SAMAMMISH, Wash. — Standing within the 18th fairway, Amy Yang leaned over to caddie Jan Meierling and acknowledged the anxiousness and nerves she carried for the earlier 17 holes.
“This has been the longest 18 holes I’ve ever performed in my profession,” Yang advised Meierling.
After years of close to misses within the majors, Yang lastly loved the celebration she’d lengthy sought: standing on the 18th inexperienced, doused in Champagne by her friends as a significant champion.
“At one level I believed, ‘Will I ever win a significant championship earlier than I retire?'” Yang mentioned. “And I lastly did it and it is simply superb.”
Regular over 4 days at demanding, tree-lined Sahalee, Yang constructed an enormous lead and survived a few late errors to win her long-awaited main title on Sunday, a three-shot victory within the KPMG Girls’s PGA Championship.
Yang closed with an even-par 72 to complete at 7-under 281. She was practically flawless for the primary 15 holes and reached 10 beneath for the match for a seven-shot lead earlier than working into a little bit little bit of hassle. However none of her pursuers was in a position to mount a big cost.
At age 34, Yang is the oldest main winner on the LPGA Tour since Angela Stanford gained the 2018 Evian Championship at age 40. Anna Nordqvist had not too long ago turned 34 when she gained the Girls’s British Open in 2021.
This was Yang’s seventy fifth main begin, probably the most earlier than a participant’s first main title since Stanford, who was enjoying her 76th. As she spoke to reporters, a bunch of youngsters waited outdoors the interview tent, chanting “Amy, Amy,” and searching for an autograph from the most recent main champ.
“It has been unbelievable all this week. Everybody was rooting for me. I wish to go signal some autographs for them,” Yang mentioned.
Yang’s sixth LPGA victory was her first since final 12 months’s CME Group Tour Championship, which was additionally the newest victory by a South Korean participant. She earned a spot within the Paris Olympics, the place she’s going to characterize South Korea for the third time.
“The primary half of the 12 months she was form of like in between. Motivation is form of a roller-coaster trip for her as a result of she’s performed quite a lot of issues, however there’s positively some targets she needs to perform, this being one in every of them,” Meierling mentioned. “These weeks get her reinvigorated.”
Lilia Vu and Jin Younger Ko every shot 71 to tie for second at 4 beneath. Vu shot three rounds beneath par, however could not overcome a 75 within the first spherical.
“If (you) hit like Amy, you may win, too,” Ko mentioned.
Twice earlier in her profession, Yang held the 54-hole lead in a significant solely to fall quick. On the 2014 U.S. Girls’s Open at Pinehurst, Yang was tied with Michelle Wie going into the ultimate spherical, however shot 74 as Wie gained. A 12 months later in the identical match at Lancaster Nation Membership, Yang had a three-shot benefit, however In Gee Chun shot 66 to win by one.
9 instances, Yang completed second, third or fourth in a significant and not using a title. Till now.
“Golf is basically similar to a battle towards myself. I feel I proved myself that I can compete and I can do that,” she mentioned.
Yang was remarkably regular till her last few holes. She made 5 bogeys over her first 69 holes earlier than she three-putted the sixteenth. Then she pushed her tee shot on the par-3 seventeenth effectively proper and it bounced right into a lake, resulting in double bogey.
Yang steadied herself with an ideal tee shot on the par-5 18th, resulting in a two-putt par and the Champagne celebration.
Yang held a two-shot benefit when she stepped to the primary tee on a cooler Sunday after three straight days of above-average temperatures. The entrance 9 noticed breezes whistle by the towering bushes to the purpose play needed to be paused so pollen buds could possibly be blown off the greens.
Yang was unfazed. By the point she made the flip, she led by 5. Yang birdied the primary gap, chipped in for birdie from 23 yards off the inexperienced on the fifth and dropped a 7-foot birdie putt on the eighth — the hardest gap on the course — to maneuver to 9 beneath.
When she hit into the bushes on No. 10 and made bogey, Yang responded with a birdie on the eleventh and made her last birdie on the thirteenth.
Taking part in within the last group with Yang, Lauren Hartlage had an opportunity to tie the lead at 8 beneath, however her 5-foot birdie attempt on the par-5 sixth gap caught the left edge, spun across the cup and stayed out. Hartlage made double bogeys at Nos. 7 and eight and made the flip six pictures behind. She tied for fifth at 3 beneath, her greatest profession end.
There was just one spherical within the 60s on the ultimate day — Japan’s Mao Saigo shot 67 to complete at 2 beneath, tied for seventh.
