WHILE Australia’s best women golfers were battling it out in the Queensland Amateur at Bribie, one of our finest players was winging her way to the other side of the world.
Shyla Singh, the Australian Junior Champion last year and winner of the NSW Women’s Amateur the year before, was flying to the US to begin her time as a student at the University of Oregon.
The Queensland leftie will spend the next four years studying Sports Business and playing golf in a crack squad that includes the world’s No 1 amateur Kiara Romero.
Singh, 17, who has built an impressive CV over the past few years in Australia, will have few fears about taking on some of the world’s elite amateurs as she tackles the tough US collegiate circuit.
Only a few weeks ago she made the quarter-finals of the US Girls’ Junior Championship at the Atlanta Athletic Club in Georgia, taking down Sydney star Rachel Lee 5&4 in the round of 16, before bowing out to No 1 seed, American Grace Carter in the quarters.
On the back of a strong performance at the US Junior Amateur, Shyla Singh will embark on a US College career at the University of Oregon.
“It was very exciting,” said Singh, 17, a Southport member since being introduced to the game by her father Vin. “It was my best performance during the time I was in the US.”
Singh’s long-range goal is to play on the LPGA Tour, but she’s in no hurry.
“I’m looking forward to gaining more experience, performing on a bigger stage, and competing against some of the best players in the world,” she said.
Nor is she particularly fazed about being away from her friends and family.
“I just spent five or six weeks in the US and, though I was excited to come home, I was fine with it,” she said. “Besides, I’ll be back for three or four weeks in December.”
Singh won her first Southport women’s club championship when she was 10 and quickly became one of the country’s top juniors.
She was part of the Australian team, along with Sarah Hammett and Amelia Harris, at last year’s Toyota Junior Golf World Cup in Japan, and again represented her country in a Ryder Cup-type competition against the US national junior team in Wisconsin.
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