NAPLES, Fla. – With the largest paycheck in women’s golf history on the line this week at the CME Group Tour Championship, LPGA players are often asked what they’d do with $2 million. Jin Young Ko said she’d buy a yellow Ferrari. Nelly Korda also mentioned a sports car. Minjee Lee said a boat (yacht?).
Sophia Schubert offered one of the more interesting responses after an opening 4-under 68 at Tiburon Golf Club. The rookie who came oh-so-close at the Amundi Evian Championship, where she won $586,262, said she’d buy a plane.
Schubert started taking flying lessons six months ago after watching “Top Gun: Maverick” with her boyfriend.
“I was, like, you know what, I’ve kind of been looking for a hobby outside of golf,” she said, “just something to kind of distract myself. So I was, like, I might as well try this. It seems fun.”
Schubert, who lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, about 20 minutes from a small airport, said her father took lessons when he was younger and her best friend’s husband is an instructor. The Texas grad and 2017 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion said she tries to keep her lessons to days when the weather is nice.
“I took off the very first time that I got in the plane for my first lesson,” she said. “I haven’t landed. That’s the scary part. So the flying is not that hard, but it’s all the ground school and the book stuff that’s kind of the hard stuff.”
The ultimate dream, she said, would be to one day fly herself to tournaments like Arnold Palmer and Peggy Kirk Bell.
“Just being in control of an airplane and then being able to look down,” she said. “It’s really special just to be up there and do that.”
