At 17 and approaching her Higher School Certificate year, Sydney hotshot Celina Yuan qualified in December to play on the Ladies European Tour and will focus on her golf tuition rather than her education away from the greens as one of the youngest players to earn full-time status on the women's tour.

The former Australian girls' amateur champion idolised Tiger Woods and has modelled her game on world No.1 Lydia Ko. She didn't want to "screw up" after putting herself in a great position to qualify for Europe during the final stage of qualifying in Morocco just before Christmas.

"I'm not going to finish year 12 and I'm just going to concentrate on golf and I want to give it my all," said the Australian Golf Club member Yuan, who turned 18 on Friday.

"Without practice there's no such thing as talent.

"I guess I'm going to be pretty nervous [on the Ladies European Tour], but I want to enjoy it at the same time and play well. I'll try to play as many tournaments as possible that I can get to."

Yuan's emergence is another example of the wave of teenagers and early twenty-somethings shelving schooling to make it in the women's game, which boasts the USLPGA Tour as the platform for the world's best.

But to qualify for Europe when she was barely allowed to drive a car on her own was a staggering achievement.

"The bottom line is she's an unbelievable golfer and always has been," said her coach Gary Barter, who also mentors former Australian Open champion Matt Jones and took over the tutelage of Yuan after the foundation was laid by Khan Pullen.

"She's got the ability to win championships and what she did over [in Morocco] was quite extraordinary really, if you look at the calibre of players in that Q [qualifying] school."

Yuan's distance education has always complemented her golf pursuits, which she only began taking seriously after following her older brother Kevin around with a club as a five-year-old.

Kevin is one of Australia's leading male amateurs and competed in the Australian Master of Amateurs at Royal Melbourne last week.

"It was mainly just running around hitting balls after my brother [when I started]," the softly-spoken Yuan said. "He was the more serious one at first and gradually I got more into it and wanted to be a really good golfer.

"I guess when he plays well I'm always very jealous of him and gets me motivated to play as good as him. And I enjoy seeing new people, places and golf courses."