It has been a long time since someone dominated women's golf in the country like the way Sharmila Nicollet did last season. Irina Brar, who turned pro in 2006, did dwarf her fellow-competitors with her game a few seasons ago, winning everything on offer. Sharmila's dominance was equally emphatic.

Agreed Meghna Bal and Vaishavi Sinha, two other talented golfers in the country, weren't around last season, but the way Sharmila kept the motivation level up despite the lack of competition and sweeping all and sundry en route to seven titles in seven starts speaks volumes of her grit and determination.

The last of her wins came at the Eagleton Golf Resort early this month. And what a win it turned out to be. Despite getting slowly off the blocks, the 16-year-old lass grew in confidence with every outing and eventually came through a victor by a mile — a country mile actually.

In the season-ending Ladies All-India Open Amateur Golf Championships, the only time the tall Bangalorean looked out of sorts was in the two-round qualifiers, the first day in particular. Her poor showing there saw the Merit List leader being seeded third behind Mehar Atwal and Laverry Kumar.

But in the championship proper, her class showed out. She outclassed the field in brilliant fashion. In the 36-hole finale, Sharmila notched one of the most lop-sided results in recent years, handing Mehar a 9 and 7 defeat. The Delhi girl, who was ruthless in her annihilation of opponents in the early rounds, just didn't have any answer to the Bangalorean's game.

It was only with victory in sight did Sharmila slacken a bit. The two holes she lost was more due to her largesse than any brilliance on Mehar's part. Two years ago, when she started making the headlines, Sharmila's dream was to be India's No 1 amateur golfer. Now that she has got there, she has set new targets. One, quite obviously is to play on the mother of all Tours — LPGA. But she has two more years before she can even think of turning pro. The striking feature of the Bangalore girl's play at Eagleton and the past season in general, was her temperament. "I've matured as a player. I play well under pressure now," Sharmila noted. Having turned heads with her long-hitting abilities a few seasons ago, Sharmila has realised that alone won't get her very far. In recent times, she has been working on her short-game. She still has a lot of catching up to do as far as wedge-play is concerned. Another area is her work on the greens. "I need to work on my putting as well," the teenager added.

She got a hands-on short-game lesson from former world No 1 Laura Davies during the Ladies Masters last December in the Garden City. "Her short-game is amazing. She hits amazingly long too. It was a great experience playing with her," the Bangalore girl said.

Laura, for her part, was quite impressed with Sharmila's talent. "She said I was a talented golfer and she wanted to see me playing on the LPGA Tour soon," Sharmila revealed. Sharmila’s immediate target though is to maintain her top ranking. She may have won titles by huge margins alright, but her main goal is to shoot sub-par scores everytime she steps on the course. If she irons out the rough edges in her short-game, Sharmila won't take long to realise that dream of hers.