There is a new star in women’s golf. Anna Huang is 17, was born in Vancouver, and has already won the kind of trophies most players can only dream of across an entire career. Her latest? The PIF London, a major international tournament with a $2 million prize purse. The young Canadian took the title after a superb battle that went all the way to the final hole, seeing off Britain’s Charley Hull — and, inevitably, a home crowd firmly behind its own player. “I still can’t believe what I’ve achieved,” Huang said, trophy in hand. “I’m living a dream. I really am.”
What has impressed people around the game most, beyond the obvious precocity of her talent, is the way she handles pressure. In the middle of a tight round, she carries herself with the ease of a veteran. A steely mindset. The right shot at the right moment. This was Huang’s fourth title in less than a year, making her the youngest player ever to reach that mark on the LET, the Ladies European Tour, which has invested heavily in recent years in taking women’s golf to a wider global audience. Huang arrives at an interesting moment for the sport, and increasingly looks like its face of the future. She is unassuming, smiling, easy to relate to. The kind of player who can bring a new generation of young women to a sport still dominated by men, who make up roughly three quarters of players worldwide.
There is another part of Huang’s story that could open up new possibilities, both competitively and commercially: her Chinese heritage. In recent months, the golfer also made her first appearance at Mission Hills, near Shenzhen, one of the country’s most fashionable courses, and described the experience as “unique and really exciting”. More broadly, Huang seems conscious of what her multicultural background could mean. Golf is expanding quickly in China, with an industry worth around $700 million and annual growth of 7–8 per cent. The sport has not always found it easy to establish itself there, but that is changing quickly, helped by the scale of investment now surrounding major tournaments. The game has yet to find a truly global ambassador in China. Huang could be the prodigy who arrives at just the right time. And she is only getting started.