PARKER, Colo.—The giggles give away her age.
But listen to the other sounds coming from the driving range at Black Bear Golf Club and one quickly realizes there’s something special about the dressed-in-pink, bubbly bundle of energy known as Elizabeth Wang.
Pro Corey Baehman sees it just about every day at the club because that’s typically where one can find the precocious 8-year-old.
“When she’s on the range, there’s a crowd there in about 10 minutes,” Baehman said. “Just to see a little kid like that make the sound she makes when she hits the ball and generate that much club speed…it’s pretty amazing.”
For the record, Wang is 4-foot-2, with a driver that reaches nearly to her chin.
But her swing speed approaches 80 mph, and despite her youth, she routinely hits drives 180 to 190 yards.
She already has broken 80 from the women’s tees (5,384 yards) at Black Bear, has had two holes-in-one at Family Golf Course in Englewood (from 112 and 57 yards) and, last week, finished tied for third in her age group at the Junior World Golf Championships in San Diego.
Weekend hackers take note: She hasn’t been playing two years yet.
This week, she was scheduled to be in Pinehurst, N.C., to play in the U.S. Kids Golf World Championship (Thursday to Saturday), and in late August, she will participate in the Drive, Chip and Putt national championships in Celebration, Fla.,—her 206-yard bomb off the tee helping pave the way for the all-expenses-paid trip.
“I think I’ve done pretty well, but I know I can do better,” the soon-to-be fourth-grader says simply.
Baehman has no doubt.
He has seen her at the course at first light, seen her helping chip balls back from the range at dusk. He has seen her practice putting two hours a day, seen her play 36 holes at a time, then beg her father to play some more.
“They’re so opposite from the overbearing parents,” he said of Peter and Patricia Wang, who live across the street from the Parker golf course. “She’s begging them to play golf.”
Elizabeth, who skipped kindergarten and is in the gifted program at Pineland Primary School, admits as much.
Some days she’ll wake her father at dawn and literally drag him out of bed so she can work on a particular shot.
Her success—Mom says she finished third, second, then won the next three Colorado junior tournaments she entered—reached a point Dad semiretired from his computer-technology business so he could accompany her to the course and tournaments.
Peter Wang is about as unpretentious as Elizabeth is vivacious. He takes no credit for his daughter’s prowess. He simply helped facilitate her improvement, buying books and videos to help her learn her aggressive, yet flawless, swing.
She has read books by Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan and Annika Sorenstam and regularly watches Golf Channel.
She has the lingo down to a tee.
She knows a collection area from a water hazard, a 60-degree wedge from a sand wedge. And she’s not hesitant to tell a reporter “you’re away” on the green when it’s time to putt.
Asked to name her favorite golfer, without hesitation she says Fred Couples.
How many 8-year-old girls have even heard of Fred Couples?
“She follows the game, knows the game and is borderline obsessed with it,” Baehman said. “You’ve just got to steer her in the right direction and make sure she enjoys herself so that it’s not work.”
What’s unusual is neither her mother nor her father ever played the game.
So where does she get her athleticism?
Peter Wang points to his wife, who was a very good swimmer in China when she was young.
Both parents were born in China and came to the United States to study, then later emigrated and became American citizens.
Peter’s schooling is in computer technology; Patricia is a pharmacy supervisor at King Soopers.
“Pete’s not afraid to (ask), ‘Am I doing this right?’ He knows she’s special,” Baehman said.
Dad’s only mistake so far might have been accidentally backing his car over her clubs one day.
“You would have thought her dog died,” Baehman said of Elizabeth, who was visibly upset.
By that night, dad had tracked down replacements, as well as a new pink bag to replace the damaged one.
“She’s an amazing talent, with unbelievable ability,” Baehman said as he watched Elizabeth hit a perfect sand shot and sink a 12-foot birdie putt. “But she’s an even better kid.”
She’ll run up and hug marshals, high-five members at the semiprivate course and mug for the camera.
She’s not shy, and she knows what she wants: To be an LPGA member, birdie every hole in the same round and, last but not least, become a surgeon.
She might be little, but the kid thinks big.
“She has the skills now to be a scratch golfer—she’s just not big enough,” Baehman said. “Right now, she doesn’t hit it far enough—doesn’t hit it high enough because she’s so little. But with her fundamentals, her swing and her hand-eye coordination, she’ll be a scratch player by age 12, probably pretty easily.”
For now, the dark-haired pixie plays on, her infectious laugh carrying like her ball across the range.
“Bye-bye,” she says after launching another drive with that sweet swing. “Bye-bye.”
