30-4pm: dinner
4pm-6pm: short game or 9 holes
6pm-8pm: swing practice
8.30pm: homework, fruit supper
Weekends: 8 hours of practice each day
