LALI STANDER: From teen prodigy to Open winner: Ashleigh Buhai’s 18-year journey

“How high ... Buhai! How high ... Buhai!” That’s me, still chanting away three days after Ashleigh Buhai celebrated her AIG Women’s Open victory with family, friends, fellow players and caddies in the Player’s Pavilion at Muirfield on Sunday night.

Sharing in the celebrations via video call and watching Ash’s grimace as she took the obligatory sip from the coveted trophy, I had to wipe the tears away quite a few times. Major champion. I’ve caught myself saying it out loud at the oddest times over the last three days.

My thoughts keep going back to the day I watched a pint-sized Ashleigh Simon for the first time, 18 years ago, pushing a golf cart twice her size, at Strand Golf Club.

That was the day she won her first SA Women’s Amateur double. So feisty. So focused. So determined. Just 14 years old, and the youngest women’s amateur champion in SA golf history.

That was the day a much younger me turned to my dad and said, “Watch this girl. She’s going to be our next women’s Major champion.”

Ash went on to win the Match Play and Stroke Play double twice more — in 2006 and 2007 — and her storied amateur career was nothing short of outstanding.

She was a teenage phenomenon from Johannesburg who was beating professionals before the age of 15, winning just about every trophy on offer and was destined to become a world beater. I remember thinking at the time that she was so good and so far ahead of any other player of her age that she simply couldn’t miss when the time came to turn professional. I certainly wasn’t alone.

In most cases I am against amateurs turning professional while still in their teens. They may have the talent, but many lack the maturity needed to succeed in the dog-eat-dog world of pro golf. Ash was an obvious exception. She had won all there was to win on the amateur circuit and won four professional events as an amateur, including the 2004 SA Women’s Open at the age of 14 and the SA Women’s Masters at age 16. She is still the only amateur to achieve this feat in both flagship events and the only amateur to win the SA Women’s Open twice.

But little did I know she’d make me wait that long for the Major breakthrough.

It was a full 15 years after I had sent out a press release announcing to the world that Ash was joining the pro ranks that she finally delivered the goods. And I know my old man was watching and smiling up in heaven, telling anyone who would listen, “my daughter always said Ash would do it”.

I felt as proud as her third parent as I watched her sink the winning putt.

Proud because she became only our second female Major winner. Proud because she ended a 32-year wait for another Major trophy since legendary Sally Little won her second Major — a year before Ash was born. Proud that it was she who broke a 10-year wait for a next SA Major champion. But mostly I was proud because Ash showed everyone who dared to call her a choker after her collapse in the final round of the Women’s Open at Woburn in 2019 that those days are over.

Little Ash was back!

We have walked a long road through sickness, injuries, setbacks, highs and lows since that historic day at Strand Golf Club.

When she married Dave and took his surname, I told her that was a dumb thing to do. She’d have to rebrand herself. And her response: “I guess I better win quickly then before people wonder what’s happened to me.” And she did.

Watching her win her third Ladies European Tour title in the Investec SA Women’s Open in 2018, I knew Ash was on a comeback trail. Her swing was so free, her short-game on song and the putter worked a treat.

Yet, after her best LPGA Tour season in 2019, I saw none of that as she came down the stretch in the 2019 Women’s Open at Woburn. She had squandered a tidy lead, but her body language screamed defeat.

I sent her a message. Still have it, and I looked at it on Sunday night. “Sorry Ash, that was tough. But until you believe you’re as good as best and switch off the negative thoughts, you will always come up short. Rooting for you.”

The Ash at Muirfield found a way. The Ash at Muirfield was mature, confident, and most of all, in control. She played 76 holes of near-perfect golf, even when it all went pear-shaped when she bunkered herself on the 15th in the final round.

After the win, Ash was as honest as she always is: “As hard as it was after that triple on 15, I just tried to stay in the moment. I made one bad swing, which was the tee shot that found the bunker. If I had half a lie, I would have been able to play out to the fairway and walk off with a bogey. But I was tied for the lead with three holes to play and it wasn’t over. I wrote it off to bad luck, dug deep and gave myself every chance to force a play-off.”

Ash didn’t even know how many extra holes she needed to beat In Gee Chun.

“I had no idea,” she said to me on Monday. “I was in my bubble, just thinking about each shot. I only found out afterwards it was four holes. And that’s how I have to play going forward.”

If Ash had lost, the scars would have been deep. But she didn’t. Instead, she is the toast of SA and deservedly so. Under the most intense pressure, she delivered. She stayed in the moment. No postmortems after bad shots.

The self-belief is finally there and, with a five-year LPGA Tour exemption, a little more than R18m in the bank and a career-high world ranking of 27th, life is finally on the right trajectory for Ash. I think the floodgates have just opened.