With back-to-back birdies on the 18th hole, Kevin Yu fulfilled his driving range-owning dad’s prediction that he would win the Sanderson Farms Championship and become Taiwan’s third golfer to claim a US PGA Tour title.
The Taoyuan-born 26-year-old, who represented Taiwan in the Olympic golf at Paris, saw off Californian Beau Hossler in a playoff at the Country Club of Jackson, Mississippi, on Sunday.
Having drained a 15-foot putt to claw his way into the playoff, Yu rolled in from five feet on the first extra hole, ensuring he joined Chen Tze-chung (LA Open in 1987) and Pan Cheng-tsung (RBC Heritage in 2019) as Tour winners from Taiwan.
Photo: AFP
“I’ve been dreaming this moment since I was five,” said Yu, who claimed a team gold medal with Pan at the 2014 Asian Games golf in Incheon, South Korea.
“This is the dream for all golfers, to win on the PGA Tour,” he said. “I did it today. I’m thankful for my parents. Without them, I couldn’t have done that.”
Yu won US$1.368 million, a victory that sends him to the Masters and secures him PGA Tour membership through 2026.
Poignantly, Chen and Pan were present in Jackson as Yu soaked up the win with his parents. Yu’s long-time backer Pan missed the cut.
Yu’s dad, Tommy, who built a driving range after his son started playing golf at five, drove to the course early in the week and made a wrong turn when looking for a parking space.
“He saw a parking spot in the very beginning, and I told him: ‘That’s for past champions, we can’t park here.’ He was like, ‘Oh, OK, OK. We can park here after this year,’” Yu said. “I don’t know — it just happened. I just had a good start for the week and then had good momentum, and my dad and my mom, they always trust me very much and that’s very special.”
With Yu showing talent at a young age, Pan encouraged him to attend college in the US where he ended up a standout in Arizona State University’s golf program.
With his first US Tour win three years after turning professional, Yu will have no problems finding a parking spot in Jackson in future.
Additional reporting by the CNA
TOOTHLESS: Bologna never looked like finding a way back, and Antonio Conte and his substitutes were waiting to celebrate long before the final whistle SSC Napoli on Monday lifted the Italian Supercoppa with a 2-0 win over Bologna in Riyadh, David Neres netting both goals to earn the league champions a deserved victory over the toothless Coppa Italia winners. Neres opened the scoring with a stunning strike from distance six minutes before halftime and found the net again in the 57th minute when Bologna were caught trying to play out of defense. “We came here as champions of Italy, we wanted this trophy and we showed it with a great performance,” Napoli forward Matteo Politano told Mediaset. “We could have scored a few more goals, but
Fulham on Monday climbed away from the English Premier League relegation zone and left Nottingham Forest mired in the fight for survival after Raul Jimenez’s penalty sealed a 1-0 win. Marco Silva’s side started the day just two points above fourth-bottom Forest, but Jimenez’s first-half goal at Craven Cottage moved them 10 points clear of the bottom three. While Fulham’s relegation fears were eased heading into the Christmas schedule, Forest are just five points ahead of third-bottom West Ham United in the scrap to avoid crashing into the Championship. Forest had won six of their previous eight games in all competitions, with a
LACKLUSTER FIGHT: At one stage, the referee lost patience with the two fighters, warning them in the fourth round that ‘the fans did not pay to see this crap’ Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on Friday knocked out YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in their controversial Netflix-backed bout in Miami. The fight at the Kaseya Center, which saw both men reportedly splitting a mammoth purse of US$184 million, had triggered alarm across boxing due to the gulf in physical size and class between Britain’s two-time former world champion Joshua and Paul, an Internet personality who has forged a lucrative career through a handful of novelty boxing contests. However, in the event, Joshua made hard work of defeating his vastly less accomplished opponent, before his superior size and power eventually told
English Premier League pair Mohamed Salah and Lyle Foster were match-winners on Monday as Egypt and South Africa began their Africa Cup of Nations Group B campaigns with victories in Morocco. Liverpool star Salah struck in the first minute of stoppage-time to snatch a 2-1 win for record seven-time champions Egypt over gallant Zimbabwe in Agadir. Earlier, second-half dominance by one-time title-holders South Africa paid off when Burnley striker Foster netted on 79 minutes to deliver a 2-1 victory over Angola in Marrakesh. The stage is now set for a top-of-the-table showdown between the Pharaohs and Bafana Bafana in Agadir on Friday. They
RSS