Elizabeth Tong seeks professional career

The 16th hole was falling apart.

Elizabeth Tong’s tee shot went into the deep rough.

She couldn’t find it and had to hit another one.

Even her mom starts to get on her case, “Sweetie why don’t you go back and ...”
“Hit another one? Yeah, I know,” Tong snaps back.

But now she’s on the green, a chance to get some sort of redemption from the devilish hole at Purgatory Golf Course in Noblesville, Ind. where her team, IU women’s golf, competed in the season’s first event Sept. 8.

Several area schools competed in the invitational in the IU Fall Kickoff.
Players from top-finishing teams Louisville, Xavier, Cincinnati and six other schools are on the course alongside Tong.

Tong focuses on the putt in front of her and takes four practice strokes. She addresses the ball, looks up and eyes the path of her shot a final time.

She strikes.

Nope. Pushed it to the right. Hands on her knees, she stares at the ground.
She’ll record a seven on the hole, a triple bogey.

After shooting 36 through the first nine holes, she’s on pace to record a 42 on this side if she pars out.

“Two different players from the front nine to the back nine,” her mom said, walking away from the green. “It’s early in the season. That’s the problem. Her game isn’t sharp enough yet.”

***

Last summer, Tong spent up to three and a half hours at the driving range every day.

She went in between classes for the Kelley School of Business’s I-Core program.

The 20-year-old junior is a marketing major. She had a set routine every time she visited the range. First, she hit balls for about 90 minutes.

Then, she went to the putting green. She tried to perfect her stoke using a mechanism that helps with precision.

Tong brought the putting tool from her home in Ontario, Canada.

Placing the putter head inside the machine, she tries to eliminate variation in her swing.

Usually, she spent an hour putting.

Finally, she practiced her short game for an hour. Chipping and bunker play.

Every day she grinds, hoping to reach her dream.

Last year, for the first time since she was about 4-years-old, Tong allowed herself to entertain this dream.

She wants to go pro.

“I know I’m not good enough to be a professional player yet,” Tong said. “But I have a couple years trying to get there. But it’s out there. I want a shot.

“I want at least a shot rather than not trying for it at all.”

Her coach, Clint Wallman, is reminded of his past pro players when he watches Tong.
But when asked whether he thinks Tong will make it, he’s unsure at first.

“I mean, that’s a big question,” Wallman said. “I can tell you this. From a talent standpoint, from a fitness standpoint, from a shot-making standpoint, she has all the tools, not only to make it, but to be very successful.”

She’ll have to improve, he said. Especially her putting. He wants her to make birdie putts 20 to 25 percent of the time.

At the Sept. 8 invitational, she made only 14 percent of her birdies.

If she wants to make it pro, she’ll have to go through the rigorous qualifying school, the program prospective golfers go through to attain professional status.

It’s a three-stage process involving 234 holes of golf in three separate tournaments.

It costs $5,500 if players end up qualifying for all three stages and earn their professional status.

“And it’s not always about her and what’s she’s capable of doing,” Wallman said. “It’s the timing and who’s in the (qualifying) school with her, where it’s located. There’s a lot
of variables there outside her control that have a bearing if she will play on the tour.”

If she doesn’t make it, Tong said she wants to work in the tourism industry.

She’s on track to have a degree in two years from Kelley — the country’s 10th-best business school, according to U.S. News & World Report,.

She wouldn’t be the same person if she had never picked up a golf club, Tong said.
A key skill she learned is how to keep her cool.

“Golf is a sport where you really have to look like everything’s going well all the time,” she said. “You have to be so calm.”

Despite missing several putts on the 36-hole invitational today, she scarcely lost her
composure.

The other two other competitors sulked when things went awry.

Once, a competitor from Notre Dame beat the ground with her putter after she missed a putt. Tong’s teammates admire her poise.

“She keeps a level head,” teammate Marissa Decola said. “I learned a lot from that because you can’t get mad out there, especially when you’re out there for 12 hours.”

Elizabeth knows the odds are against her dream of reaching the pros. But she wants a shot.

“I say they are slim,” she said, “but they aren’t impossible.”

***

It’s the last hole at the Sept. 8 competition. Tong has another birdie attempt, a five footer.

She’ll find out in a few minutes that her team placed second. Louisville won by 27 strokes.

But for now she focuses on the putt.

She kneels down with her Scotty Cameron putter in hand, trying to read any break in the green.

The time is 6:33 p.m. Nine hours and 52 minutes ago she teed off on the first hole.

She birdied the first hole, making the putt look easy. But that was almost ten hours and seven miles of walking ago.

She’s seen 27 birdie putts so far and made only four.

This one is just five feet, though.

She approaches the ball and takes three practice strokes. She’s not thinking about her putting stroke or her technique.

She’s imagining which side of the hole she wants the ball to roll into.

“It helps me keep confident,” she said.

She looks up and eyes her path. She strikes. Hopefully for the last time today.

Nope, missed again.

Follow reporter Evan Hoopfer on Twitter @EvanHoopfer.