Master Plan

For the first time in a long time, Angela Rho is looking toward the future and feeling comfortable doing it.

It has been awhile since Rho, a 17-year-old from Fullerton, has been able to pull herself away from a strict plan she devised with her parents that required a steadfast focus on immediate goals.

The plan, a detailed step-by-step strategy for success, didn’t allow much time to peek too far beyond the present.

So far it has worked. Rho, who is defending her title this week at the Junior World Championships at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, has become one of the top junior girls in the nation.

A golf scholarship to Stanford for the upcoming school year completes a significant portion of that plan and it leaves Rho, who recently graduated from Sonora High, comfortable with looking a few months down the road.

“Common phrases I’ve been using lately are ‘can’t wait’ and ‘excited’ and ‘ecstatic,’ ” Rho said. “It’s kind of strange to look that far ahead.”

Normally, Rho would focus all of her attention on the next step. This week, it would be the Junior World, where she shot par 72 Tuesday in the first round and is in third place, four strokes behind Aree Wonglukiet of Thailand.

Other than the Junior World championship last year, Rho’s resume also includes back-to-back victories in 1998 and ’99 at the AJGA Mission Hills Junior Championship, a victory at the 1999 AJGA Justin Leonard championship and 18 top-10 finishes in 39 career national junior events.

She has represented the United States twice in international junior competition, in 1999 on the Junior Match team and last month on the Izzo Cup team. She also played on the West Canon Cup team last year and has been invited to play again this year.

Once ranked as high as No. 4 in the nation among girls, she is 15th now, was a Junior All-American last year and a second-team All-American the year before.

“Angie is a special player,” said teaching professional Bobby Lasken, who has been coaching Rho at Buena Park Golf Center for nearly six years. “She has a lot going for her all around. She’s especially blessed with good feel and athleticism.”

And she has the plan.

It started when Rho was 12. The only child of Korean immigrants Ben and Nancy Rho, Angela went along when her parents played golf, preferring to be with her parents rather than with a baby-sitter.

Ben and Nancy pulled their budding swimming star out of the pool and put a club in her hand at around the same time, telling her she should play and not just watch.

She was tall for her age--a good sign for golf success--and athletic. Soon, she began showing signs of talent and started taking lessons from Lasken. Shortly thereafter, the family approached the teacher with their vision.

The Rhos detailed each step. It started with building a swing and included getting into local junior tournaments, playing in national junior events and getting a college scholarship. It went on to include playing four years in college, playing professionally on the LPGA Tour and winning all four majors.

“We went to dinner at Lawrys,” Lasken recalled. “From Day 1 it has been that master plan and no step has been forgotten. Other people aren’t that organized and not that focused. They come in and are like, ‘Make me as good as I can be.’ She’s had the plan and stuck to it. She’s been very patient in taking it step by step.”

Sticking to it has meant more than skipping parties, missing rock concerts and going to the driving range instead of the movie theater or shopping malls. It’s meant staying focused on the present step. Unlike many ambitious young golfers, Rho has skipped chances at the U.S. Women’s Amateur and other national women’s tournaments in order to concentrate on junior events.

“There were a lot of events that I wanted to play but other prominent junior events were the same week and I didn’t want to skip the junior events,” Rho said. “I have about three or four more years to play those [amateur] events. I’ll get those in sometime.”

Lasken said that patience has been instrumental in her success.

“At every level she has matched up with what she wanted to do,” Lasken said. “I’m a little more impatient. Last year she qualified for the U.S. Women’s Amateur and she didn’t play in it. She was real focused on being at the junior level and I’m like, ‘You’re at the next level, you gotta play in the U.S. Women’s Amateur. This is a big opportunity.’ But she stuck to the plan. She realizes the importance of each step.”

But with her junior career winding down, Rho acknowledges that the plan doesn’t cover these summer months. With a scholarship in her pocket and nothing left to prove on the golf course, she admits her mental toughness is not what it was last year when she won three national tournaments and was runner-up twice.

Rho has found herself taking a sentimental approach to the last months of her junior career. She’s savoring the friendships she has developed through years on the road and soaking in the tournament atmosphere.

“Quite honestly, a lot of this year I haven’t had the motivation that I had last year,” she said. “I find that I am a little more relaxed when I go to events, maybe a little too relaxed. A lot of the events that I’m going to play from now, I mean of course you want to play well, but you take those last three or four junior events and you want to spend them with your friends.”

The players and the tournaments are what she will miss the most, Rho said, mostly because the players out there are going through the same things she is. They have focused goals, enjoy competition and genuinely enjoy golf.

“People always ask, ‘Aren’t you upset that you haven’t been able to do some of the things that normal teenagers do or aren’t you upset at this or upset at that?’ And I’m like, ‘No, not really,’ ” Rho said. “I’ve gone to parties, I’ve hung out with people from school and it just hasn’t been very fun, you know. It’s been kind of boring. I actually enjoy going to tournaments and hanging out with kids out there and doing things like that. I find it more exciting that what normal teenagers do. And so in that respect, I haven’t missed out on anything.”

She is sad, however, to see her junior career coming to a close. College, she said, will be a little more serious. The competition will be a little tougher. She will miss the fun times in hotels and on the driving ranges and putting greens at tournaments, but she realizes it will soon be time to leave all that behind.

“I’m happy with what I’ve ended up with,” she said. “I think I’ve done everything out there that I could do and overall I’m very happy with my junior career and I’m very happy with the scholarship I’ve ended up with. The hard work I’ve put into it has paid off and I’m glad I put those hours into it. I’ve had a very successful junior career, I’ve played on every single team that I could possibly play on, represented the United States twice in international events, I’ve won my fair share of events and I’ve been on first-team All-American.”

So far, it has all gone according to plan.

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THE FILE ON ANGELA RHO

Residence: Fullerton

Birth date: Nov. 28, 1982

High School: Sonora (Graduated June, 2000)

College: Stanford

Years Playing: 6

National Ranking: 15

Career Highlights: Won 1999 Junior World; Won 1998 and ’99 AJGA Nabisco Mission Hills Desert Junior; Won 1999 AJGA Justin Leonard Junior; runner-up 1999 AJGA Rolex Tournament of Champions; member of 2000 U.S. Izzo Cup team; member of 1999 U.S. Junior Match team; member of 1998 and ’99 Canon Cup West teams; semifinals 1999 Women’s Western Junior Amateur; 1999 Junior All-American.