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TSN Senior Reporter

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Brooke Henderson is a major champion and a five-time winner on the LPGA Tour. She also has a long list of accolades, including Olympian and Canadian athlete of the year, but she’s still learning her craft.

As she prepares for the year’s first major, the ANA Championship which gets underway on Thursday, the 20-year-old golfer admitted that this season has provided some ups and downs, something she’s trying to come to accept as a matter of course.

“I think that's what makes golf so difficult,” admitted Henderson in her press conference on Tuesday. “It's a very personal battle and you kind of have to take the good with the bad most of the time. For sure when things are going great, it seems like you're unstoppable and you can win every week or you can finish top 10 every week. But when bad things happen, you've really got to stay patient.

“That's something that I think in 2017 and even in the beginning of this year, you know, missing a couple cuts, and not playing my best at times, you've really got to stay within yourself, stay patient, and kind of trust that you know what to do.”

So far this season, Henderson has posted three top-10 finishes but also missed two cuts. The top 10s are not all that surprising for a player who has 27 of them in her brief career. The cuts are a different story. Henderson has only missed the weekend three times in the previous two years.

Slipping twice so far this season is almost stunning and shows that despite all the success, she is still learning to be a professional golfer and coming to grips with the fact that there will be off weeks.

“I think maybe I was trying to push myself a little bit too hard and not just focusing on what I could do,” she admitted of the most reason misses.

“Kind of looking at the other players and looking at the leaderboard maybe a little too much. But as I said, just trying to stay patient and focus on what I could do, shoot minus 4 every day, and see what happens from there.”

One thing Henderson has never done is miss a cut in a major. She’s a perfect 16 for 16, dating back to her tie for 59th at the 2013 U.S. Women’s Open. Her best finish at the ANA (previously the Kraft Nabisco and the Nabisco Dinah Shore) is a tie for 10th back in 2016.

She believes her game is well suited to the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, Calif., pointing out that past winners and contenders seem to have a similar game to hers – most notably they’re long off the tee.

“Brittany Lincicome, Lexi, they hit it a really long way, and they've won here or been close the last ten years very often, so there is something to that,” stated Henderson, who is ranked 13th  in average driving distance. “I think it's so they can reach the par 5s a little bit easier. I think if you can birdie all the par 5s every single day, you're going to put yourself in a good position. Then you're 4-under, and you have a lot of room to make other birdies on the other holes or you can make up for mistakes on your way around.”

One thing Henderson has learned in her brief time on the LPGA Tour is that winning is hard. Although she’s captured five events, which is remarkable considering her young age, there are expectations and hopes that she’ll win every week, especially from Canadian fans.

That pressure can be smothering as it was somewhat at last year’s CN Canadian Women’s Open in Ottawa.

While she loves the support of the fans, winning every week is simply not realistic and Henderson knows it.

“It's extremely tough to win out here,” she said. “As you could see last year, it took till June or July for there to be a repeat winner, which is crazy. There is just so much talent. I finished T-22 last week, and I kind of thought to myself it's a lot of hard work, and it's a lot of pushing every single day just to finish T-22. So to move up those 21 spots, you have to have something special click in that round or in that tournament. I'm just kind of waiting for that spark to happen.”

That spark may come this week and Henderson may take the victory leap into Poppy’s Pond, the traditional dip that goes to winners. Or she could just as easily miss the cut. That’s golf and clearly, the pride of Smiths Falls, Ont., is learning all about that.