Ten years ago, an unknown 20-year old named Se Ri Pak won the LPGA Championship and changed the LPGA Tour forever. It’s too soon to tell whether Yani Tseng will have that kind of impact on her sport. But golf fans will likely become very familiar with her in the days to come. At 19 years and four months of age Tseng’s winning effort at Bulle Rock made her the youngest winner in history of an LPGA championship and the second youngest player ever to win an LPGA major title.
Even before she arrived at Bulle Rock however, Tseng had put together an impressive resume. There was the outstanding amateur record in her native Taiwan as a teenager, the 2004 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links championship and the 2005 North South Amateur title. There was the tie for sixth at last year’s CN Canadian Women’s Open even before she attended Q-School last fall. She might have turned pro sooner, but the LPGA wouldn’t let her enter Q-School because of her age. Once she arrived on the LPGA Tour however, the rookie made an immediate impact, with two second-place finishes in her first six starts.
All that experience paid off; Tseng seemed unfazed coming down the stretch with a major title at stake and playing in the same group with Lorena Ochoa. “It kind of feels different,” she said, “because I was four shots behind (starting the final round) and I didn’t think I would win the tournament. I just really tried to do my job and then play like I did (Saturday). And it’s very different playing with Lorena, it’s very relaxed this week. Not like last time, I was very nervous to try to catch up with her.” Tseng even had some support from the gallery, some former pro-am partners. “That was very good support,” she said with a laugh. Before, I just heard ‘Lorena, Lorena.’ Today it’s ‘Yani, Yani.’ So it’s very exciting. I met them at the Sybase Classic. I played the pro-am with them. They drove from New York. Tseng was playing golf in Taiwan by the time she was six years old and grew up idolizing Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam. She also forged a connection with perhaps the best-known golfer ever to come from her homeland, T.C. Chen. “He was one hour away from my home,” Tseng said. “So when he came in to practice we played together and he was always teaching me something. He taught me how to travel and everything, so he’s very nice.”
When Pak joined the LPGA Tour she turned a nation on to women’s golf. Today, there are some 45 Korean players on the LPGA Tour. Could Tseng, who now lives in Beaumont, Cal. have that kind of influence in her homeland someday? “I try to support Taiwan golf,” she said. “Now it’s getting better and I hope after this everybody can support golf in Taiwan and they can come to the LPGA to play golf.”
