Taiwan’s queen of golf, Yani Tseng, has racked up yet another Athlete of the Month Award from the US Sports Academy.
The academy in Daphne, Alabama, the largest graduate school of sport in the world, had nominated Tseng for winning back-to-back LPGA tournaments last month. She captured the Kia Classic in Carlsbad, California, by six strokes and the LPGA Founders Cup in Phoenix, Arizona, by one stroke after overcoming a three-stroke deficit.
The 23-year-old’s Kia Classic title gave her 15 career wins on the LPGA Tour and it was her third win in five starts this year. The victories increased her lead in the world rankings over No. 2 Choi Na-yeon by a bigger margin than the gap between Choi and the final name (No. 766) on the rankings. Tseng has now spent 61 weeks at the top of the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings.
Photo: AFP
She won the academy’s monthly honor twice last year, before being named the Female Athlete of the Year.
The academy’s Male Athlete of the Month for last month is Tiger Woods, who has won the second-most majors in history with 14. He finally snapped a streak of 31 tournaments without a victory last month when he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Bay Hill, Florida. It was Woods’ first tour win since the Sept. 13, 2009, BMW Championship. The win moved Woods up 12 places in the professional golf rankings to No. 6, putting him back in the top 10 for the first time in more than a year.
The monthly winners are chosen by the academy’s selection committee and online balloting.
The winners of the male and female Athletes of the Month awards will be considered as candidates for this year’s Athlete of the Year ballot.
The academy this month celebrates the 40th anniversary of its founding on April 22, 1972.
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