WORLD NO. 1 TSENG GRABS FIRST- ROUND LEAD
Taiwanese star backs her words and ranking with six- under 66 to grab early lead
It’s not like Yani Tseng didn’t warn us. The world’s No. 1 player, who has been mired in a summerlong slumber, told the media earlier this week that “Yani is back.”
It looks like she may be right. Tseng shot a six- under 66 Thursday at Vancouver Golf Club and grabbed the firstround lead at the CN Canadian Women’s Open.
Tseng birdied five of her final six holes after starting her back nine with a double- bogey.
“I feel so good and am so happy,” Tseng said. “Today there were so many fans following my group and it is so exciting to have their support.”
As she sat down to do her media interviews after her round, Tseng was handed a watch by her manager, which she quickly slipped onto her wrist.
It’s a Rolex, which is awarded to the player of the year.
“It kind of gives me motivation,” said Tseng, a 23- year- old Taiwan native. “I want another Rolex watch.”
Tseng leads U. S. Women’s Open winner Na Yeon Choi of South Korea by one shot heading into today’s second round of the $ 2- million event.
After collecting three quick wins earlier this year, Tseng’s game went into a funk. Before her 11th- place finish last week in Portland, Tseng had missed three of her previous four cuts.
Her confidence was at an alltime low. But she said the fiveunder 67 she shot in the second round of last week’s Safeway Classic had given her hope. And that’s what prompted her to use that “Yani is back” line earlier this week.
“I feel like this is the way I used to play,” said Tseng, who won a Canadian Women’s Tour event at Vancouver Golf Club as a rookie pro in 2007. “If I hit a bad shot I just try to recover from that. If I make a bogey, I try to make a birdie the next hole. I don’t worry. It seems the last couple of months, I worry too much. I don’t know if I can make a birdie again.”
She had no such worries on Thursday. Tseng’s late- round birdie binge came after that double- bogey on the par 4 first hole — her 10th of the day after starting her round on the back nine.
“On No. 1, I hit my driver to the right and I should chip it out instead of [ trying to] go over the tree,” she said. “I will never do that again.”
Tseng played her round late in the day, when Vancouver Golf Club’s slick greens had been softened by the morning rain and the temperature had warmed considerably.
Choi, currently ranked fourth in the world, played her round in the more difficult morning conditions when she surprised herself and her parents. She had called them in South Korea on Wednesday night to tell them how difficult the course was.
“They asked me, how is the course?” Choi said. “I said the course is very difficult ... I shot five- under and I think I’m really happy and I’m very satisfied.”
Choi got her day off to a wonderful start. She birdied the second hole and then made three straight birdies at five, six and seven to make the turn at four- under.
“I think I got some good vibes from there,” she said. “I just tried to stay calm because there was a lot of rain and stuff.”
Choi, 24, is just another example of what is right about the LPGA Tour. A couple of years ago she could barely speak a word of English. She decided it was important for her to be able to communicate with North American fans and sponsors, so she travelled last year with a full- time English tutor.
“Actually, he’s from Vancouver,” she said of Greg Morrison, who now lives in South Korea. “I’m pretty sure his parents are out there and they support me. I feel really comfortable ... I thought I needed more connection with the fans.
“Two years ago, I couldn’t talk much with the media, with the fans. But now I can talk with them, so I feel really comfortable. I feel more comfortable living in America. So I think that brought some good to my golf game, too.”
Her golf game has done a pretty good job of talking the past few years. Choi’s career earnings in just her fifth year on the LPGA Tour are approaching $ 7 million and she earned the biggest of her six career wins when she captured last month’s U. S. Women’s Open. The fact that win came on the same Blackwolf Run course in Wisconsin where Se Ri Pak started the South Korean women’s golf revolution when she won the U. S. Open in 1998 made it especially sweet.
“I watched that on TV when I was 10 years old,” Choi said. “My dream was just playing there and trying to play on the LPGA Tour. That was my dream. It was so amazing. I didn’t expect when I was young I would win the U. S. Open. But it’s like after the U. S. Open win, I just thought this is my dream come true.”
Fellow South Korean Inbee Park, another past U. S. Open winner, and Lydia Ko, the world’s top- ranked amateur, share third place after opening with four- under 68s.
“Today was like the day nothing really went bad,” said Park, who has recorded seven straight top- 10s. “I mean, I hit a lot of fairways and greens, and I was able to hole the putts that I needed.”
Ko, a 15- year- old SouthKorean- born New Zealand resident, won the U. S. Women’s Amateur earlier this month. She played in the final group of the day Thursday.
Veteran Lorie Kane led the 15- member Canadian contingent with an even par- 72.