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Brooke Henderson gets famous new fans after impressive LPGA win

Brooke Henderson gets famous new fans after impressive LPGA win

Not many 17-year-olds get a text from the Prime Minister. Or, for that matter, wake up on Monday morning to see their picture gracing the front page of our national newspaper and find they are trending on Twitter.

Then again, there are not many teens quite like Brooke Henderson. This past weekend, the professional golfer from Smiths Falls, Ont., won her first tournament on the LPGA Tour.

With the win, Henderson set a number of milestones. She’s only the third player to win such a title before turning 18 and she is the first Canadian, regardless of age, to win an LPGA Tour event since Lorie Kane of Charlottetown won the Takefuji Classic in 2001 — when Henderson was a three-year-old. Her world ranking also skyrocketed from No. 32 to a projected No. 17. The win also guarantees she’ll be a regular on the LPGA Tour in 2016, if not sooner.

Other tweets came from the likes of fellow professional golfers such as Michelle Wie, Annika Sorenstam, and Gary Player:

On Monday afternoon, after a late night celebrating her impressive win with her family — and a wee wink of sleep — she took time to chat with the media via a teleconference, prior to the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open, which takes place this week at The Vancouver Golf Club. When she walked into the Vancouver Golf Club clubhouse Monday morning, she received a warm reception.

“I received lots of applause, lots of cheers, and lots of congratulations,” said Henderson. “It was pretty cool. I’m very excited to get my first win on the LPGA Tour with hopefully many more to come. Afterwards, my phone was blowing up with Tweets and texts from many awesome people. Listening to their words of support was very cool. The one from Gary Player meant a lot; my sister and I always liked the Black Knight.”

Like the way she handles the press, Henderson is calm and cool on the course.

“I didn’t really feel nervous until the 18th hole,” she said. “I just remained focused and played my own game … keeping to the same game plan I had for the whole week.”

After teeing off in her national open this week, Henderson is still thinking about different options for her future; she’s weighing the pros and cons with her family and her team to decide whether she will petition the commissioner to get LPGA status for the rest of the 2015 season or just wait until she gets it automatically next year when she’s 18.

She turns 18 on September 10; the golfer is excited she’ll celebrate that milestone by playing at the Evian Championship in France. Looking ahead, Henderson also hopes to represent Canada at the Olympics in Rio in 2016.

“It’s definitely been on my mind for a couple of years and been trying to constantly improve my world ranking,” she said. “It looks like right now I’ll be playing with Alena Sharp who is a great friend of mine … it would be a lot of fun to head down to Brazil and bring home the gold medal for Canada.”

With the winner’s cheque of $195,000 USD, Henderson’s career earnings are now unofficially $661,818. One wonders whether she’s thought about spending any of this hard-earned cash yet? “I haven’t thought about too much yet,” she concluded. “I’ll probably just save it up and use it wisely.”

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