Mental game the challenge as Mehaffey puts tough 2021 behind her.
Olivia Mehaffey (NIR) on the 10th during round 3 of the ISPS Handa World International 2021, Galgorm Castle, Co. Antrim, Ireland. 31/07/2021 Picture: Golffile | Thos Caffrey
Olivia Mehaffey was an All American at Arizona State, a two-time Curtis Cup player and World Amateur Team Championships bronze medallist. But she admits dealing with external pressures and her own high expectations has been the biggest challenge in her first six months as a professional.
The 24-year-old Tandragee talent should have turned professional in 2020, but after breaking her hand in the summer of 2019 and then finding herself caught up in the Covid-19 pandemic, she took up the chance to play for a fifth year in Arizona before turning professional last May.
Then everything changed.
She was 17th in the ISPS Handa World Invitational on home soil in the summer before her father Philip passed away just days before the Ladies European Tour Q-School last December after a battle with cancer.
With her father's illness weighing on her mind, Mehaffey had already failed to get through the Second Stage of the LPGA Q-School.
But despite the loss of the man who introduced her to the game at the age of 12, she headed to La Manga Resort to fulfill his final wishes.
A double-bogey at the final hole of the 90-hole test left Mehaffey a shot outside the top 23 players who won full LET cards. But buoyed by support from family, friends like Leona Maguire and a raft of loyal sponsors, she affronts the 2022 season with high hopes.
"Last year was an extremely tough year for me, on and off the course, probably the hardest I faced and I hope I don't face anything like last year for a long time," said Mehaffey, who expects to get into most events on the LET but plans to concentrate on the Espon Tour (formerly the Symetra Tour) in the US.
Her biggest challenge is between the ears, but having returned to sports psychologist Mark Elliott after a six-year break, she feels ready to take on all comers and win her LPGA Tour card.
"He's like, 'you treat this like it is life or death and you put so much importance on every single event and on every single shot as if tomorrow doesn't exist if it doesn't go well'," she explained.
"So I sat down after last year and I wrote a reflection on every part of my game. And the mental game was the one area that I thought had gotten worse and needed a lot of work. So it's something I am actively working on with him at the minute."
She's grateful for her sponsors and even more grateful to have Solheim Cup star Leona Maguire to lean on for advice.
"I talk to Leona every week, we're really good friends and I would say she's one of my best friends, and it's really nice for me to bounce ideas off her," added Olivia, who knows she must improve her iron play with Spanish coach Jorge Parada to compete this year.
The top 10 on the Epson Tour will win LPGA Tour cards and Mehaffey knows she will likely have to win to earn promotion.
"I want to get a win this year, and I want to get my LPGA card," she said. "They are two goals and things I can't control right now. I think the biggest thing I need to see improve is my mental game.
"Being in space where I'm happy again on the golf course, enjoying it, being in contention, handling situations a little bit better, that would be the most important for me."
Mehaffey was speaking before the official launch of Goif Ireland’s five-year strategic plan and she believes girls should be given the chance to play with other girls to encourage them to stick with the game.
“It’s good for us all to be working towards the same thing, to have the same goals in mind, it is very exciting and having such a good plan provides a really good direction and the five key areas that were identified are very important, about the future, supporting clubs, events, that side of thing is very exciting,” she said.
“There are a lot of areas in it for me that I think is really very exciting, to be more accessible and I’m very passionate with junior girls and giving back that way, so I think to get more of them involved, it is going to be a very exciting few years.”
“I just want other girls to have the same opportunities I had”
Giving juniors greater access to tee times is one of the tenets of the plan and Mehaffey is all for getting more girls involved.
“It’s one of the key things that I’m passionate about, without golf I know my life wouldn’t be like how it is now, it has been a huge part of my life since I was about six years old and I just want other girls to have the same opportunities I had and to realise how fun it is and I think that’s more the direction it is going where it is more inclusive, more accessible as well, it is hopefully more fun. I think there is really good initiatives to make it more fun for everybody, so I think the future direction is very exciting.”
She added: “The main thing for me when I was growing up was that I played a lot with the guys. I was very fortunate that my brother was at the golf club, my dad was at the golf club so I felt that they felt maybe obliged to take me under their wing and let me play with them. Maybe it wouldn’t have been their choice if my dad and my brother weren’t there.
“I think there should be something that gets the girls together in a group. There are quite a lot of them and I think that’s very important so that you don’t feel like a minority thinking you have to play with the boys in the competition. So I think something that keeps a good group of girls together helps a lot.
“I know at Tandragee at the moment it’s amazing. There are so many girls for the Saturday competition, they can have two groups of girls rather than having to play with a guy is because you are intimidated at that age playing with the guys. I think something focusing on that area would be very important.”