Taiwan’s Yani Tseng has dealt with many different pressures as she made her way to the No. 1 ranking in women’s golf, yet she faces a unique challenge this week: performing in an LPGA tournament in front of her home crowd.
Tseng will be the star attraction of the Sunrise LPGA Championship when Taiwan hosts its first ever LPGA tournament, which starts today.
“I’m nervous given that this is the first time in Taiwan,” the soft-spoken Tseng said. “There’s a definite sense of pressure, but I’m hoping to convert that to motivation.”
Photo: AFP
The tournament has attracted 27 of the top 30 money winners to Taiwan, which is hosting an event thanks largely to Tseng.
Her achievements on the links drove the LPGA to pick a venue in Taiwan.
Tseng, 22, most recently won the LPGA Hana Bank Championship in South Korea earlier this month. She has 11 LPGA victories to her name and she won the LPGA Tour’s Player of the Year on Tuesday for a second consecutive time.
Tseng, raised on golf since age five, has spoken modestly about her wins despite what experts call a technically flawless swing. Having seemingly mastered the game, Tseng’s next challenge will be to translate that into marketability and value for sponsors.
The Taiwan tournament’s total purse is US$2 million and the winner gets US$300,000.
After South Korea, the -LPGA’s “Asia Swing” moved on to Malaysia, where Tseng came in second, and from Taiwan it will proceed to the Mizuno Classic in Japan in the first week of next month.
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