Shanshan Feng: China’s 2015 Olympic Golf Hope (Video)

By Elizabeth Bethel | Oct 30, 2015

In a country of about 1.4 billion people, only one has hoisted a major golf championship trophy. Meet Shanshan Feng.

Shanshan picked up a golf club at the the age of 10, won the China Junior Championship, the China Junior Open, and three times the China Women’s Amateur before a golf academy scholarship took the 17-year old phenom to Hilton Head Island and Gary Gilchrist in 2007.

She was being compared to Yani Tseng, not a bad thing for the teenager who became the first golfer from China to qualify for the LPGA Tour in 2008. That year Feng was ranked 534 by Rolex, but not for long.

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With 26 starts, 16 cuts made and 4 top-10 finishes, Shanshan ended her rookie year on the Tour with $472K in her pocket and she was inside the top 50 in the Rolex Rankings.

Three and a half years later, Shanshan Feng played her way out of a mob of contenders that included Karrie Webb, Suzann Pettersen, Stacy Lewis and Eun-Hee Ji on a fine Sunday afternoon at Locust Hill Country Club to hoist the 2012 Wegmans LPGA Championship trophy.

The first player from China, man or woman, to claim a major international pro golf championship, Feng rocketed up the Rolex Rankings to number 5.

"“I’m the first. I’m sure there will be a second and third and more. I do want to be a model where all the juniors are trying to beat my stats.”"

Three years later Shanshan is holding steady at 6th in the Rolex Rankings with a total of 13 career victories, 4 wins on the LPGA, 4 on the Ladies European Tour and 5 on the LPGA of Japan.

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Shanshan Feng is an established presence on the international golf stage and she’s immensely popular in China. Following in the footsteps of Yao Ming in basketball and Li Na in tennis — the popularity of both sports skyrocketed with the emergency of these two superstars — Shanshan’s ascendency in the game has sparked heightened interest in golf among Chinese in general and among Chinese women in particular.

Shanshan’s prominence, coupled with the reintroduction of golf into the Olympic Games, has further heightened interest in the sport, even as the Chinese government takes moves to restrict golf course development and the utilization of the game among the country’s business and political elite.

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Even as Shanshan is shopping for Chinese teammates for the Olympic Games, however, she’s maintaining an intense schedule of competitive play, appearing in back-to-back LPGA and LET events in China where she continues to put a familiar face on golf for Chinese fans behind the ropes.

I’m always trying my best to play more events in China

Shanshan may not have far to look to find those teammates. She’s now one of five Chinese players on the LPGA Tour. Second year player Xi Yu Lin briefly held the top of the leaderboard early in the Blue Bay LPGA and Ziqi Ye, one of the 15 China Golf Association players in the Blue Bay field, is also delivering a very respectable performance this week.

Most immediately, Feng needs to give the Chinese fans behind the ropes at the Blue Bay her best game and then do it again next week at the LET Sanya Ladies Open. Feng’s the current leader in the LET Order of Merit contest and will go on from the Sanya to a defense of her title at the Dubai Ladies Masters.

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She’s played golf throughout the world, but playing competitive golf on home soil is special for Shanshan Feng:

"“It’s always good to play events back home with Chinese fans supporting you and they are just like families and friends. You feel more welcomed and motivated. Meanwhile, to be honest there will be some pressure, but I will try to stay calm and give my best performance.”"

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