Last weekend, 15-year-old amateur Lydia Ko once again bested a field of professional players, beating a handful of familiar global veterans in New Zealand.
Remarkably, it was Ko's third victory against the professionals in 13 months, including last summer's Canadian Open win, versus the best players in the game.
In Canada, she became the youngest to win an LPGA event by more than a year, and given her success, continues to bring needed eyeballs to the women's game.
But therein lies the rub, though it is more of a minor friction burn.
What is best for the game as a whole might not be optimal for the reputation of the professional tours.
There is a double-edge element to the success of Ko, a native of South Korea who lives in New Zealand. Last weekend, she beat proven LPGA winners Christina Kim, Marja Hjorth, Julieta Granada and Laura Davies.
The pros: "The fact of the matter is, the girl is damned talented in a way that we haven't seen in many years," Kim told The National, noting that Ko's success might prompt more girls to take up the game.
The cons: "It may make the pros look like muppets and makes the game look so easy to the outsider. But I think it's great, bottom line," Kim said.
It is agreed. Sure, the success of an amateur who does not yet have a driver's licence might make the tour talent pools look shallow, but at least fans are dipping a toe in the water and presumably, paying attention to the temperature.
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Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
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Started: 2020
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Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
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