Olivia Mehaffey ready to tee up another step in rise to the top

There is a vibrancy about Olivia Mehaffey that is both compelling and infectious. Still a teenager, but with a self-confidence – in the nicest way – that lets you know the road ahead, allowing for whatever speedbumps or twists and turns that come her way, is one that will be negotiated in her own purposeful way. It's a journey that the 18-year-old golfer is set to embrace. The future, it would seem, is one of promise.

Firstly, it is worth recapping on the season gone. In 2015, Mehaffey – a member of Royal County Down Ladies – strode the fairways with a sense of chasing her own destiny.

The winter months had been spent working on her game and in the gym and, when it came time to play, the Ulster woman delivered to such an extent that she finished up topping the Ladies’ Golf Union order of merit and, with it, received an invite into the 2016 Ricoh British Open.

This is a remarkable time for women’s golf in Ireland, with Leona Maguire sitting on top of the World Amateur Golf Rankings. Mehaffey is in her slipstream, ranked 12th in the world, after a year when she won the Irish Girls’ strokeplay championship (for a third straight year) and also claimed the Scottish Women’s Amateur Open and the Welsh Women’s Amateur Open.

For good measure, she was runner-up to India’s Aditi Ashok (who recently topped the LET qualifying school) in the British Ladies Strokeplay championship, was a semi-finalist in the British Ladies Amateur Open and a finalist in the Irish Ladies Close.

Some season, for sure, but one that she intends to build on in what is a Curtis Cup year with the biennial match – the most famed of all amateur team competitions – to be played at Dún Laoghaire Golf Club in the foothills of the Dublin mountains in June.

Caught the bug

Encouraged by her golf-playing father Philip to take up the sport, Mehaffey caught the bug straight away. “I was six. My dad played and brought me, down to the club. I have loved the game ever since, it has been the best 12 years of my life,” she says.

If that natural flair and enthusiasm remains part of her make up, there’s also the other side, of hard work and a devotion to practice which is a requirement of any champion. Last winter, as this, Mehaffey followed an intensive fitness programme drawn up by strength and conditioning specialist Robbie Cannon.

“I used to do a lot of weights but ease off on that a wee bit to do more ability and core work. I spend a lot of time in the gym but there are less weights involved. I do power sessions, sprint sessions, a lot of kettle balls and some cardio too . . . I train on my own throughout the week but if I’m down seeing one of my putting coaches or going to Ireland training [at the Heritage] I will try to see Robbie as well. It’s only a one hour and 20 minutes drive [from Banbridge to Santry], so I can slip down and he can give me a new programme or check something out.”

The fitness programme is one aspect; golf, naturally, is the other. And Mehaffey – who is completing a sports science course at college in Newry before taking up a scholarship to attend Arizona State University in the autumn – has established a reputation as one of the hardest working players, backed up by those performances on the golf course.

“I worked really hard through last winter, spent a lot of time in the gym, every day out practising and working hard. I went into the season expecting to play well because I knew all the hard work I had put in and then one win led to another,” says Mehaffey, who intends to follow Stephanie Meadow through the US collegiate system with the aim of gaining an LPGA Tour card when she finishes her education.

No rush

Although there has been a growing tendency for teenagers to turn pro – current world number one professional Lydia Ko is just 18 years old – there is no rush from Mehaffey to jump headfirst into the paid game.

“One of the best things Ireland has done has kept their players amateur for longer. I think the ILGU has done it great, to get the players to where they need to be to go pro.

“There’s no point going pro and struggling on the Access Tour, not making enough money and not having the life you want to live. I think, ‘wait until you get older, get an education’. Like Steph, and I think Leona is going to follow in her path. A lot of the girls are looking at America [for college] and then pro rather than rushing into the pro ranks, I think there is a big rush and a big push for it and there is no need for that. I think 22, 23 you are young enough [turning professional].”

With a wise head on her young shoulders, Mehaffey has decided that Arizona is the best fit for her where the college programme is headed by former LPGA Tour player Melissa Luellen.

“I was contacted by a lot of colleges, had a lot of emails and calls. I eliminated down to where I was interested. For me, Arizona was head and shoulders above all others I was talking to.

“I had a lot of offers, a lot of options and committed to them early . . . there’s a lot of pressure to make a choice and by making an early decision it meant when I was out playing I wasn’t worried about scouts watching me or what university [was looking] and worrying about all that stress was in the back of my head.”

That tie-up with Arizona will come after what promises to be a hugely exciting season ahead.

As things stand, Mehaffey and, obviously, Leona Maguire are set to be part of the eight-player team that represents Britain and Ireland in the Curtis Cup in June. That team will be selected in late April, with four players coming off the world amateur rankings and the remaining four picked by the selectors.

‘Big support’

“Making the Curtis Cup is a big goal. It’s the best thing in amateur golf, and it being in Ireland means a lot to me. To go out there and play would be incredible, especially with the big support.

“Since I was 13, 14 I’ve been thinking about playing Curtis Cup. The last time [in 2014] I was in the running, just not close enough. I wasn’t good enough.

“This is the first year where my golf is good enough, and I feel I am ready to play.”

And whilst the Curtis Cup is one target, Mehaffey can also pencil in some other key golf dates onto her schedule for the season ahead. Like playing alongside Paul McGinley in the BMW PGA pro-am at Wentworth (a bonus for her runaway win in the Daily Telegraph Junior Series in Portugal last year) and, perhaps most exciting of all, a guaranteed place in the British Open at Woburn in July, for topping the ILGU order of merit.

Some year ahead, that’s for sure.