MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Matthew Sim has been a member of the Mississaugua Golf and Country Club for 26 years. On Thursday, he witnessed something for the first time.
“Unbelievable day. I have never seen the golf course taken apart like that,” Sim told Sportsnet. “And by a 15-year-old, at that.”
Ah, yes — there’s the rub. The 15-year-old in question is Canadian Aphrodite Deng, who, in her LPGA Tour debut, fired a 5-under 65, and as lunch was served across the property at the CPKC Women’s Open, she was tied for the early lead. Sim, who has won the club championship at Mississaugua upwards of a half-dozen times, met Deng on Monday and is caddying for the teen.
Deng ended up just two shots back of the 18-hole lead, as Japan’s Akie Iwai, who won last week in Portland – and whose twin sister Chisato also won on the LPGA Tour earlier this year – fired a tidy 7-under 64 in the afternoon.
Deng, who only took up golf about a half-decade ago when she couldn’t figure skate anymore due to restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been playing incredibly over the last 18 months or so.
Earlier this summer, she won the U.S. Junior Girls Championship, becoming the first Canadian in history to tilt that trophy. On her winning resumé of late is also the Mizuho Americas Open (which took place during the LPGA Tour event of the same name), along with the Junior Invitational, an elite junior event that takes place the week prior to the Masters at another club in Augusta, Ga.
Last year, Deng, who spent time in both Calgary and Montreal before relocating to Florida to play golf in a more full-time capacity (she works with a coach at TPC Sawgrass alongside multi-time PGA Tour winner Billy Horschel), also won The Nelly Invitational hosted by former world No. 1 Nelly Korda.
“She enjoyed the moment — that’s what I remember,” Korda told Sportsnet. “There are so many great golfers, though … it’s like I said (Wednesday), everyone is getting really good. That’s how it is on the LPGA. Everyone is super young, and everyone is coming in and they’re all just playing well.”
Indeed, if Deng were to go on to win this week, she would actually be the second 15-year-old to win the CPKC Women’s Open after Lydia Ko — and her career has turned out pretty darn good.
“She’s on a roll right now, and she’s doing a great job of handling it all and handling the media attention and the pressure. She’s just going with it,” Jeff Macdonald, who is the head coach of the girls’ “NextGen” team for Golf Canada, told Sportsnet. “She hits it so good and her mind is so strong, and she gets out there and it’s just another day out there and she does crazy things and shoots good scores.”
Deng opened Thursday with two birdies in a row at Mississaugua before adding two more circles on her scorecard on Nos. 5 and 7. Her lone bogey of the day came on the par-4 15th when she missed a mid-range putt for par. She backed that up immediately with two birdies to close her day on Nos. 17 and 18, including a curling one from the back of the green on the finisher.
“I told her before the beginning of the round, I would only come in and read putts when she wanted. She relied on me for a few of them. She wanted just reassurance more than anything,” Sim said. “We said the same thing on every shot — take your time and pick your target.“
Deng, who plays quickly because she said she thinks “too much” if the pace gets slow, hit every fairway save one on Thursday and needed just 26 putts. She missed five greens, however, and that was the one thing she pointed to that she wanted to work on prior to Friday’s second round.
“I did look at the leaderboard a few times,” Deng said. “I thought it was pretty cool, but I just knew I had to keep the same game plan.”
Macdonald admitted he thought Deng’s practice session was a “little quick” as she prepared to make her LPGA debut. It might have been the nerves bubbling under the surface that caused a bit of inconsistency with her irons, as Macdonald said Deng’s ball striking is “unbelievable” as she “just flushes it almost every single time.”
But, Sim said, there “wasn’t a big message” to her prior to teeing it up.
“She’s done this before. I’ve only known her for four days and she’s got more experience with her game than I do, obviously,” Sim said. “It was, ‘Take your time, pick your targets and go with it.’ Let’s make sure we have the right clubs and just go hit it to your spots.”
Deng finished Thursday tied for second at 5-under with a group that included world No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul.
The teen shyly tried to leave the scoring area at Mississaugua after signing her card and conducting a few interviews. But there’s no escaping things now. She may be 15 — and a small-in-stature young lady — but her game spoke real loud on Thursday. The autographs were signed, and she struggled to move through the assembled masses to reach her mother, Nova.
But then it was time to get back to work.
“The fact that she really doesn’t have as much experience as everyone else in the field, basically, it’s so amazing to see how much she’s taken in already and how much of a player she is,” Sim said. “Awesome day.”
