Golf: Ko faces up to US Open challenge

Lydia Ko. Photo / Dean Purcell

World No1 amateur Lydia Ko will face her toughest test in her short golf career when she makes her major debut at the US Open on the notoriously tough Blackwolf Run Golf Club in Wisconsin.

The 15-year-old is accustomed to creating history but admitted she is heading into the unknown as she becomes the first New Zealand amateur to contest the US Open Championship.

"To play the US Open as an amateur, that's pretty amazing," said the Gulf Harbour golfer, who became the youngest winner of a professional event - both men and women - when she claimed the NSW Open.

"You know some people play as a professional their whole lives and they're unable to play the US Open so it's a big honour to be playing it."

The youngest ever Australian Amateur champion will become only the third New Zealand golfer to play the US Open after Lynnette Brooky (six times), who had a best finish of 12th in 2002, and Susan Farron (1995).

Ko earns her place in the US Open field from July 5-8 by winning the Mark H McCormack Medal for being regarded as the game's outstanding amateur in 2011.

She explained how she qualified in her typical understated way: "so I think they give an exemption for the best new girl to be able to play in the US Open".

"The best new girl" expects to be stretched to her limit when she tees it up on the 6359m course. She has been practising from the back tees at her new home course Gulf Harbour the past couple of months where she has broken par once.

Ko will compete with the world's best golfers such as world No1 Yani Tseng, Ai Miyazato and 2010 champion Paula Creamer. She will not be the youngest in history to play the US Open, however. That record is held by one of her heroines American Lexi Thompson who was only 12 when she qualified in 2007.