HALLMARKS OF A TRAILBLAZER

14 Jul 2024

Shannon Tan’s successful start as a golf professional has set her up to be Singapore’s first representative for golf at the Olympic Games.

For decades, the Olympic Games have represented the epitome of sporting greatness across the globe. This year, 20-year-old Shannon Tan is set to be Singapore’s first golf Olympian at the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

This unparalleled honour arrives on the back of a series of incredible achievements. Back in 2023, when Shannon was still an amateur, she outplayed an entire field of professionals to secure her first Tour victory at the China LPGA’s Singapore Ladies Masters. Later that year, she played her way through the final stage of the Qualifying School of the Ladies European Tour (LET) to secure a full playing Tour card for 2024.

Seizing the well-earned opportunity, the young champion left Texas Tech University midway through her sophomore year to pursue professional golf for a share of the LET’s prize pool of €34million for 2024. Before anyone could properly digest these achievements, Shannon, who was still 19 at the time, stunned the golf world yet again, this time winning her very first tournament on the LET calendar, the 2024 Magical Kenya Ladies Open. With the win, Shannon secured her place on Tour right through 2025 and 2026.

All these achievements are a first for the small island state of Singapore.

In her first six months since turning professional, Shannon has played in 15 Tour events, become an LET Tour winner, finished in the top 20 in eight starts, and has only missed three cuts. The impressive rookie now ranks sixth on the LET’s Order of Merit, and has a spot to represent the country in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

“No Singaporean golfer has ever played in the Olympics so it would be nice to be the first one,” shared Shannon.

GOING ALL IN

Shannon’s intense passion for the game started very early on in life. At five years old, her father introduced her to golf, and by the time she turned 12, she knew that she wanted to pursue
it seriously. The young golfer recalled how she would sneak golf clothes into her school bag, take a train, walk two kilometres to the golf course after school, so that she could hit balls and practice. The golf prodigy kept to her routine even up to the day before her primary school leaving examinations.

“Once, my teacher asked me to stop golf for two weeks during the exam period. There was just no way that I would stop golf for my exams. It was just not worth it,” she recalls. At the time, she observed how her golf friends in other countries seemed to have more time to practice and play, and she asked her parents if they could move overseas. After careful consideration, her supportive parents, Desmond and Winnie, decided to relocate to Australia in support of their only daughter’s golf ambitions. There, they focused on building a support system for her future in golf, including coaching and sports psychology.

Shannon resolved to go all in for golf. At 15, she decided that size mattered and went on an intentional quest to gain weight. This maverick approach was certainly unconventional, especially when you consider that teenagers are typically concerned about packing on the kilos.

“In school, we had a nutritionist in our student-athlete program,” she explained. “I learned about proteins and carbohydrates, and what they do. I kept a daily journal of what I weighed and what I was eating. The teacher gave me permission to eat in class and I ate every hour and a half. Beyond gaining weight, it was also important for me to be healthy and strong. I just wanted to be the right size for golf.”

She ended up putting on 10kgs in three months. “I ate so many peanut butter sandwiches to the point that I really hated them. That’s one thing I won’t eat nowadays,” she said with a laugh. The experiment paid off and she noticed an improvement in her distances and the stability of her swing.

COOL, CALM AND COLLECTED

When Shannon played the final round of her winning tournament in Kenya back in January 2024, golf commentators and spectators alike were stunned by the young golfer’s steely determination and focus down the stretch.

“When I play in tournaments, I just try to find the fairways and then I try to find the greens, that’s it (laughs),” Shannon reveals. “I am quite a calm person and don’t really get overly emotional. I wasn’t nervous at all during that week in Kenya. I took it one shot at a time,” said Shannon. “While I would like to win, I can’t control how other people play. I can only focus on my own game, play my best, and hope it’s good enough.”

As a junior, Shannon used to get a little anxious and worried about her scores. “In the past when I played golf, I used to be scared about what everyone thinks of me, especially my dad. He would look at my mistakes in golf, ask me ‘why?’ and then
we’d analyse it together.”. Desmond encouraged Shannon to observe the psychology of human behavior both on and off the course, and often reinforced the importance of staying calm under pressure.

She shared “When I was younger my dad was stricter. As I got older, I think he realised that I really loved golf and I should know what to do, and what not to do. I think that (his letting go) made the difference.” Then came a pivotal change in her psyche. She shared, “Now I realise that what matters most is what I think of myself. The only thing I can control, is what
I do. I can’t control what everyone else thinks or does.”

Shannon exudes a certain calmness. The only time she got noticeably excited during our interview was when she talked about fellow Tour player Georgia Hall. Like a giddy fan, Shannon profusely praised the major winner’s ability to stay calm under pressure, “I like her attitude and her composure. She’s mellow and we are similar in that way. She won the AIG Women’s Open in 2018 in bad weather, and she’s known for playing well in difficult conditions. Georgia is mentally tough. I think, too, that her background is similar to mine, like with the strong influence of her father in her golf career. She didn’t come from much and I admire how she’s made it all work out.”

The golfer’s Christian faith also plays a part in her mental composure. She prays before each round and shared that it gives her some comfort during difficult rounds.

SMALL GOALS, BIG GAINS

The young champion works on her swing with her Australian coach Ryan Lumsden, who is known to have also worked with renowned players like Hannah Green, Minjee Lee and Min Woo Lee. As good as she is, Shannon is on a perpetual quest to play better. “I think I’m more of a ‘small goals’ kind of person. I feel like if I had a big goal, I might get distracted by the result rather than focus on what I should do to get the result. Right now, I’m focused on the things that I can improve on.”

Accuracy off the tee and solid iron play have always been the strong suits of her game. Shannon made a beneficial move with her game in the spring of 2023, when she embarked on a speed training plan to gain distance. She successfully brought her swing speed up from 90mph to 97mph and gained two club lengths, all within a month and a half. This translated into an improved driver carry of 240 yards (about 220m), with a total average driving distance of around 260 yards (238m). Today, these statistics rank slightly above the LET field average (78th).

Midway through the current LET season, Shannon’s strengths come through in her playing statistics. She excels against the field average when it comes to driving accuracy (third, 85.6 per cent of fairways hit) and greens in regulation (fourth, 79.9 per cent greens in regulation).

“Statistically, I play better on narrow, tree-lined courses,” shared Shannon who grew up playing golf on one of the most notoriously tight courses in Singapore, the former Keppel Course at Bukit Chermin. When asked if that had a part to play in her accuracy off the tees, the golfer replied, “I honestly think so.”

Her biggest goal right now is to improve on her short game.

“For me, I can get it to within four to five feet (from around the green), which is not a guaranteed up-and- down. Other Tour players might hole out a chip or get it to within a foot for a guaranteed save. I’m also trying to master playing different types of shots around the greens. I can do a basic chip, but I’m not as accurate with a flop shot or a bump-and- run,” she shared. Shannon currently ranks 119th in the Tour statistics for Scrambling. This measures a player’s ability to recover for par or better, after they have missed the green in regulation. Shannon’s 42 per cent scrambling average, is telling when compared to seasoned players like Charley Hull (63 per cent) and Linn Grant (68 per cent).

These targeted preparations will serve her well in the upcoming summer swing, with big ticket events like The Olympics Games staged at the renowned Le Golf National, and the AIG Women’s Open to be played at St Andrews Old Course, both challenging links-style courses, where having a masterful short game is key.

ADAPT. GRIND. REPEAT

Before life on Tour, Shannon played college golf for the Red Raiders of Texas Tech University, while maintaining straight As in her studies with an impressive 4.0 GPA. When Shannon earned her Tour card, she had to make the difficult decision to leave college midway. “I can always defer school and go back to it, but I can’t miss out on this opportunity to play on Tour,” she shared.

Shannon quickly found herself diving headlong into the hectic rigour of the Tour. After clinching victory in Kenya, many doors opened. Suddenly, she had a spot to compete at the US$5million Aramco Saudi Ladies International the following week. This set off a frantic scramble for flights from Mombasa to Nairobi, then to Dubai and onto Riyadh.

An unexpected delay in one of the connecting flights resulted in a string of changes and Shannon almost missed her practice round. “It was hectic! I got to the airport at 10am, then I had to retrieve my checked-in luggage and wait for another 12 hours to get onto my rebooked flight. I hardly got any rest and made it there just in time,” she recounted. The week proved challenging, as the young professional ended up missing the cut, while battling a cough. She mused, “In college, they book your schedule for you, and you just turn up for golf. Now I have all this other stuff to deal with.”

Beyond the long, cross-continental travels, Shannon had to get accustomed to the rigorous playing schedule on the LET. From golf alongside zebras and giraffes one week, to battling dry desert winds the next, Shannon found it interesting and challenging saying,

“In Kenya, I played in treelined parkland style course under humid conditions. Then in Riyadh, we played in 30mph winds on a wide- open course. After Riyadh, I went to Morocco, and it was just raining and wet. I had to play through a lot of different environments back-to-back. It was good to have a short break after Morocco, because before that I didn’t have any time to process things.” So much was happening so quickly. It had barely been two months from the time she earned her Tour card.

Playing through a multitude of course types and conditions has certainly given the rookie invaluable playing experience. She shared, “In Saudi (Arabia), I had to try to play smart and keep the ball low. With the strong crosswinds, I also had to figure out where to aim. You can’t always go for the pins.”

Shannon recently missed two cuts back-to-back in Sweden, the Dormy Open Helsingborg and the Scandinavian Mixed, a sobering reality check for the talented golfer. “I guess tough weeks are always a part of golf and even the best players miss cuts at times. It shows just how good everyone out here is but I just remind myself that it’s a learning journey and to keep trusting the work I’ve been putting in.”

After the disappointing weeks, Shannon bounced back with a commendable tied-3rd place finish at the Ladies Italian Open the following week. The golfer regained her steely accuracy saying, “I did some fine-tuning with my swing and finally hit almost all the fairways and averaged 15 out of 18 greens per round I think” – a stark difference to the week before where she averaged just 10 out of 18 greens.

“I’m just taking it one step at a time. For me, the most important thing is to be happy and to enjoy what I’m doing now,” shared the pro golfer who enjoys hanging out and having meals with the new friends she’s made on Tour. The self-confessed introvert enjoys having her own space to just ‘chill out’. She listens to tracks by Dr. Dre and Jay-Z on her earphones and watches Netflix in her free time.

DOLLARS AND SENSE

LET has 31 events scheduled to be played in 2024 in more than 15 countries, across five continents. The travel schedule is intense, and the jetlag is real. There is some pressure for touring professionals to play well, make the cut and win enough prize money to secure a decent living while being able to cover expenses, like travel, accommodation and caddie salaries.

In this, Shannon had a helpful start. Prior to the beginning of the LET season, Shannon played in a couple of WPGA Australasia events as a warmup. She finished second in the first event, the Webex Player Series Murray River. “I earned A$25k or around A$17k after tax. It felt like a lot of the (financial) stress was taken away and it helped me get off to a good start (on the LET),” she said. Since then, Shannon has amassed enough prize money to see her comfortably through her demanding playing schedule, ranking 16th on the LET Money List.

“With finances, I’m not too stressed. I know that the amount I have made can sustain me for a while. I’m glad because I don’t want to associate golf with financial stress. I enjoy golf and I don’t want it to feel like I need to play well for money. I’m more focused on improving my ranking on the Order of Merit so that I can get into the majors.”

The majority of events on the LET offer the minimum prize purse of €300k. There is a lot more on the line at the major tournaments like the US$6.5million Amundi Evian Championship in July and the US$9million AIG Women’s Open in August.

In addition to prize money, the player has found strong support through a series of partnerships with adidas, Independent Reserve and Titleist. She also recently inked a multi- year partnership with Swiss-based global private bank EFG International.

The newly minted EFG Singapore Sports Ambassador shared, “It is an honour to represent EFG as its Singapore Sports Ambassador. EFG is renowned for its efforts to foster the next generation of golfing talent in Singapore and the wider region by empowering gifted young players, creating genuine sporting role models and promoting the growth of the game at grass-roots level.

“Encouraging an interest in golf among young people has always been important to me, and I hope this partnership can inspire the next generation to get involved and develop a passion for the sport.”