15-Year-Old Amateur Lee Hyosong: "You Saw the Power of a 15-Year-Old~"

Idayeon and Asia Pacific Cup 1R Co-Leaders
Leading the Team Event Alongside Kim Minsol
Titikun Tied for Lead, Im Heejeong and Kim Minbyeol Tied for 5th

This is the "15-year-old power" of Lee Hyo-song (Masan Jeil Middle School, 3rd grade), the No. 1 amateur in the Korea Golf Association (KGA) rankings.

Lee Hyosong is making an iron shot on the 10th hole of the first round of the Simond Asia Pacific Cup.
[Photo by Simond Asia Pacific Cup]

On the 21st, Lee Hyo-song shot a 4-under-par 68 in the first round of the Simone Asia-Pacific Cup (total prize money $750,000), an Asia-Pacific women's golf team competition hosted by the Asia Golf Leaders Forum (AGLF), held at Pondok Indah Golf Club (par 72, 6,906 yards) in Jakarta, Indonesia, taking the top spot on the leaderboard. In the team event, where the scores of two players in the same group are combined, she and amateur Kim Min-sol are also leading at 4-under-par. Lee Hyo-song and Kim Min-sol won the World Women's Amateur Team Championship this year.

Lee Hyo-song reduced her score by 4 strokes in the front nine and exchanged one birdie for one bogey on the back nine. She is the youngest participant in this tournament. Born in 2008, she is expected to graduate from middle school next year. Although she was in poor condition due to a wrist injury sustained during training and even considered withdrawing, she matched shoulders with the "pro sisters" with stable driver shots. Lee Hyo-song said, "Rather than the results, I want to learn a lot through competing with world-class players," and confidently stated, "My goal is to become world No. 1 like Ko Jin-young unnie."

Da-yeon Lee, a champion with 8 wins on the Korean LPGA (KLPGA) Tour, Atthaya Thitikul, and Pannaray Misom (both from Thailand), who won the lowest scoring average on the LPGA Tour this year, joined the co-leader group. Lim Hee-jung and Kim Min-byeol started comfortably in a tie for 5th place (2-under-par 70). Baba Saki (Japan), the UA Amateur Champion this year, is tied for 9th place (1-under-par 71). This tournament features 58 players from 16 countries competing over 54 holes of stroke play to determine the winner.