An Iron Will

Jennifer Rosales was only 17 but there she was, facing a decision that would determine the course of her life.

Should she go to slumber parties, dances, the beach, same as all the other kids?

Or should she continue playing golf, the sport she thought she had dedicated herself to?

She sought the advice of a friend, another golfer.

Then she took that advice.

And because she did, Rosales will be defending her national women’s collegiate championship when she leads fifth-ranked USC in the NCAA tournament beginning today at Tulsa, Okla.

“I asked her to look deep in her heart,” said Olivia Yu, the older golfer from Hong Kong whose advice Rosales had sought. “For her, picking up clubs was like picking up chopsticks for a Chinese person. I told her, ‘You love golf. You cannot drop it.’ ”

Rosales regained her focus and later that year won the junior world championship. She’s now a 20-year-old sophomore at USC who hopes soon to try the LPGA tour.

But before she tries to qualify for the tour in August and September, she must defend the NCAA title she won a year ago, less than four months after moving to the United States from her native Philippines. And though she’s half a world away from her homeland, Rosales feels the pressure coming from there.

That’s because her success has made her somewhat of a celebrity there. And knowing that her every move on the course will be reported in her native country is what Rosales thinks about most.

“Oh yes, there is a lot of pressure. Everyone back home is looking at me,” said Rosales, currently second-ranked in Division I. “They’ve been looking at me for years.”

The daughter of an army colonel and political advisor, Rosales lived a privileged life as a child in Manila, her family close to then-president Fidel Ramos.

By the time she was 5, she was swinging a putter. At 11, she began using the other clubs, and before long her dad, Genaro Rosales, could see a golfer in the making.

“It took her about six months and she was hitting the ball well,” he said. “It started out as playing for fun. They [Jennifer and her brother Gerald] showed potential, so my next step was to mold her into a champion.”

Less than a year later, Jennifer finished second in her age group at the Junior World Championships at San Diego. Her career was on its way.

Soon it was clear there wasn’t much Rosales couldn’t do on the course. But there was lots she wasn’t doing off it.

While her friends’ free time was spent at malls, movies and the beach, hers was devoted to practice rounds, putting greens and the driving range.

“A lot of the time I wanted to do normal things,” she said. “But I’m not a normal kid. Most of the time I was too tired to do anything after golf.

“You have to make sacrifices to be the best and I wanted to be a professional since I started playing.”

The sacrifices produced success. But the success, in turn, produced pressure.

The ranking female golfer in the Philippines is the country’s five-time defending amateur champion and, according to the National Golf Assn. of the Philippines, recently finished second in voting for the country’s athlete of the year.

“All of her family, her friends, the golf association even, look at her as ‘the Hope,’ ” Yu said. “She’s a jewel in her country.

“She’s not just known in the Philippines, but throughout the [Asian Pacific region]. Everybody in her country is pushing her and hoping she makes it [in the LPGA].”

Yu, 39, and Rosales met at a tournament in Japan in 1994. After a bad round, Rosales broke into tears. Yu said she tried to calm Rosales. Rosales remembers it as a stranger lecturing her on how to play better.

In any event, they grew so close, Rosales calls Yu her godmother and says she owes Yu all of her collegiate success.

At San Diego in ‘96, Rosales not only won the junior title, she caught the eye of USC Coach Andrea Gaston. Gaston had gone there thinking about several golfers but left thinking of only one.

A year of communication through Rosales’ sister in Los Angeles followed, and Gaston had her recruit in Southern California just in time to begin the spring season in 1998.

She is away from the Philippines, but Rosales is at home on any golf course. And that showed immediately. Rosales finished first or second on her team in four of her first five tournaments.

But nobody expected her to win a national championship in her sixth collegiate event.

“We knew the talent was there after seeing her win the junior worlds,” Gaston said. “But to acclimate to a new country and win the national championship after only five matches is incredible.”

For the Philippines, it was more than incredible. It put the country on the golfing map. And Rosales was bigger than ever.

“It was the talk of the nation,” Rosales said. “When I got to the airport [last summer], there were TV cameras, newspapers. I had a parade in my dad’s hometown. I was a big celebrity.”

And it only made her legend grow.

“It was big news,” said Jake Ayson, executive officer of the NGAP. “She is our best hope to make it in ladies’ golf. Every time she does well, everybody knows.”

And the country’s expectations don’t end with Jennifer.

“Her brother is the top-ranked male in the Philippines too,” Ayson said. “We’re looking to have the best brother-sister team in golf.”

The pressures and expectations have not changed since Rosales returned to the United States. Neither has her play. She has been the top Trojan golfer in all 10 of their tournaments this season. She has two tournament victories and three second-place finishes. She has finished out of the top eight only once.

When she’s in a tournament, Rosales isn’t a stone-faced personification of intensity. She’s relaxed, in her element.

“You have to be 100% focused when you play, and I am,” she said. “But it’s relaxing out there for me. If you don’t talk, it gets too intense.”

What remains to be seen is how her approach works in the LPGA.

Rosales made her LPGA amateur debut in February, playing in the Valley of the Stars championship at Oakmont in Glendale. She missed the cut but said it was lack of focus, not lack of ability, that kept her score up.

Two days before the tournament began, Rosales won a collegiate tournament at Palos Verdes and said the turnaround made it difficult for her to play well at Oakmont.

“I was pumped up after winning Palos Verdes and didn’t put it together,” she said. “But at least now I know what to expect. I think I’m ready. After [this weekend] I will work so hard. No more school, no more tests. I can just concentrate on golf.”

Not everybody is convinced she’s ready.

“She’s got tremendous talent, but talent alone doesn’t make it,” Gaston said. “If she can learn how to work smarter and harder, she can make it.”

But the biggest voice Rosales will hear is the one coming from home, and its message is clear.

“If she could make it in the LPGA, the Philippines would be so proud,” Ayson said.