CORISANDE LEE has set her sights on becoming a professional golfer - just 12 months after getting serious about the game.

The 16-year-old Pleasington amateur - who won the Lancashire Girls Championships last Sunday - has been on the up and up over the past year and has brought her handicap down an incredible 17 shots, from 25 to seven.

And now the former St Wilfrid's pupil has her sights set on a scratch handicap.

"I first went out on a golf course with my dad about five years ago but that was just watching him really," said Lee, who has represented Lancashire Girls and will make her debut for the Lancashire B side soon.

"It was only about a year ago that I realised I was hitting some good shots. It was just my putting and chipping letting me down but even off 25 I was playing quite well.

"So I decided to have a really good go at it and try and get it down.

"To get from 25 to seven is not too bad and if I can make half the progress of last year next year that would be great!"

If Lee's handicap comes down any further, all sorts of options could open up for her.

"I think if I can get my handicap down to scratch in the next year I will have a good chance of getting a scholarship to America," she said.

"And then if you do well there, you have a chance of making it on the American Tour."

Top pros on the LPGA can make in excess of US$1million (around £650,000) a season. On the women's European Tour, the best players earn around half that - golf is one of the few sports that women can earn massive money in.

Winning has already become a habit for Lee. She has won the Weetabix Lancashire Junior Strokeplay championships at Haydock Park, topped her college's golf prospectus tour - a mixed tour of 94 students - and has won the Daily Telegraph Junior Golf event at The Park golf club, Sefton. Unfortunately, she has now been knocked off the girls leaderboard in the Telegraph competition and will need to win another qualifier with a better score to have a chance of reaching the Sun City final at the end of summer.

But she put that behind her to win the Lancashire Girls with a seven-over-par 81, two shots in front of Clitheroe teenager Sophie Brooks, whose score was several better than her handicap.

"Sophie did really well. To shoot four or five better than your handicap at Fairhaven is incredible."

And now Lee is getting ready to pit her wits against the best young golfers in the country at the English Strokeplay, also at Fairhaven, next week.

"I played in the Scottish Strokeplay last season but that was when my handicap was 23 and it was just for experience really.

"I am much more serious this time. There will be girls there with scratch handicaps up to around 10 so I won't be one of the favourites.

"But I am quietly confident as long as my putting is okay."

The event runs for four days, with 36 holes of strokeplay followed by matchplay involving the top 32.

"I have been practicing for an hour or two every night, it is just my putting and chipping that lets me down, if I putt well I will do well even if I don't play well."

Lee is currently a golf studies student at Myerscough College near Preston and has one year to go.

But the course is more administration-based - Lee wants to play. "It wasn't exactly what I was expecting but hopefully I can move on to something more appropriate in the future."