Record-Setting Win on the Epson Tour

In 2022, 17-year-old Fiona Xu became the first Kiwi to win the Australian Women’s Amateur Championship since Lydia Ko in 2012. Xu grew up idolizing Ko and dreamed of following in her footsteps. Xu, now 19, took a giant leap towards that dream last week, setting an Epson Tour scoring record at the Copper Rock Golf Course in Hurricane, Utah, to win the Copper Rock Classic by seven shots. The final 36 holes included 18 birdies, a second round course record, with a final round 64.

Xu was the 13th-ranked amateur in the world after she won in Australia in 2022, and was being recruited by high-profile college golf programs. She had a decision to make but it wasn’t just among schools.

“Ever since I started playing golf I knew I wanted to go professional at some point,” Xu says. “In the end I thought, if I go to college I’ll still want to turn pro after, because golf is what I want to do with my life.” 

At the end of 2023, Xu decided to take a swing at the professional game and made it to the 2nd stage of LPGA Q school. A few bad holes at the end of the tournament held her back from advancing to the final stage.

“It wasn’t my best game,” Xu says. “I choked on the last few holes the last day. It was more like a mental thing. So I went back and worked on it.”

Xu worked with her coach to find a positive angle with which to view each experience. She decided to accept poor play – that ultimately, it would make her a better golfer and help alleviate pressure. Making it to the 2nd stage would earn Xu some starts on the Epson Tour, which was a step towards the LPGA Tour. Maybe not advancing to the final stage of Q-school was a good thing, she thought. Xu set some goals for the year: finish top-10 on the Epson Tour season-long points list (top-15 are awarded LPGA cards), and win an Epson event.

Xu finished T15 and 11th in her first two Epson Tour starts in March. In her third event of the season, she finished 2nd behind her friend Juliana Huang. Huang broke the 54 hole scoring record, shooting 21-under at Morongo Golf Club at Tukwet Canyon that week, demolishing the field and beating Xu by nine shots. Huang and Xu are friends and played together often in junior and amateur golf. Huang showed Xu what was possible and shifted Xu’s mindset.

“It really motivated me because my friend Juliana, she won that tournament and she played really good. I thought to myself, one day I want to play like her: shoot 8-under two days (in a row) and win a tournament.”

Three weeks later, Xu was in Hurricane, Utah, for the Copper Rock Championship. Copper Rock Golf Course was once farmland set in the Hurricane Valley. The course was built on a vast expanse of farmland surrounded by sandstorm formations, mountains, and Zion National Park. The holes are wide and filled with possibilities. Xu marveled at her surroundings while playing practice rounds, but her game didn’t feel like she was on the verge of a break out. At the end of the four week stretch, Xu felt tired and it showed in her swing.

“Going into this week, my practice rounds, I wasn’t hitting it very good,” Xu says. “On the practice range, I wasn’t hitting the shots I wanted to and my driver wasn’t going straight.”

The greens of Copper Rock look severe, and Xu aimed her focus on where to leave approach shots. She discovered that she was over-reading the greens and that’s when the putts began to fall. She surprised herself with an opening round 5-under 67. While practicing after the first round, she didn’t have a premonition that the best golf of her life was imminent. 

Xu was calm through her opening nine in the second round. She was enjoying the views in between shots and turned in 3-under. 

“(Copper Rock) had really beautiful views, which I really liked. Whenever I’m walking, I like to look at the mountains,” Xu says. “That helped me a lot. Just to go away from all the scores and how I hit the last shot or the next shot. It took my mind off golf a little bit.” 

Xu was inspired and began pulling away from the field, closing with six birdies in eight holes and shooting a course record 9-under 63. She’d taken a two-shot lead and found the zone.

“It felt really smooth because I was making a lot of putts from 10 to 15 feet, which I don’t normally do,” Xu says. “My mind was all about trusting the process and focusing on myself and believing in myself.”

Closing a professional tournament is hard and winning your first professional tournament is an internal battle. Xu decided to enjoy the day no matter what the results were. She channeled nervous energy into excitement and embraced performing in front of a large local gallery. 

Xu picked up the third round where she left off the second, with birdies on four of the first five holes. She continued her hot streak, making nine birdies and a lone bogey. In her final 36 holes she shot 17-under par to run away with the title. Her stylish birdie at the last gave Xu a seven shot win, and she bested Juliana Huang’s scoring record from weeks earlier. Xu now had the lowest 54 hole total in Epson Tour history. 

“Going to the tournament I told myself to play each shot the best I can,” Xu says. “It means a lot, you know? It was one of my goals to win an Epson tournament this year and now that I’ve won, everything is going in the right direction, and now that I’ve won I have more faith in myself.”

Xu leads the Epson Tour points race by a significant margin and has already accomplished the season-long goals she set for herself. She has no plans to slow down.

She knows that soon she’ll join her hero, Lydia Ko, on the LPGA Tour and that’s when the real fun begins. 

‍