Man, the golf world can really suck the joy out of you sometimes. We all get a bit misty-eyed when a player hangs 'em up, but it’s a whole different level of gut punch when it’s a kid like Jessica Bang. Eighteen years old, and already she was making the WPGA Tour of Australasia look like her personal playground. You saw her swing, you saw her drive, and you just knew the future was, well, her future.
She fought her way onto the tour through qualifying school – a place so stressful it’d make a grown man weep into his shag carpet. But Jessica? She ate it up, even went and snagged a win in her fifth pro start. That’s the kind of tale you’d bore your grandkids with, assuming you weren't too busy trying to forget that triple-bogey on the 7th from your own round last Tuesday.
Then, bam. Tragedy struck. She collapsed in Thailand getting ready for a tournament, had emergency brain surgery. The whole golf scene is just… stunned. It's a raw deal, a really raw deal. Her time was way too short, but what a blast it was watching her. She showed us all what happens when pure talent meets sheer guts. That little bit of time she graced the tour? It mattered. We’ll remember that fire she had, and the sheer promise of what was to come.