‘An old soul’ at 14, Karah Sanford is youngest qualifier at U.S. Women’s Open

When 14-year-old Escondido golfer Karah Sanford speaks of 76-year-old LPGA Hall of Famer Kathy Whitworth, it is with quiet reverence.

Only a tiny portion of Karah’s generation would know who Whitworth is, while Karah can tell you the number of her career wins: 88.

Beyond golf, Karah sings and loves country music. She beams when remembering her first concert. Not Rascal Flatts or Taylor Swift, but George Strait, the 64-year-old crooner whose career began two decades before Karah was born.

“Oldies but goodies,” Karah said as she relaxed on a couch on the patio of Vista Valley Country Club last week.

Her mother, Stacy Sanford, sitting nearby, nodded and smiled.

“An old soul,” she said.

When the U.S. Women’s Open begins Thursday at CordeValle Golf Club, just north of Gilroy in Northern California, Karah will be the youngest in a field of 156, but there might be women twice her age who aren’t as mature.

This is Karah’s first Open, which she first started trying to qualify for when she was 10. She wanted to be the youngest to ever play in the Open, but that didn’t happen. Lucy Li claimed that record when she qualified at 11 in 2014.

“So maybe I’ll be the first to win,” Karah said with a sly smile of the mark held by Inbee Park, who captured the 2008 Women’s Open at 19.

In the last four years, Karah has played in two U.S. Girls Junior Championships, one U.S. Women’s Amateur, and in April she qualified for her first LPGA Tour event, the Volunteers of America Texas Shootout. To her great thrill, she made the Friday and Saturday cuts.

In her group the first two days, the 5-foot-6, 120-pound Karah played with LPGA winner Sandra Gal and Cheyenne Woods, the niece of Tiger Woods, and they both missed the cut. Karah finished tied for 51st.

“She’s always been an adult,” Stacy Sanford said. “You could always have conversations with her. She’s never given us any trouble.

“With her golf, the one thing is that she’s always been super committed, and that hasn’t changed.”

Karah is the youngest of four children and eight years the junior of the next-youngest. Her brother, Bobby, who caddied for her in Texas, is almost exactly 10 years older. Her father, Perry, has been her lifelong golf instructor — neither one having ever taken a formal golf lesson.

But, boy, have they put in the work. The Sanfords live in the Hidden Meadows community in north Escondido, on the golf course now known as Boulder Oaks (formerly Meadow Lake). From the road that winds around the course, father and daughter could be seen working on Karah’s game from the time she was very small.

“I just know that I put in a lot of hard work,” said Karah, an upcoming high school sophomore who does most of her Classical Academy schoolwork online. “I’m out on the course every day. I don’t know if other 14-year-olds are doing that or not, but it works for me. It’s gotten me this far. Working on my game has made me get better and better, and hopefully it will get me on the LPGA someday.”

Karah has had to grow up fast in numerous ways.

When she was a toddler, she suffered from a nerve palsy in her eye that required surgery and patching. She deals with painful migraine headaches. At around 10, her mother noticed a lump on her back. An examination determined that Karah was suffering from scoliosis, a condition that causes a lateral curvature of the spine. It affects 2% to 3% of the population.

The curving can progress if untreated. Karah tried a brace, but said it didn’t work well for her body. Major surgery is a possibility, but as of now the Sanfords are working with a chiropractor to keep Karah adjusted.

She has a scoliosis role model on the LPGA Tour: former world No. 1 Stacy Lewis, who was diagnosed when she was 11. Lewis wore a back brace for seven years and underwent surgery to place a rod in her back when she was 18. She has 11 LPGA wins, including two majors.

Lewis had encouraging words for Karah during a brief talk they had in Texas.

“She’s shown me that it doesn’t affect you unless you let it get to you,” Karah said.

The Women’s Open qualifying process is grueling, requiring golfers to play 36 holes in one day in the sectional. At Goose Creek in Riverside County, Karah was in great shape with an opening 71, but shot 74 in the afternoon and thought she’d blown her chance.

“I wasn’t happy with it,” she said. “I just went upstairs to hang out with my friends to see who qualified. Then people kept coming in, and before I knew it, I was in second place and qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open.”

Karah has won numerous top-level junior tournaments, including two Junior World Championships held in San Diego. The Golfweek/Sagarin rankings put her at No. 1 in the country for the Class of 2020. But there’s nothing like earning your way into a field of easily the most prestigious tournament in women’s golf.

“It’s always been the one tournament I wanted to qualify for,” Karah said. “It just shows that my work is paying off.”

In a mad dash to get in a practice round at CordeValle, the Karahs recently made a 19-hour roundtrip, and Karah deemed the course long and extremely testing. She’ll have to use plenty of fairway woods to go for the greens, but she’s unfazed because she considers her lob wedge to be among her strongest clubs.

Playing with the women in the LPGA event, she said, “terrified” her at first, but Karah said she soon came to realize, “They’re normal people out there playing golf, just like I am.”

On the Tuesday following the Women’s Open, other girls might have to adopt the same perspective. They’ll tee off against Karah in the 13-14 Division of Junior World being played at the Country Club of Rancho Bernardo.

There, she’ll be a woman among girls.

tod.leonard@sduniontribune.com