Yani Tseng is back. At least for a moment. The five-time Major champion and former World Number One has managed to make the cut at the AIG Women’s Open. For such an impressive champion, this might seem like a minor detail, but it is not. It is her first weekend qualification in an LPGA Tour event since 2018. Seven years have passed, 34 tournaments, several surgeries, and many doubts. Tseng has found a small great joy in the midst of an ocean of uncertainty.
The Taiwanese golfer was one of the great dominators of the circuit between 2008 and 2012. In that brief but intense period, she won fifteen LPGA Tour tournaments, including her five majors: two Women’s PGA Championship, two Women’s British Open, and one Chevron. She spent 109 consecutive weeks at the top of world golf, between February 2011 and March 2013, she seemed unstoppable. However, at just 23 years old, her game began to crack. What had been natural and fluid started to seem forced, mechanical, and at times, even painful.
Since then, the decline was evident, she not only stopped winning but also stopped being close to it. In recent years, Tseng has stayed away from the spotlight and has barely achieved notable results. Since 2018, she had not managed to make the cut in any of the 34 tournaments she played in the LPGA Tour, including thirteen majors. She disappeared from competition for three years. Two hip surgeries limited her greatly, preventing her from playing between 2021 and 2024.
The change that has allowed this small miracle has been, in part, radical. The Taiwanese has made the mother of all changes: for a few months now, she has been putting left-handed. After years of frustration with the putter, also due to her hip pain, she has finally found comfort and security on the left side of the ball. An uncommon decision in professional golf that has transformed her view of the green. “It’s like I can finally trust my putt,” she explained recently. The results have finally proven her right. She successfully passed the US Women’s Open qualifier and at Erin Hills she was close to making the cut, missing by one stroke. This year she has also made a cut in the Epson Tour.
Yani Tseng had been dealing with the famously dreaded yips for years, especially on short putts. Her mental block persisted, and her coach, Brady Rurke, proposed a “drastic measure”: putting entirely left-handed. Although it was a shock at first, Yani dared to try. In the first tournament competing this way, she acknowledges that she felt something she hadn’t experienced in years: comfort and fluidity. She didn’t miss any short putts that day, as her brain had “forgotten” the technical blocks. Tseng acknowledges that she regained a natural feeling. Her head no longer wavered, her natural stance appeared, and her confidence with the putter returned.
At 36, many had already written her off as retired in all but name. Yani still believes she can compete: “I’m proud of not giving up. Playing a major again and making the cut after so many years… it’s a dream.”
For a player who reached the heights so young and then experienced the competitive hell, this is more than a small victory, it’s much more than making a cut. The ‘lefty’ Tseng wants to fight again.
