By Jeff Babineau
Lilia Vu’s seismic leap in women’s professional golf is not down to anything one might find in a golf instructional book. Vu once struggled mightily on the LPGA and thought about quitting. Now she is world No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings.
“It’s mindset,” said Vu, a four-time winner on the LPGA this season, including two majors, and Global Golf Post’s female player of the year for 2023. “I think it’s all been about mindset for me.”
Case in point: In the last two seasons, the CME Group Tour Championship has been her finish line; both times she left the event in tears. In 2022, it was because she was pouring work into her game, and had greatly improved, but still had yet to win. A middle-of-the-road T30 finish at the Tour Championship produced tears born of frustration, and exhaustion.
Last month, she played well enough in the tour finale to place fourth and sew up LPGA Rolex Player of the Year honors, edging France’s Céline Boutier, who also won four times, including a major title. Again, Vu cried. This time, she cried because she was grateful. Four victories, two of them majors – the Chevron Championship and the AIG Women’s Open – and she was thankful for so much that went right.
Vu, a 26-year-old Californian, won in Thailand (Honda LPGA Thailand) early in the year, satisfying one of her simple, dialed-back goals: to win. And she ended strongly with a signature triumph at the Annika Driven by Gainbridge at Pelican, performing her champion’s presser seated alongside the host, Annika Sörenstam, who made winning a habit, doing so 72 times on the LPGA.
Vu found herself as a player in 2023 because of one basic, simple reason, which, as cliché as it may seem, is pinpoint accurate. Lilia Vu made a giant leap forward when she stopped getting in her own way. A former college standout at UCLA, Vu had struggled as a pro mostly because she often expects perfection in a game that doesn’t offer it.
At the Annika, for instance, she found herself in a tight battle early on the back nine. She missed a short par putt at the 12th hole, and carried that with her to the next tee, where she hit a poor tee shot. She was entering a tailspin. She even has a term for the mood: Soggy diapers.
She and her caddie, Cole Pensanti, had a brief chat. Vu remembered where she stood in the present – back nine, late Sunday, chance to win – and hit the accelerator. This is the new, improved model of Lilia Vu. Instead of getting in her own way, she is standing in everyone else’s. World No. 1. Major winner. Force du jour.
There was a time when she seemed to wait for something bad to tumble in her direction. Nowadays, she doesn’t “wish” for good things to happen. She expects them.
“She’s always known she can do it,” Pensanti said. “But now she knows she can do it.”
Vu has come a long, long way, in every sense. She continues to be inspired by her late grandfather, Dinh Du, who wished for a better life for his daughter in post-war Vietnam in early 1982, and secretly built a boat – deep in the woods – that would carry his family to a more promising future. The boat was designed to carry 54 refugees; when it left shore, 82 were onboard.
Shortly after departing, the frame cracked, and the vessel began to take on water. A U.S. Navy frigate, the USS Brewton, swooped in and saved the passengers, which included Du and his daughter, Kieu Thuy.
The family eventually ended up in Southern California, where, in 1997, Kieu Thuy and her husband, Douglas Vu, welcomed a daughter, Lilia. While Lilia’s dad can help with the golf portion of her life, it is her mother who encouraged Lilia to keep grinding after Lilia made just one cut in nine rookie starts in 2019. She earned $3,830 and was demoted to the minor leagues. Vu thought about quitting. Maybe she would attend law school. At mom's urging, she played on. In 2021, she won three times on the Symetra Tour, known today as the Epson Tour, regaining an LPGA card as well as some needed confidence.
The path to LPGA success led Vu to a major title at Chevron in April, where she fought back from a four-shot deficit and edged Angel Yin in a playoff. At the AIG Women’s Open in April, an incredible Sunday round of 5-under 67 carried her to a six-shot triumph at Walton Heath near London.
Not only was Vu suddenly a two-time major champion, but now she was No. 1 in the world, as well. She made the U.S. Solheim Cup team, and in November, LPGA Rolex Player of the Year honors followed. What a journey. No longer is her golf treated as life and death. She is just hitting shots. And the accolades just keep rolling in.
Top: Lilia Vu at the 2023 Amundi Evian Championship
STUART FRANKLIN, GETTY IMAGES
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