Player Profile - Yani Tseng

A force to be reckoned with on the LPGA, Taiwan’s Yani Tseng is featured in this week’s player profile. Born in Gueishan Township in the Taiwanese county of Taoyuan, Tseng showed a talent for golf that was cultivated during her formative years. Her amateur career includes many notable victories including the 2002 Callaway Junior Golf Championships, which she won at the remarkably young age of 13. She won the event again two years later, aged just 15 before a victory in the same year at the US Ladies Amateur Public Links. Several more notable wins rounded off Tseng’s amateur career before she went professional in 2007, at the age of eighteen.

Tseng competed on two tours in her first year as a pro. On the Ladies Asian Tour she won the DLF Women’s Indian Open, and on the Canadian Women’s Tour, where she won the CN Canadian Women’s Open – two substantial rookie victories. The following season, she won exemption to the LPGA and made a splash by winning the LPGA Championship. In so doing, the eighteen-year-old broke two records: she became the first Taiwanese player to win an LPGA major and became the youngest player to win the LPGA Championship.

2009 was a fruitful year for Tseng. After breaking another record for earning in excess of $ 2 Million in just under a year and two months on the LPGA Tour, Tseng was victorious at the LPGA Corning Classic, beating American favourite Paula Creamer by a single stroke. Weathering the pressures of the LPGA like a past master, the 21-year-old won three events in 2010 including the Ricoh Women’s British Open, her first major victory on British soil. At the weekend, Tseng kicked her 2011 season off to a great start with a win at the Australian Open – further extending her wins on new terrain.

Yani Tseng’s youth belies her extreme talent on the course. She will continue to thrill fans this season with her precision and exciting playing style.