Atthaya Thitikul – then newly crowned World No. 1 women’s golfer
Last week 19-year-old Atthaya Thitikul became the second-youngest female golfer to be ranked No. 1. Only Lydia Ko, who was 17 when she topped the rankings, was younger. It has been a swift and remarkable rise for Thitikul, who is a rookie on the LPGA Tour. At the start of 2021, the Thai teenager was ranked 275. By the end of that year, she was 19th. Now she is on top of the world.
“I hadn’t thought that I would be No. 1 in the world that fast,” she said prior to last week’s Toto Japan Classic. “And I didn’t think I would achieve this in my first year on the LPGA as well. Overall, I’m feeling great. Feeling grateful that this has happened this year.”
Here are five things you may not know about Thitikul:
She began playing golf at the age of 6
View this post on Instagram
Thitikul grew up up in the Thai city of Ratchaburi. In an interview with the LET, she said she started playing golf on doctor’s orders. Apparently Thitikul was constantly catching colds, so her doctor told her parents she should start playing a sport. He recommended either golf or tennis. After watching golf on TV, the six-year-old Thitikul decided it was the sport for her. “Tennis requires too much running,” she told Golf Digest.
Her father found a teacher in Bangkok, which is an hour’s drive away from Ratchaburi, and her parents took turns shuttling her back and forth. By the time she was 10, Thitikul knew she wanted to play golf for a living. “I also realized back then that if I got good enough, I could support my family,” she said.
She was ranked World No. 1 amateur as well
Thitikul had a stellar amateur career and was the top-ranked women’s amateur player on two occassions for a total of 12 weeks. The first time was for a week starting 26 June 2019 and the second time for 11 weeks from October 2019 to January 2020, which is when she turned professional. She served early notice of her potential when she finished second at the Thai Amateur as a 13-year-old. She promptly won the event the following year at the age of 14.
At 15, she won the Women’s Amateur Asia Pacific Championship in Singapore, which got her into the 2018 ANA Inspiration, where she earned low amateur honours. The same year she won the gold medal at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics and was the leading amateur at the Women’s Open Championship. She would repeat as low amateur at the Open Championship in 2019. In all, she would win 16 amateur events.
She also won two professional events as an amateur but more on that below.
View this post on Instagram
She’s used to being the youngest
View this post on Instagram
Thitikul is the youngest golfer, male or female, to win a professional golfer tournament. A few months after her 14 th birthday, she was invited to play in the 2017 Ladies European Thailand Championship on the Ladies European Tour. She was tied for the lead after three rounds and held her nerve to beat Mexico’s Ana Menendez by two shots at the tender age of 14 years, 4 months and 19 days.
For good measure, Thitikul won the tournament a second time in 2019, this time by five shots, giving her two professional wins as an amateur and all before her 17 th birthday.
She continued to rack up victories and milestones after turning professional. She won five times on the Thai tour in 2020, when the Covid pandemic restricted where she could play. In 2021, she debuted on the LET Tour and promptly won four times. That season she became the youngest player ever to top the LET’s Race to Costa del Sol at the age of 18.
Naturally, she was named Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year on the LET and looks set to earn Rookie or the Year honours on the LPGA this year.
She loves Marvel movies and sushi
In a YouTube video for the LET Tour, Thitikul revealed that her favourite foods are Korean barbecue and sushi, and that she loves the Marvel movies. Asked about her dream fourball, she said it would feature Tiger Woods, Jin Young Ko, whom she supplanted as World No. 1, and her sister Pachari.
She is part of the rise of Thai golf
Thitikul is the latest successful female golf professional from Thailand. As India Golf Weekly explained in May this year, Thailand is experiencing a golf boom and has produced a number of excellent golfers. Ariya Jutanugarn was the first Thai player to reach World No. 1, which she did in June 2017. Then there’s 22-year-old Patty Tavatanakit, who won a major in her rookie season in 2021.
Thitikul might well be the best of the bunch, though. She’s won immediately at every level, including the LPGA Tour. This year she has two victories and 14 top-10s. She leads the tour in birdies with 375; is third in scoring average at 69.43; and is second on the Race to CME Globe Season behind Lydia Ko (all stats prior to the Toto Japan Classic).
Having reached the top of the rankings at such a young age, it will be interesting to see how Thitikul handles her new stature. Judging from her comments, it appears that she isn’t taking her world ranking too seriously.
“ I don’t know how long I’m going to be No. 1 in the world, but at least it’s just a Ranking” she said. “But, what you have to do is improve yourself a lot. I mean, no
matter where I am – No. 1, 10, 20 or 100 – I’m just trying to improve myself and be myself every day that I play as a person and as a competitor as well.”
Credits:-
Photo – CNN