Yani Tseng: Poised for a Breakthrough in Taiwan?

From 2011 to 2013 Yani Tseng was at the top of the Rolex Rankings, the number one woman golfer in the world for 109 consecutive weeks — and then she wasn’t. With more major championship titles on her resume than Nancy Lopez or Laura Davies or Cristie Kerr, very nearly qualifying for the World Golf Hall of Fame at the age of 23, Yani Tseng lost her game.

Tseng wasn’t injured, she didn’t change coaches, and she didn’t start restructuring her swing. It just stopped working for her and that was a painful thing to watch.

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As Yani began began to show early signs of a slump in 2012 Ron Sirak suggested that it was simply a matter of life getting in the way of sport, that fame was taking its toll on Tseng and that she would “almost certainly” find her game. David Milne and Lawrie Montague wondered if Tseng’s change from Adams to Callaway equipment might have precipitated the decline in her game.

But as the weeks dragged on into months and then years, Sirak’s prediction faded and whatever initial effect on her game an equipment change might have caused should have gotten ironed out. That didn’t happen.

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By 2013 the victories were eluding Yani and that long winless period stretched into 2014. The best she could manage was a runner-up at the Kingsmill Championship and that finish was really a disappointing double bogey 4-putt on the last fizzle.

Yani’s 2015 season didn’t start much better. She missed the cut in 3 of her first 6 starts. But there was the old Yani right in the middle of that messy beginning sharing a runner-up finish at the LPGA Honda Thailand. Skipping over the middle of 2015 — it’s underwhelming — let’s look at her last 4 starts. She missed the cut at the Evian, but she finished inside the top-5 in the other 3 events, twice sharing runner-up finishes.

But for two unfortunate doubles — one in the 3rd round on the par-3 3rd hole and the other in the 4th round on the par-4 10th — Tseng and Lexi Thompson would have reversed positions at the HanaBank Championship last week.

It seems very clear to me that Yani’s game is coming into sharp focus and that applies to both her technical execution and her mental acuity. There’s a smile on her face and a zip in her walk, crucial signs of a mental turnaround in a sport where so much of success is grounded in that elusive and fragile self-confidence.

Whether Tseng’s mental game is driving her performance, or an improved performance has revived her self-confidence is a chicken-egg question for which there’s no clear answer, but the evidence of improved performance is unmistakable.

Look at Tseng’s HanaBank stats:

She’s beating her own 2015 averages in five separate performance indicators: distance off the tee, accuracy off the tee, GIR, putting and scoring average.

There’s no doubt about it. Yani Tseng is coming into the Fubon LPGA Taiwan Championship as hot as she’s been in three years. Will it be enough to get her to the top of the leaderboard by Sunday?

Yani’s going to face some stiff competition: Lydia Ko’s within reach of the number 1 spot on the Rolex Rankings and Inbee Park, who’s attending to some sponsor commitments, isn’t in the field this week. A winless Stacy Lewis, who took last week off, is coming to Taiwan fresh and Lewis is running out of tournaments. I’m expecting both of them to deliver some serious golf this week.

But when Yani’s on her game, there’s nobody better, except perhaps Annika Sorenstam, and she’s playing on home soil with the support of a huge fan base. This could well be Yani’s turnaround week!

Next: Lexi Thompson: A Closer Look at the Player and Her Bag

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