For Yani Tseng, the hard part is behind her.
The sudden evaporation of her game that produced 15 victories including five majors, a two-year run at No. 1 in the world and a pair of LPGA player of the year awards in 2010 and 2011.
Two hip surgeries.
An ongoing battle with the yips.
But there Tseng was at the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills last week, all smiles again, having earned her spot in a playoff in a qualifier. It was her first U.S. Women’s Open start in nine years.
She might have quit, but the 36-year-old from Taiwan didn’t.
“I asked myself a lot of times because I think it’s very easy to quit. But I think every time I practice, every little step, little progress, gave me hope. I think that hope is kind of what carries me to be where I am now,” Tseng said.
“I fell down so many times. I stood back up and I kept moving forward.”
Tseng’s last victory came in 2012 and she had played just 24 LPGA tournaments in the previous six years prior to teeing it up at Erin Hills. She made the decision to begin putting left-handed late last year in an effort to counteract the yips that have afflicted her game.
She made a 5-foot putt on the first extra hole in the qualifier to secure her spot, reinforcing her decision.
“I've been fighting with the yips actually for three or four years, and I changed so many little things and just never happened,” Tseng said.
“I told my coach [Brady Riggs], I’m going to change. I need to give myself a chance to come back out here again. So I changed right away. And I was nervous; I don’t know what’s going to happen at the first tournament. I don’t know if I’m still going to feel the fear or anything.
“But once I played my first tournament, my first hole like a 3-footer, I’m like, OK, this is a challenge now. But I’m still up there. I’m like, wow, this feels good. My brain is actually not that smart. Once I changed to lefty, everything changed. Now I stand over the ball and I’m not afraid of any short putts.”
Tseng shot 75-71 at Erin Hills and missed the cut by a single stroke.
Lexi Thompson played in her 19th consecutive U.S. Women’s Open last week, dating to her debut as a 12-year-old in 2007. She missed the cut with rounds of 73-74 and was criticized for slow play in her Thursday/Friday pairing with Nelly Korda and Charley Hull.
On Sunday, the 30-year-old took to social media to defend herself.
“Want people to realize our group basically waited on every single hole on the group in front, we were never out of position/warned/or on the clock,” Thompson posted on Instagram. “I’ll be the first one to say I’m not as fast as my playing partners the two days, but I’m also the last person that wants to be out there for six hours. So before you make assumptions, make sure you get all the facts right before basing it on pictures and little clips.”
Thompson also used the post to clarify understanding around her pledge to step away from full-time competition, which she announced last year.
“I’m not sure how many times I’ll have to repeat this, but I never used the word retire, I said not a full time schedule, because I’m not sure how much I will play. Just taking it one at a time. That’s why I’m still playing the tournaments I actually enjoy or want to play in.”
With Erin Hills being a new venue for virtually every player in the Women’s Open field, learning it on the fly was a challenge.
For Lydia Ko, a part of her pre-tournament preparation was as simple as going to YouTube.
“In all honesty I watched some YouTube golf before coming here and seeing how they played and just kind of get an idea of what the golf course is like. Obviously it plays very differently compared to when the men played [the U.S. Open] here in 2017. You don’t really know until you get here,” Ko said.
It’s not the traditional way to prepare for a major championship but it helped Ko understand what she would be facing at Erin Hills.
“I watched the Bryan Bros, and I think Wesley Bryan was trying to get his revenge from 2017,” said Ko, alluding to the popular content creators’ “Major Cut” series episode in which the brothers played Erin Hills. Wesley Bryan, a PGA Tour player who won the 2017 RBC Heritage, missed the cut in the 2017 U.S. Open.
“I got into YouTube golf because of my husband, and I won’t be shy to say I watch it on my own now. It’s probably not the preparation that many of the other players did, but it was just a good way for me to kind of see the golf course.”
In his pre-championship press conference, USGA CEO Mike Whan was effusive in his observations about growth in golf participation, particularly among women and girls.
“On-course [participation] has gone up every year over the last six years; 545 million rounds played [last year], which is 55 percent bigger than just five years ago,” he said.
“Maybe here, importantly, women [are] leading the way in the game today … something I didn’t think I could say in 2009 when I took the LPGA [commissioner] job. … One third of the people who play the game in America are women, and really 60 percent of the growth we’ve all experienced since COVID has been driven by women. … I think if women’s golf was a stock, you’d buy it because it’s what's driving our game forward."
England’s Lottie Woad claimed low-amateur honors at Erin Hills. Woad, the world’s top-ranked amateur and the 2024 Augusta National Women’s Amateur champion, finished at 5-over par. Six of 26 amateurs in the field made the 36-hole cut. Among those who missed was Asterisk Talley, the much-heralded 16-year-old phenom, who made two double bogeys in a second-round 75 and missed the weekend by one stroke.
Staff and wire reports