Playing on home soil at last week’s Maybank Championship was an invaluable experience for Malaysia’s Natasha Andrea Oon as she gears up for her rookie season on the LPGA Tour.
One of ten sponsor invites for the inaugural championship at Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club, Oon finished as best Malaysian in tied 52nd place with a total of three-under-par 285 following rounds of 70, 71, 73 and 71.
Having not competed on the LPGA Tour since the 2022 Portland Classic, Oon noted that she really got to see how her game stacks up against the world’s top players and what she needs to work on in the coming months. The 22-year-old earned her LPGA Tour card for 2024 by finishing second on this year’s Epson Tour Race for the Card standings.
“It’s a grand experience. There are so many people, and there are these nerves you play with, and I’m not used to crowds, so sometimes it’s overwhelming. It’s such a great introduction to what I should expect next year,” said Oon, who won the Epson Tour’s 2023 Gaelle Truet Rookie of the Year award.
“In my off-season, I’m going to work on knowing my numbers and how much to carry and just getting into the groove of things. I’m just starting out. There is a lot of room to grow. I’m still learning every day,” she added.
Oon enjoyed a superb rookie season on the Epson Tour, registering four runner-up results before breaking through in September for her first professional victory at the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout presented by Pepsico. She picked up three additional top 10s to finish the year with USD149,670 in earnings, ranked second on the Race for the Card behind first-placed Gabriela Ruffels of Australia who amassed USD159,926.
Oon is excited about the opportunity to represent her country on the global stage that is the LPGA Tour, following in the footsteps of Kelly Tan and Lim Siew Ai.
“Kelly’s definitely been like the Malaysian women golfer to look out for, and she’s done a lot on the LPGA Tour. It’s been awesome to follow her story growing up and hearing about her, what she’s going through. It hasn’t been easy for her. She’s always open to helping us,” shared Oon.
Oon is also eager for the fans to get to know her and hopes that her self-described “eccentric” personality will help connect more people to women’s golf.
“I tend to laugh a lot. But that doesn’t mean I don’t take it seriously out there. That’s just kind of how I cope with the pressure,” she said.
“I would want to spread awareness about how gruelling, how hard it is out there, how amazing these women are and how we all should look up to these women on the LPGA Tour. I would just love to spread more awareness about how cool it is for me to be doing this and how much more views it should get. Not me, but the Tour.”
