Many people have a joke or one-liner in their back pocket for parties or cocktail hours. Professional golfer Natasha Oon’s ice breaker is that she’s missing a bone. Only, it’s not a joke.
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Oon really is missing a bone, and she’s endured much over three years to make it back to this dream place, making her first start in her LPGA Tour rookie season at this week’s Fortinet Founders Cup in Menlo Park, Calif.
“I had a sesamoid stress fracture,” Oon said in a press conference this week at Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club. “Everyone is, like, ‘What’s a sesamoid?’ That’s what I said too when they told me that. It’s a bone in your right foot, and it got stressed because I kept pivoting on it, turning on it.
“It was first diagnosed as turf toe and then became a plantar plate tear, and now I know medical terms I wish I didn’t know, but I do. Had a cleft and it was stressed out. I went through physical therapy, and it just never went away. Then I decided to get surgery, take it out. So, in parties, I say I don’t have all the bones in my body, and I’m really interesting after that.”
Natasha Oon shows off her trophy and check after being named the Epson Tour’s 2023 Rookie of the Year.
Isaiah Vazquez
The 24-year-old from Malaysia was a rising amateur star before her injuries. At San Jose State, she won her very first college start on her 17th birthday, and after sitting out her junior year with a fractured metatarsal, in 2022 she won the West Coast Conference individual title, medaled in the NCAA Ann Arbor Regional and finished second to Rose Zhang in the NCAA individual championship. Oon received the Inkster Senior Award that season for being the highest-ranked senior college golfer.
Once in the pros, Oon quickly earned her LPGA card in 2023 after finishing second in the Epson Tour season while being named Rookie of the Year. She played in and tied for 52nd in the LPGA’s 2023 Maybank Championship. That’s the last LPGA event she competed in until this week—a span of about 2½ years.
Oon was set to play in 2024 until the fracture set her back two seasons. To say she’s giddy to start her comeback is an understatement. Oon played in two events on the Epson Tour this month to prepare for her LPGA schedule and finished T-5 in the IOA Golf Classic in Florida last weekend.
“I went out there and was, like, ‘Hey, I think this was a good warmup coming to here.’ I was just so happy to see everyone that I knew on the Epson Tour and cheering them on,” Oon said. “Everyone told me, ‘It’s been a while.’ They’re like, ‘What happened?’ Then I [say], ‘Oh, this happened and that happened,’ but they all cheered me on. Being in the tournament I had to kind of take a while to get comfortable.
“I remember there were days in my rehab story where I was like, ‘How am I going to do? I don’t feel good about everything.’ When I stepped on the tee I felt a rush of home again.”
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In Oon’s time away from professional golf, there was a lot of pain, tears and doubt. On the positive side, she has new hobbies.
“I picked up singing. Picked up board games,” she said. “I play Dungeons & Dragons. Really weird time. That was a ride. Four hours for like 10 minutes of movement on that game. There is a board game for a Ponzi scheme. Have you guys seen that? That’s really weird.
“I sang karaoke at bars,” she added, noting that she’d choose songs by Adele. “I hiked. Went to Yosemite to test my foot out. It was OK. I watched a lot of “Parks and Recreation.” That’s a cool show. Love that. Treat yourself for sure. Treat yo’self. I could go on and on.”
Especially at parties. Oon will always have her missing bone to detail. It’s surely more fun to chat about now that she’s got her golf career back as well.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
