Lalita Patipaksiri Bound for Golf Stardom

For Lalita Patipaksiri, convenience has paid off. It was one of the reasons why she was named Orange County Player of the Year in 2005 and 2007. It was responsible for a spot on the second-team All-Big West as a sophomore. And now, as a junior, convenience has led Patipaksiri to the NCAA All-Star Team.

Golf is an expensive sport – a set of irons can range up to $3,000. When Patipaksiri began to golf, she became the third member of her family to play the sport. Her father, not wanting his daughter’s gift to go to waste, decided he would quit because the cost for three people playing golf would eventually add up, and he wanted to give his daughter an opportunity to play.

Patipaksiri’s decision to stick with golf, combined with her father’s decision to give up the sport, has resulted in much success for the third-year sociology major. From her time in elementary school to junior high, Patipaksiri collected over 100 trophies and awards. Although the competition has stiffened as the years progressed, Patipaksiri garnered about 50 CIF plaques and awards during her time at Cypress High School.

Among all of her trophies and awards, golf’s grueling time commitment has made her question her willingness to stick with the sport. An 18-hole round of golf typically ranges between four and six hours to complete.

However, the enjoyment Patipaksiri has for the game overrides the 5 a.m. wake-up calls for 6 a.m. practice, the time commitment that she devotes to the sport and the little time she gets to herself.

Patipaksiri’s ability to find enjoyment in golf’s long grind has led her to even more success. She has become the first Anteater to be named to the NCAA All-Star Team and will travel to Asia this summer, making stops in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China to compete in 16 tournaments over the course of 28 days.

This tournament presents a whole new set of challenges for Patipaksiri. She admits that she chose UC Irvine because it is only a few minutes away from her home in Cypress where she goes every weekend for private golf lessons. The longest and farthest she has been away from home was three weeks when she traveled to Maryland, but traveling to Japan, South Korea and China – places she has never visited before – will provide a whole new experience.

Patipaksiri will also experience a different level of competition. Besides playing alongside top women’s golfers representing Stanford University, University of Arizona and Yale, she will also be competing with international golfers.

So far, the 5-foot-1 golfer has used her short game to excel at the collegiate level and make up for her lack of size and power. Although she may not be as tall as Michelle Wie or have Lorena Ochoa’s combination of power and finesse, Patipaksiri knows that she has a chance to compete with the top women’s golfers of the Ladies of the Professional Golf Association, because her idol and inspiration Ai Miyazato, a 5-foot-2 golfer, has had success at the professional level.