Five years after turning professional,
South African golfer Lee-Anne Pace, then 29, won her first professional
tournament at the Ladies’ Swiss Open in June 2010, and went on to bag a further
five wins to top the Ladies European Tour money list last year, earning EUR
359, 517 - the equivalent of R3.5million.
After winning the Swiss Open, the Mossel
Bay club player won the Wales Ladies’ Open, the Finnair Masters, and secured two
back-to-back victories at the Sanya China Ladies’ Open and the Suzhou Taihu
Ladies’ Open in China before clinching top honours with her win in Dubai.
Pace is the first South African to top the
Henderson Money List – formerly known as
the Order of Merit - on the European circuit, and has clearly found her swing,
beating well-known UK veteran golfer Laura Davies to the top of the list in the
final round at the Dubai Ladies’ Masters.
The thirty-year-old with an every-ready
smile was also voted as the Players’ Player of the Year by her peers. Being recognised by one’s peers is perhaps an
even greater compliment, and with her sights set on winning a major tournament
next year, this lady could well be setting a pace that will be hard to match.
Currently ranked 58th in the
world, Pace was born in Paarl in the Western Cape. The eldest of two daughters,
she grew up in Wellington and attended the Hugenote Hoerskool there. When she
was growing up she wanted to become a doctor or surgeon but finally decided to
focus on golf as a career.
Her first introduction to golf was though
her Dad, Francois Pace, who Pace describes as quite a good golfer. At age
twelve the athletic hockey and tennis player used to caddy for her Dad for
pocket money, earning R20 for a round of 18 holes on the weekend.
She moved from playing caddy to playing
golf with the boys, and entered her first tournament at the age of 18. It was
around then that her Dad suggested she seriously consider taking golf up as a
career.
Pace, who loves the ocean, red wine and
chocolate, went to study in the US, first at Murray State University and then
the University of Tulsa and launched a successful amateur collegiate career
while completing her degree in psychology.
She won the 2003 Ohio Valley Conference
Championship, the 2003 Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year as well as
2003 Murray State Player of the Year. She then won the University of Tulsa
Player of the Year and the WAC Championship in 2005.
After turning pro in May 2005 Pace, who
admits she is quietly ambitious, has worked steadily on improving her skills
and her ranking. In her rookie year on the Ladies’ European Tour in 2007 she
finished 110th. She moved up quickly to 64th in 2008 and
21st in 2009 – while also being recognised as Player of the Year for
2009 by Complete Golfer and Golf Digest.
In 2010 she topped the Ladies’ European
Tour list, beating 170 international players. Pace attributes her recent
success to hard work, both on and off the course; working with South
African-based coach Val Holland and James Pett, her coach based in Copenhagen,
Denmark – where Pace was based last year for the European tour. She says she
has been working a lot on her swing and also working out in the gym to improve
her strength for distance shots.
Pace says apart from the physical training
she’s also changed her mental approach to her training and game – becoming more
goal oriented and tactical. She prepares in advance to understand the types of
shots she’ll need to use for the course she is playing and also visualises her
shots before playing.
As glamorous as all the travelling and
winning sounds, there’s a lot involved and Pace says it takes time to get used
to it all. The experience of a new country, new hotel, new course, different
procedures, different food, different weather – or even just seeing your name
on the leader board – can be a bit overwhelming initially. But South Africa’s
rising golfing star seems to have adjusted to all those requirements.
Pace says the thing she’d most like to
change is her impatience. She’s not a superstitious player, but admits that
ever since she started wearing a white outfit for every final round she’s won a
lot more tournaments.
After such a successful 2010, this year Pace, who aims to be one of the best woman golfers in the world, has her sights set on the US where she plans to compete in six events including the US Women’s Open, while still travelling back to Europe for all the big tournaments on the Ladies’ European Tour.
