GolfVideoWeird But True

10-Year-Old Girl Qualifies For U.S. Women’s Amateur Golf Tourney

by Evan Sporer | 3:29 pm, August 6th, 2012

Every year, I feel like we hear a story about an extremely young golfer (they get younger every year) gearing up to play in a big-time tournament. This year, that golfer is Latanna Stone, a 10-year-old girl from Valrico, Florida, who just qualified to the U.S. Women’s Amateur, the most prestigious women’s amateur tournament, held August 6-12 in Cleveland. And of course, she’s the youngest girl to ever compete in the event.

So, some facts about Ms. Latanna Stone. She can drive the ball 225 yards, which, if my calculations are correct, is about 127 Latanna Stones (she’s 5-foot-4). She qualified for the Cleveland tournament after shooting two-under 70 in a regional qualifier. She’s won over 100 junior tournaments. And she’s not old enough to see a PG-13 movie (unless her parents tag along), but can sure enjoy a good juice box after finishing the back nine.

I don’t know how I feel about this. Like, I don’t know too much about Latanna Stone, like if one of her parents was a golfer, or is forcing her to golf. (Sort of like how the strongest girl in the world, this 10-year-old, had a dad who lifted weights. Also, what’s with all these freakishly skilled 10-year-olds? Is there quietly a generation of superheroes growing up right before our eyes?) All I know is when I was 10 years old I was all about cartoons and video games. Definitely didn’t have enough patience to play golf, and I don’t know if I do to this day.

So hats off to this girl. Pretty cool that she can qualify for a tournament like this. It still remains to be seen if she can hang with the big guns. I measure all of these pipsqueak performers on the Freddy Adu scale, so we’ll see how she fares over the next six days. All I’m gonna say is: next year, there will be some eight-year-old prodigy on the scene as the next “greatest, youngest golfer.” They’re just gonna keep getting younger and younger until eventually we have ourselves a fetus-phenom chipping balls out of the bunker.

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