Teenage golfing prodigy Lydia Ko expects to remain based in New Zealand during her first year on the LPGA Tour.
The 16-year-old Auckland school girl and world No.1 amateur announced her move to the paid ranks last week.
On Tuesday, the LPGA announced it had approved her application to be exempt from its rule that players had to be at least 18 to be on the tour.
While Ko’s first outing as a professional is confirmed – the LPGA’s season-ending Titleholders event in Florida next month – she’s unsure about how many tournaments she will play in 2014.
It will be her last year at Pinehurst School and she says she definitely wants to finish her secondary schooling.
“I want to go to university, so I need to graduate high school first,” she said in an international media conference call.
“I think I will be based here because all my family is here at the moment. It would be quite a big change to move somewhere else.”
Ko said it had always been her dream to get on the LPGA Tour and was excited to get the news from commissioner Michael Whan late last week.
She saw her debut year as a chance to get the feel of being on the circuit.
“It’s obviously a lot of hard work playing three or four weeks in a row and then having one week off and then doing that again,” she said.
“I just want to get the feeling. I guess experience is a huge part.”
Ko has already won twice on the tour, with successive victories in the Canadian Open.
Her second Canadian title lifted her world ranking to No.4.
Her first in August 2012 came at the age of 15, making her the youngest winner of an LPGA tournament.
Seven months earlier, while still 14, she took out the NSW Open, becoming at that stage the youngest player to win a professional event.
In all, she entered 25 professional tournaments as an amateur, for four wins and no missed cuts, and had to forgo more than $US1.2 million ($A1.26 million) in prize money.
In granting Ko full-time membership for 2014, Whan said: “It is not often that the LPGA welcomes a rookie who is already a back-to-back LPGA Tour champion.”
