Taiwan’s Yani Tseng (曾雅妮) swept to the No. 1 world ranking after a brilliant four-shot victory in the A$500,000 (US$500,000) Australian Ladies Masters at Royal Pines yesterday.
The 22-year-old will officially overtake South Korea’s Shin Ji-yai this week after completing the second leg of an Australian double following her seven-stroke win in the Australian Open in Melbourne last weekend.
“I never expected this to come true,” Tseng said. “Everything is feeling so good, winning, being world No. 1.”
Photo: EPA
The Taiwanese star carded a final-round, four-under-par 68 to finish the tournament at 24-under 264.
A three-time major winner and 2008 LPGA Rookie of the Year, Tseng will be feted as a hero when she returns to Taiwan, which has not had a world-class performer in the sport since T.C Chen in the 1980s.
“Hopefully, the first page of the newspaper,” she said, when asked how her rise to the top ranking would be received back home. “I think it is going to be huge.”
Eight months Shin’s junior, Tseng is the youngest No. 1 since the official world rankings were introduced in 2006 when Sweden’s Annika Sorenstam ruled women’s golf.
“I don’t want to be No. 1 for one week or two weeks, I want to still be there at the end of the year,” said Tseng, who had 26 birdies and an eagle in her 72 holes at the Australian Masters.
Her win dominated leading news bulletins nationwide, where her performance takes on a special significance as the nation is short of world-class athletes.
“You won the title at the Australian Ladies Masters and have become the world’s No. 1 women golfer. You have become the pride of Taiwan and deserve special praise,” President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told her in a congratulatory message.
Tseng was four shots clear of Australian Nikki Campbell and American Stacy Lewis, both on 20-under 268. American Ryann O’Toole was outright fourth on 270.
Tseng was tentative early in the final round as many of her rivals found birdies easy to come by on a day of low scoring.
At one stage, Tseng’s lead was reduced to just two by Lewis and Campbell after her bogey at the par-four 334m seventh.
However, after she birdied the par-five ninth and grabbed another at the long 501m par-five 12th, the contest was as good as over.
Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) also sent congratulatory messages to Tseng yesterday.
Golf will be included in the 2016 Olympic Games. The Sports Affairs Council has put forward plans to develop the potential of athletes in tennis, golf and other professional sports in an effort to cultivate more “small Tsengs,” the council said.
Additional reporting by CNA
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying