[PHOTO: Yong Teck Lim/R&A/R&A via Getty Images]
Queensland’s Justice Bosio admits that it won’t feel real until she cashes her first cheque as she prepares to make her professional debut at the Webex Players Series South Australia at Willunga Golf Course starting tomorrow.
Bosio made her move into the pro ranks official on Tuesday, taking up affiliate membership of the WPGA Tour of Australasia.
It follows an amateur career that included an appearance at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, back-to-back Keperra Bowl wins and victory at the Pacific Northwest Women’s Amateur Championship in Washington in July.
The 20-year-old was ranked 48th on the World Amateur Golf Ranking when she entered the play-for-pay ranks, but says it won’t be until the money starts rolling in that it will fully hit home.
“It still sounds weird,” Bosio said after officially becoming a professional golfer. “Even this week I feel like it’ll still feel a little bit weird.
“I’ve played in plenty of these [tournaments] as an amateur, but there’s that little bit of extra thing behind it now, playing for some money and being a professional. I feel like it probably won’t feel real until I get my first pay cheque, and then I’ll be like, Oh, that’s pretty cool.”
Although her earliest memory of golf at Caboolture Golf Club had nothing to do with the game itself – “I only remember falling asleep in the car on the way home and then coming home to a Sunday roast” – the dream of becoming a professional golfer was born at an early age.
Her father Kevin put a plastic club in Justice’s hands shortly after learning to walk and, by age 10, she had her first handicap.
There were flirtations with netball and trampolining, but Bosio’s focus was always a life in golf.
“I was always like, I’m going to be a professional golfer. That was always just what I wanted to do,” she added.
“Then maybe last year, maybe just a bit before that, I was kind of like, OK, yeah, this is going to happen. I just wasn’t sure exactly when.”
Tied for 11th at the 2022 Women’s Australian Open, Bosio finished in the top 10 in her maiden Webex Players Series event at Rosebud in February 2023.
It was two further top-10 finishes at the Webex Players Series Hunter Valley and Women’s NSW Open and her visit to Augusta National in the months that followed that convinced Bosio she was ready to turn pro.
“I had at least three finishes in the top 10 when I played in a couple of these events and then I had a top 10-finish in the Women’s NSW Open,” Bosio said. “That was co-sanctioned with the LET (Ladies European Tour) so that was a real big confidence-booster, showing that my game can actually hold up against some of the world’s best players.”
Missing out at first stage of LPGA Tour Qualifying School was a recent setback, but she and long-time coach Richard Woodhouse have spent the past month refining a swing that now needs to stand up to professional pressure. It’s the next step forward in her ultimate goal of taking her place among the best players in the world on the LPGA Tour.
“The LPGA Tour is definitely where I feel like everyone wants to end up and definitely where I want to end up,” Bosio said. “There’s a few stages before you get there but, hopefully, we get there in the end.”
