England’s next golf prodigy Mimi Rhodes steps out of her comfort zone to challenge world’s best

Mimi Rhodes can still remember refreshing her bank account to see her first professional cheque for £6,000 drop.

This summer, she will be competing for a $10million purse at the AIG Women’s Open.

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The money is probably the best way to capture this 24-year-old golfer’s meteoric rise in the game, but not the only way.

She won three times on the Ladies European Tour in 2025, earning Rookie of the Year, finishing T19 on her debut at the AIG Women’s Open, and gaining an LPGA Tour Card at Q-School.

Standing at Royal Lytham and St Anne’s alongside Catriona Matthew ahead of the 50th staging of the AIG Women’s Open later this year, it suddenly becomes apparent that Rhodes could provide the next instalment of a north west fairy tale.

The last two winners on this golf course were Matthew and Georgia Hall, who also happen to be the two most recent British winners of their home major, both at the same venue.

Reflecting on her first experience at the AIG Women’s Open, Rhodes told talkSPORT: “I just went into that week with a different mindset. I was less focused on the score outcome and making the cut.

“I was more focused on spending time with my family and being grateful to be in that position and to have an opportunity to win a major and to experience everything with it being my first.

“A lot has changed since then. And I think I’ve become more comfortable playing in majors because now I’m around such good players.

“I’ve gained a lot of experience from that, especially playing on a links course and playing in front of big crowds because it attracted a lot of people.

“So it’s probably going to be the same this year. And I’m just looking forward to playing in front of a home crowd.”

Rhodes made an astonishing hole-in-one in the final round, bouncing off Steph Kyriacou’s ball to deliver one of the rarest sights in golf.

She recalled: “It felt so surreal. I was playing well the whole week and that Sunday, I think I’d started with a bogey or something and I was one-over.

“And then all of a sudden your round can just be changed just like that by one shot going in the hole.

“To have my family there and they saw it in person, they were by the hole and they just went crazy. It was a dream of a Sunday.”

Family is important to Rhodes: she was inspired to take up golf by her grandmother, who had a single-figure handicap.

And the Englishwoman admitted that moving up the LPGA Tour, the highest level in the women’s game, meant stepping out of her comfort zone.

“It’s always been a goal of mine,” she said. “It’s been the main priority. It’s been why I’ve carried on with the sport.

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“And, you know, I could have just stayed on the L.E.T. for a couple more years, and my mum said the prize money is good enough there, you can stay there.

“But I said no, at the end of the day, I’ve worked this hard to get onto the LPGA to play against the best players in the world.”

She added: “It’s definitely a lot different in terms of my confidence level, because on L.E.T. I was consistently being up at the top of the leaderboard, getting top tens and making all the cuts.

“I think I was just, I put a lot of expectation on myself and just thought that it would be the same on the LPGA because I’ve got my way there. But, you know, it’s so tough.

“Like every week is a different course and they’re set up so much harder than on the L.E.T. You have to really plan your way around them.

“It’s just tough out there. You’re playing against the best in the world.

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“It’s my first year. So I think I need to give myself a bit of a break and just put it down to learning and making sure that I’m learning from the best in the game.”

Despite this rookie year on the LPGA Tour being a learning experience, she has already bagged a couple of top tens.

And a strong finish to the season could put her right in contention for a Solheim Cup debut in September.

Rhodes said: “It would be really special to make the team, obviously, and I really enjoy playing in team environments and feel like I’m kind of a leader in that sense and just like getting everyone involved.

“But I can’t put too much pressure on myself every week. I’m already thinking about points and world rankings and stuff.

“It’ll all fall together and if I’m meant to be in that team, I will.

“But there’s loads more to play for and I’m just going to keep up my game.”