As teenage phenom Asterisk Talley emerges, women's golf wrestles with how to protect her

New York Times

6 days ago

ERIN, Wis. — From a distance, Asterisk Talley can look like a teenager trying to be an adult. Standing on the first tee at the Augusta National Women's Amateur was a look of polished professionalism. TaylorMade sponsorship on her hat. Scripted Adidas fits to match Augusta colors — yellow shirt, green skirt, white Sambas with green stripes. Oh no, was this another prodigy the machine snatched up too young?
Advertisement
Until you saw that first hole, as her approach into Augusta National's brutal first green spun back into the cup for an opening eagle, something only done by five men in Masters history. She didn't see it go in, so at first she kept walking with her putter in hand. Then she heard the roars. And more roars. Oh shoot, it went in?
The kid underneath suddenly became present. Her arms confusedly shot into the air with her putter still in hand. Her face broke into a goofy, laughing smile of pure joy.
That's right. A reminder. Asterisk Talley is just 16. No matter what happens next for her, we mustn't forget that.
At 2:09 p.m. Thursday, Talley will tee off at the U.S. Women's Open at Erin Hills, and she will be framed as the next young star in women's golf. And it will be valid. She's the California prodigy who racks up junior wins, who finished runner-up at both the U.S. Women's Amateur and U.S. Girls' Junior at just 15, who not just made the cut at last year's U.S. Open as the youngest player in the field but also contended through two days. She then took all that expectation and made a late run at ANWA last month to finish just one off the lead. Talley is, undeniably, a star in the making.
But this isn't the novel part. One element of women's golf is this is not new at all. She is the teenage phenom to watch this week, just like Rose Zhang before her, and Lydia Ko before that, and Lexi Thompson, Morgan Pressel, Paula Creamer and, of course, Michelle Wie. This existence is no phenomenon in a vacuum. Young women athletes develop faster than young men, and therefore, these young stars could win on tour and compete for majors that much faster, too.
No, the greater phenomenon may be what gets thrust upon the next one. Or the next after that. They keep coming, and with each new adolescent comes a new set of hopes and expectations from the wider golf world. And it's everyone. The fans. The media. The sponsors and the golf institutions themselves.
Advertisement
'There is that pressure on women golfers to not only be the next big star, but to be the savior of the tour,' said Ron Sirak, a longtime golf scribe and expert on the women's game.
What comes along with that, it has everlasting effects. You see shorter careers. You see mental health issues. You see entire framings of careers labeled disappointments because they didn't live up to the unmatchable expectations of dominating the entire sport. No, winning a major championship or two and a dozen LPGA events isn't enough to some when you're supposed to be 'the savior.'
A hole out eagle on No. 1 at the Augusta National Golf Club! ⛳️
Asterisk Talley becomes the first player to eagle a par-4 in the final round of the Augusta National Women's Amateur. pic.twitter.com/Aa7R31BJQr
— Augusta National Women's Amateur (@anwagolf) April 5, 2025
When Lexi Thompson, 30, announced her partial retirement last year, she said:
'Since I was 12, as a golfer, my life has been a whirlwind of constant attention, scrutiny and pressure. The cameras are always on, capturing every swing and every moment on and off the golf course. Social media never sleeps, with comments and criticisms flooding in from around the world. It can be exhausting maintaining a smile on the outside while grappling with struggles on the inside.'
Imagine it being put on you at 15, in a women's sports league where everyone clamors for a Tiger-esque superstar to take the sport from struggling, niche enterprise to thriving, must-watch product. Nelly Korda is the lovable, smooth-swinging world No. 1, but she is an admittedly somewhat reluctant star. The sport hasn't seen the type of dominant force it craves since Annika Sorenstam with her 96 wins and 10 major championships, and as one golf stakeholder put it, 'She wasn't exactly a dynamic personality either. She was just so good she forced people to cover it.'
Advertisement
Sirak suggests the pressure may be even worse now because of the effect Caitlin Clark has had in women's basketball's explosion.
But it's not as if anybody could have predicted a 17-year-old Clark was about to change her sport. It takes lightning in a bottle. It takes years of slow-building exposure. It takes organic rivalries, like Clark against LSU's Angel Reese in the NCAA Tournament, which has continued so long its a zeitgeist issue following them into their second year in the WNBA. None of this happens in a lab. It just… happens.
Then, there's the nationality factor. America hasn't produced the best women's golfers lately. While Korda is No. 1, only three of the Rolex Ranking's top 10 are American. Much of the last two decades in the sport has been dominated by golfers of Asian descent, with South Korea alone winning 34 majors since 2000. In the 2010s, East Asian countries won 27 majors to America's nine. Since 2020, the U.S. leads all countries with six, but some would argue the U.S. wins often aren't coming via players with the kind of star power to 'carry' a sport.
Insert Heather Daly-Donofrio and the new U.S. National Development Program launched in 2023 to create a better program for fostering successful careers. Nearly every other country had a development team already in golf, but the U.S. did not.
'We wouldn't have started this program if we didn't see the need for more American stars on the women's side,' Daly-Donofrio, a former LPGA player and executive, said.
When she took the role, she went around the country speaking with Division I golf coaches and asked why they primarily recruit international players. Their points were blunt.
'In general, they're more independent, they know how to be part of a team,' she said. 'They know how to practice. They know how to train, and it's because they've grown up in their national development programs. They had to travel and book their own flights before and crossed borders and had the support system with the other athletes in their confederation that our American players haven't had.'
The goal is to create strong U.S. junior teams starting at age 13. The focus will be to fund young careers through grants, counsel young players through these transitional years, provide mentorships and advice, but also to get these golfers around each other. 'It's a lonely pursuit,' Daly-Donofrio said of her own career, and she sees the value in fostering strong friendships and support systems.
Advertisement
Everything begins with support systems, and the unspoken dynamic in all of this can be parents.
As Hall of Famer Meg Mallon once told Sirak, 'The problem when you bring your parents out here when you're young is they don't go away.' There are horror stories from trophy parents putting pressure on their kids, overmanaging their careers and creating a system in which they are financially dependent on their teenage child. It's a notably extreme example, but South Korean great Se-Ri Pak had to be hospitalized for exhaustion due to the pressures her father put on her, including allegedly leaving her in a graveyard overnight to toughen her up.
Daly-Donofrio works with parents in her program to develop the right relationship for their kids with golf. They suggest that if a parent were to take their child out to dinner after a win, make sure you do it when they play poorly. Don't throw your head back in frustration after a bad shot, even.
The child notices. And a child learning they can be a major star as a teenager needs to also learn that life is OK if they aren't.
Ko, not American but from New Zealand, has become the poster child for the highs and lows this brings. When she was becoming the youngest to ever (at the time) win a LPGA Tour event at 15 and youngest world No. 1 at 17, life was good. She had no scar tissue. She could be fearless on a golf course. But her 20s were filled with tears in hotel rooms and low self-worth as her game cratered. She's remained open about this journey, reaching an emotional apex in 2024 as she won the Olympic gold medal and the Women's Open Championship at St. Andrews.
But even at 16, Ko looked ahead and said she wanted to retire at 30. This new age of teenage phenoms means new timelines. But suddenly, with a newfound freedom after making the LPGA Hall of Fame last year and reaching the mountaintop again, she admits she can enjoy it all more.
'It's nice because it's a bit more eye opening,' Ko said, 'and I'm going to some of these areas that I've been to before, and I'm kind of venturing out, maybe going to a different restaurant and not being as, like, golf course-hotel. I think that's how it should be, and in ways I regret I didn't do that earlier.'
That's where Daly-Donofrio's focus with the American youth is centered: Not just creating winners at 15 but well-rounded individuals who can be happy and keep winning in their 20s and 30s.
'I think there's a lot of internal pressure the kids put on themselves coming out,' Daly-Donofrio said, 'they want to be the big star to carry the LPGA and be the next great American star, but I think most of the pressure is coming externally, whether it's coming from the sponsors, the media, the fans. The fans crave that, right? They want to see the next superstar rise up and win a lot of tournaments.'
Advertisement
Morgan Pressel was one of those phenoms. She qualified for the U.S. Open at 12. She won a major at 17, the youngest ever. She only won four times worldwide and didn't become the all-time legend some might have expected, but now Pressel is a well-adjusted 37-year-old analyst for the Golf Channel and NBC Sports.
And as she looks back on that time, she almost laughs.
'I don't know that I was necessarily aware of all that was really happening in the press and things like that,' Pressel said. 'I think a lot of that comes from a good support system and family and feeling grounded. They didn't let me read my press clippings … although my grandparents totally cut out my press clippings.'
She still went to a normal high school instead of prep academy or homeschooling. She played clarinet in the school band. She didn't know any different.
She points to Rose Zhang, who went to Stanford when many thought going to college was a mistake, and spent that time winning the U.S. Women's Amateur, two NCAA Championships and an Augusta National Women's Amateur.
Zhang turned pro and won her first LPGA event in her first start, and while she only ranks No. 34 in the world at 22, she's doing it while still taking classes at Stanford.
As for Asterisk Talley? She still attends Chowchilla High, joking during last year's U.S. Open about having homework due the next day. She's a normal kid, her father, James, joking to Golfweek he can't get more than a word out of her on the drive home from school.
Sirak, who has covered decades worth of these young prodigies, sees two primary reasons for optimism for Talley. One: 'I think she's got the combination of she's not only a good player, but her feet are firmly on the ground.'
Take the fact she originally said in 2024 she wanted to go pro as quickly as possible. A year later at ANWA, she changed her tune. 'I want to go to college,' Talley said. 'I think it's going to be a great experience for me. I think it would give me a chance to have a team all the time. I love team play, and I love that environment, and I think it's going to give me a great experience.'
Advertisement
But there's something else that Sirak sees in Talley that makes him think she really can survive in this cutthroat world. He sees somebody who expects greatness, who can move on not just from her failures but from her wins, wanting it just as bad the next week.
Which is why seemingly every person asked about Talley goes back to her comments after this year's ANWA. She seemed like a killer down the stretch, hitting creative punchouts through trees and birdieing two of the final three to get within one. She looked fearless.
'I think it tells me that I can play against anybody, and I don't have to be scared of any course or anybody in the field,' Talley said. 'Just knowing that this is one of the most crazy courses and it's so hilly and hard to play, but knowing that I played well here against the best people in the world is something that I'm going to take with me.'
Oh great, here come the expectations. Here comes the pressure and the weight. Well, none of that is anything new.
She is just next.