WALTON-ON-THE-HILL, ENGLAND | South Korea’s Jiyai Shin is a quick learner.
Back in 2005, while still in high school and yet to join the pro ranks, she won a Korean LPGA event.
A year later, making her first appearance on the LPGA, she tied for fourth on home turf in the Kolon-Hana Bank Championship.
In 2007, she finished sixth at her first U.S. Women’s Open.
She claimed a first major-championship victory in 2008 in her second start at the Women’s British Open.
She was the LPGA’s Rookie of the Year in 2009.
And this summer she has started her second career as a worldwide golfer in equally speedy style.
Hang on, you might be asking. Second career? What’s that all about?!
Well, Shin was, you might recall, the first Korean woman to top the world ranking (in 2010); she claimed 11 wins on the LPGA from late 2008 until early 2013; and she finished T31st or better in her first 22 major starts, including two wins in the Women’s Open and nine other top-10s.
And then before the 2014 season started, at the age of just 25, she resigned her LPGA membership. She was rejecting top-level golf but not for the reasons cited by so many sporting prodigies.
Instead, it was a response to a family tragedy. Her mother had been killed and her younger brother and sister badly injured in a car accident when Shin was 16. She no longer wanted to be a long-haul flight away from her family, so she turned her attention to the Japanese LPGA. At the start of this year, she had played only five majors since the end of 2014, and not one since 2019.
"I’m different now. In the past, I only focused on playing. Now I have more fun. But at Pebble Beach and also here we have had tough conditions, and I really like tough golf."
Jiyai Shin
In January she glanced at the schedule, and two of the major-championship venues caught her eye. She resolved to redouble her efforts in Japan and be prepared for a return to top-level action.
The fast starts? She was at it again. First, she ventured Down Under, claiming a five-shot victory in the Victorian Open in Australia, then returned to Japan and won one month later in the Daikin Orchid Ladies Golf Tournament. She would add another four top-three finishes before claiming a third trophy of the year in late June at the Earth Mondahmin Open.
Next up was the U.S. Women’s Open and Pebble Beach – the first of the venues to have caught her eye, one she described as her “dream course.”
Many didn’t notice her return to elite-level golf, and others might have expected rust, but the shrewd observers will have remembered that Shin doesn’t mess about when making a bow. She duly completed a sensational return to the major championships by sharing second place on the California clifftops.
And what of the other host and tournament she had circled on the calendar in January? “I checked out Walton Heath and saw it is close to where I won my first Women’s Open at Sunningdale. I have only good memories of there and the event. I wanted to return.”
She wasn’t the only one. “I didn’t play here for seven years. I missed my fans, they missed me and they have all returned. They all wanted to talk about my two wins in Sunningdale and Royal Liverpool, so it’s been a lot of talking this week, and I’ve been a little busy.”
Two factors added to her comfort levels, both having echoes of her past glories in England. The first was that Walton Heath, like Sunningdale, is a heathland test. The second: “First morning here, the wind started blowing and I said, ‘OK, yes, this is the AIG Women's Open.’ And then I remember that the wind is my friend.”
On arrival at Pebble Beach, Shin had been aware of the changes in the game. “I saw a lot of younger players,” she said. “They have speed, they have power and in the first two rounds I lost my tempo because I tried to catch up.”
Yet again she was a quick learner, recognising her mistake, rectifying the error and then completing rounds of 70-68 to be the second-low scorer over the last 36 holes.
Walton Heath provided another opportunity to put those veteran wiles to the test. “When I won Sunningdale, I was 20 years old and now I am 35,” she said after rounds of 73-69-69 left her tied seventh and four shots back of the lead heading into the final round.
“I’m different now. In the past, I only focused on playing. Now I have more fun. But at Pebble Beach and also here we have had tough conditions, and I really like tough golf.”
Shin reiterated that with another strong finish, carding a final-round 70 for a 7-under total of 281 and third place, a second top-three finish in the majors in this second crack at them, and she isn’t done yet.
Next year, the AIG Women’s Open returns to The Old Course in St Andrews. “I have tough memories of there,” she said of a venue where she twice has made the cut but is yet to record a top 20. “I definitely want to go back.”
E-MAIL MATT
Top: Jiyai Shin of South Korea plays a shot on the fourth hole during the final round of the AIG Women's Open at Walton Heath Golf Club in Walton-on-the-Hill, England.
Steph Chambers, R&A via Getty Images