Li, who has signed with California, admits she has aspirations of playing on the Tour someday, but prefers to focus on the present.
NEWCASTLE – TWAACK!
The large white head of the snazzy new driver connects with the sweet spot, and the golf ball rockets off the tee.
Marianne Li, in what appears to be perfect form, watches as it flies some 250 yards, slightly to the right, and bounces maybe 50 more on the hilly green grass of the driving range at the Newcastle Golf Club.
“How did that feel?” she’s asked.
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“A little open,” she responds, critiquing her swing.
So Li hits the next one even better, dead straight, and seems more satisfied. Two more follow suit before the Newport High School senior steps aside to let teammate Nien-Hay Wu take a turn. Talk about a hard act to follow.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Wu says of Li’s golf game.
Li leaves many in awe, including Newport coaches Frank Nimmo and Cooper Hatton.
“She’s taught us more than we’ve taught her,” Nimmo said. “It’s like watching a weekend (professional) golfer. She’s LPGA.”
Li, who has signed with the University of California, admits she has aspirations of playing on the Tour someday, but prefers to focus on the present. The 18-year-old takes the game one match, one hole, one swing at a time, and is enjoying her final season of high-school golf. She hopes to help the Knights win the KingCo 4A championship, a title that could be determined against rival Eastlake on May 5.
Li placed third in last year’s 4A state tournament, three strokes behind Alivia Brown from Bellarmine Prep of Tacoma. Brown has graduated, but Sierra Kersten of Lewis and Clark of Spokane, the runner-up in 2014, returns along with several others capable of making a run at the title – including Eastlake’s Ashley Fitzgibbons (sixth last year) and Maddie Nelson (ninth).
But ask Li about her state goals and she talks about how she scores rather than where she finishes.
“I’d like to get par or better, and then however that turns out in terms of everyone else, I’ll take it as it goes,” she said.
Li placed fifth at state as a freshman, then missed the playoffs the following spring with a hand injury.
She and her brother, Alan, a sophomore who also golfs for Newport, started learning the game at a young age as their parents exposed them to multiple sports. Marianne was 9 when they attended their first golf camp and learned with tennis balls and plastic clubs.
“I really liked it when I first started,” she said. “Obviously, there’s the challenging part about the game, just staying patient and dealing with the factors, like the weather. The game really stuck with me, just trying to improve every day.”
By age 10, Marianne was beating her father, who had been a casual golfer, and a year later she won her first tournament.
Nimmo remembers first seeing her as a sixth grader.
“We had a match here (Newcastle) against Redmond and we had to call it – it was sleeting and cold. It wasn’t playable,” he said. “We’re putting the carts away and I see this little girl, and she’s out there practicing putting, in those conditions. That is an example of her work ethic and her passion for the game.”
Li, who tutored under Camille Surdi for several years, enjoys helping others with their game. A 3.9 student, she volunteers with The First Tee, a national organization that promotes youth golf and enabled her to play at Pebble Beach in 2012.
Consistency is one of her trademarks, along with the ability to answer the occasional bad shot with a beautiful one.
“She rarely hits a bad shot, but if she does she always comes back really good,” playing partner Monica Kent said. “I remember (recently) when she hit the ball on the hillside, and wound up birdieing the hole.”
The hours of practice in all kinds of weather continue to pay off for Marianne Li.