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For the past few years, there’s been one particular end-of-season memory that has stuck with Megha Ganne. It’s the exclamation point on the AJGA competition calendar: the Rolex Tournament of Champions. The co-ed season ender includes a rite of passage for the top male and female junior players in the country. Each gets the floor at the season-ending banquet to give the player-of-the-year speech.
Ganne listened to Yealimi Noh, the now 20-year-old LPGA player with a Solheim Cup appearance under her belt, give it in 2018. Future Stanford teammates Rachel Heck (2017) and Rose Zhang did it (2019, 2020), too. Now the torch is passed to Ganne, who will duck stand-and-deliver duties this year because of lingering COVID-19 regulations forcing the banquet to remain virtual, but the point is the same.
“Honestly they’re all really moving to show how hard they worked over the years,” Ganne said of listening to those speeches.
The Rolex Player of the Year Award has a long, distinguished history of past champions, including Ariya Jutanugarn, Paula Creamer and Inbee Park on the women’s side and Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson on the men’s side.
“It’s the biggest honor you can get playing junior golf events and AJGAs,” Ganne said. “It’s a great goal to keep in mind through those winters and practice sessions and to be considered for the award and receive it, it’s the best feeling.”
Megha Ganne reacts to a putt on the sixth hole with her caddie Michael Finn during the third round at the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, California, on Saturday, June 5, 2021. (Photo by Kathryn Riley/USGA)
Ganne, of Holmdel, New Jersey, ended 2021 with appearances on four national teams (the Met Golf Association’s Carey Cup, the Junior Ryder Cup, the Junior Solheim Cup, and as a non-playing alternate on the Curtis Cup), a feat unheard of for a 17-year-old. Then again, Ganne did a lot of things unheard of…
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Source : yahoo
