Golfing wunderkind Steph Kyriacou talks of her crazy adventure alongside her dad

Australia’s golfing wunderkind Steph Kyriacou turned 20 on Sunday.

She’s due to celebrate by getting off a plane and heading straight into COVID-19 quarantine in a Sydney airport hotel, holed up with her dad Nick who’s been her constant roommate for the past three-and-half months.

“Nice birthday treat,” she smiles, rolling her eyes.

Halfway through their fortnight’s isolation on November 29, Kyriacou should hear from Marbella - where the year’s last event is being played - that she’s been crowned the Ladies European Tour’s Rookie of the Year.

That would, she noted, be a fittingly “crazy end to a crazy year”.

It began in February with the likeable teenage amateur amazing the golf world by destroying a field of top pros in the Australian Classic, turning professional herself the next day and then finding her new career put on hold for months because of coronavirus.

With dad in tow, Kyriacou finally made it to Scotland in August for her big event bow at the Scottish Open and Women’s Open at Royal Troon, only for the pair to end up stranded in Europe.

“So, basically, we came for two events in Scotland over a fortnight and ended up flying all over Europe and the Middle East, playing eight tournaments in five countries over three-and-a-half months in the middle of a pandemic because we couldn’t get home,” explains Kyriacou.

Twice, their precious return flights were cancelled amid the global crisis.

“After the second time, when we got as far as Indonesia before being told there was no transit to Australia, I began to think, ’oh my God, are we ever going to get home?’” she recalls.

On that occasion they managed to divert to Athens, a rare place where they didn’t have to quarantine, and on to Cyprus to stay with relatives.

Kyriacou says they were woefully underprepared.

“We’d only brought casual winter stuff for Scotland, no summer stuff at all, so had to go and buy everything” - and made up last-minute travel and tournament schedules as they went along.

For dad Nick, a keen club golfer, it was doubly challenging, having to run his building and property business in Australia remotely from thousands of miles distant while doubling as Steph’s factotum, manager, roommate - and caddie.

They shared rooms throughout to save costs.

“Most mornings, he’d be up in the early hours, making calls, messaging, calling mum, talking to workers. For weeks, it was so intense; I’d be warming up and see him 50 metres away still on the phone,” she said.

“We had the odd fight, I think I’m sick of him and he’s sick of me but after three months non-stop, it would be like that with anyone.

“Actually, it’s gone better than I thought.”

Was he a good caddie, though? Kyriacou offers a stifled laugh as she tells of his terrible putt misreads. At least, she laughs, she didn’t have to pay him.

And what a team they made. In the last six events in the Czech Republic, Switzerland, France, Dubai and Saudi Arabia, Kyriacou had five top-10 finishes and will be top rookie should England’s Alice Hewson not win in Marbella.

“I’m secretly happy those flights got cancelled, if I’m honest,” Kyriacou admits. “I’m pretty stoked with how it all went.

“I played good, achieved plenty and the whole thing taught me such a lot because, surely, this year is the worst it could ever get, what with the logistical and organisational problems and restrictions we had in the pandemic.

“At least, it can only get better from here.”

It surely will for Kyriacou, whose talent has Australia’s greatest woman golfer Karrie Webb declaring “the sky’s the limit for her”.

She’s already plotted a course for 2021, including a bid to get to get her LPGA card at Q School, which would enable Kyriacou to alternate between the LPGA and European Tours.

With a new caddie, naturally.

“Oh, this has all been like a great holiday for dad,” she laughs.

“He wanted to stay even longer. He’s a tourist, not a caddie!

“You know, I reckon he cancelled the flights himself and just told me the airlines had done it!“