For Klein, Success Is Par for the Course

Ever since Emilee Klein put ice skating, horseback riding and skiing behind her at age 12, she has been winning golf tournaments--so much so that she has become the most successful female golfer ever to come out of the Valley.

Klein, a Studio City native and 1992 graduate of Notre Dame High in Sherman Oaks, has earned $730,925 in a little more than two years as a professional golfer and at age 22 is already in the top 100 on the LPGA Tour’s career money list.

But success in golf is nothing new to Klein.

At 14, she became the youngest California Amateur Women’s champion in history. She won the U.S. Junior Girls’ championship as a 17-year-old in 1991 and advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Women’s championship that same year.

As an 18-year-old freshman at Arizona State University in 1992, she won the first collegiate tournament she entered and was honored as an NCAA All- American at the end of the season.

She followed that impressive campaign by winning the 1994 NCAA individual title and the Collegiate Player of the Year award.

After her sophomore season, Klein opted to turn professional, and she finished second two times in her rookie season.

Six months into her second season, Klein broke through in a big way. She won consecutive tournaments in August 1996, including the Women’s British Open, and quickly gained a reputation as one of the LPGA Tour’s toughest players. She finished ninth on the 1996 money list.

This season she has shown promise that better days are still ahead of her.

She is 16th on the 1997 LPGA money list with $87,329 through nine tournaments. In February, she tied the course record at Ibis Golf and Country Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., by shooting a final-round 63--one stroke shy of the all-time LPGA record.