“I am excited and honoured to accept this special exemption into the US Women’s Open,” the 32-year-old South Korean native said in a release. “This championship means so much to me, and to be able to compete in it again, and to do so at a place as special as Pebble Beach, is thrilling, and I am so grateful to the USGA for this opportunity. I look forward to teeing it up there in July.”

A six-time LPGA Tour winner, including the 2017 ANA Inspiration, Ryu has been a consistent top performer over her 13 career starts at the US Women’s Open, posting top-25 finishes 12 times. That run includes six top-fives. However, given her past success at the major, Ryu surprisingly missed the cut at Pine Needles last year.

So Yeon Ryu holds the trophy after winning the 2011 US Women’s Open in a playoff. Mike Ehrmann

That missed cut exemplified the rapid change in Ryu’s results in 2022. She posted two top-10s in 20 starts on the LPGA despite a career 39 percent top-10 rate. The challenging end to the 2022 season for the former World No. 1 has continued into early 2023, as Ryu has missed seven straight cuts dating back to the LPGA Mediheal Championship last October. The only event she played without a cut over that stretch was the BMW Ladies Championship, where she finished T-66 in a 78-player field. As a result, her world ranking tumbled down to 112.

In addition to Ryu and Sorenstam, 10 other US. Women’s Open champions are currently exempt into the field, while two more will attempt to qualify. The USGA will host a Reunion of Champions during championship week, an event that is bringing together many of the 46 living US Women’s Open champions for the first time since 2014.

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A few missed birdie chances from close range cost Henderson the chance to take a big lead into the final round at Evian Resort Golf Club.

However, at 17-under, the 24-year-old from Ontario is still well placed to capture her second major.

After signing for a three-under 68, she said: “It was wasn’t as good as the first two days, but I really hung in there. I made some clutch par saves on the back nine, which felt nice.

“There were not as many birdies on the card. I felt like the course was playing a little bit tougher for me today. Hopefully I’ll go out tomorrow and continue to ball strike pretty well and hopefully make some putts.”

On her game plan for the final round, she added: “I think it’s important where you’re placing the ball off the tee and into the greens. Hopefully I can get a good strategy together tonight and hopefully I’ll be able to hit the shots where I need to.

“It can be a very tricky course if you start miss-hitting shots. If you can keep it in the right areas, then you can make some birdies.”

Ryu, targeting a third major title following on from her victories in the 2011 US Women’s Open and 2017 ANA Inspiration, carded eight birdies against two bogeys in her third round of six-under-par 65.

The 32-year-old wornd No. 51 will be able to keep a close eye on the leader in the final pairing and could be a major threat, but there are plenty of skilled players lining up in the groups behind.

Sophia Schubert from the United States is two strokes back in third place and will play alongside Spain’s Carlota Ciganda, who leads the European challenge in a tie for fourth with Korean Sei Young Kim on 12-under-par.

After her third consecutive round of 67, Ciganda said: “I think four-under, no bogeys, that’s always a great round. I would have liked to have made a couple more birdies at the end with the two par-fives, but I made some good saves. I didn’t take advantage today of the par-fives.”

“I don’t think it’s easy to make putts here. I was just trying to be patient out there. I’m playing good, so I think I’m hitting good enough shots that I’ll give myself some opportunities out there.”

The 2021 Race to Costa del Sol winner, Atthaya Thitikul, is tied for sixth on 11-under alongside Nelly Korda, Hyo Joo Kim, Jin Young Ko and Charley Hull.

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But on a scorching Thursday at Pine Needles, 22-year-old Ingrid Lindblad — “Iggy” to her friends — posted a six-under 65, the lowest round by an amateur in Women’s Open history, to take the early opening-round lead and start the conversation again about whether another amateur could one day win the most coveted title in women’s professional golf.

Lindblad, a native of Halmstad, Sweden, is No. 2 on the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking and the reigning SEC champion from LSU. She got into this week’s field as a late alternate. When tee times for the first and second rounds were released on Monday, she couldn’t believe who she was paired with — in addition to former US Women’s Open winner So Yeon Ryu she would be playing with her hero Annika Sorenstam, a three-time winner of the championship competing again for the first time since 2008.

“When I saw that I’m playing with her I was like in shock,” said Lindblad, who ended the day in solo second, one stroke back of leader Mina Harigae. “I was like, this cannot be true. Then on the first tee box I get her scorecard, I’m like, ‘I have Annika’s scorecard in my hands.’”

Like a lot of young Swedish golfers, Lindblad has long been influenced by Sorenstam. In 2014, she first played in a Sorenstam-sponsored event. By 2019, at the Annika Invitational in St. Augustine, Florida, the two knew each other well enough that after Lindblad won the tournament and realised she didn’t have a ride to the airport in Orlando, Sorenstam gave her a lift.

“She can be quite bubbly,” Sorenstam joked on Thursday, after shooting three-over 74 in her return round, “so it was more listening than talking.”

Sorenstam went on to compliment Lindblad’s game, highlighting not just the impressive length, but also her touch around the greens. For Lindblad’s part, to have Sorenstam fist-pumping a few of her birdies was a surreal and rewarding experience. After an opening birdie, she made her first bogey on the par-5 10th hole, but after that stumble, Lindblad was nearly perfect, making six more birdies over the next 16 holes and punctuating her round with a final long putt for birdie on the eighth.

“I felt like the course would be a little bit more narrow,” she said. “I missed a few tee shots today that I thought would be a little bit more off, but then I get to the ball and I’m like, ‘oh, it’s fine’… I hit a few shots close to the pin, and then my putting was great.”

Lindblad has known Annika Sorenstam since 2014, but playing with her at the US Women’s Open was its own treat. Jared C. Tilton

Also helping Lindblad was the veteran she has as a caddie. Only Sophie Gustafson isn’t a veteran caddie but rather a veteran player who played in the three previous US Women’s Opens at Pine Needles in addition to eight European Solheim Cup teams. Gustafson, 48, caddied after ending her playing career and met Lindblad for the first time this week. The two were connected by the coach for the Swedish National Team after Lindblad got her late spot in the field.

If an amateur having success in the first round of the US Women’s Open sounds familiar, it’s because it happened only a year ago. With a 67 at Olympic Club, American teenager Megha Ganne shared the Day 1 lead. She eventually played in the final threesome on Sunday before finishing T-14.

Appearing before the media, her hair tied in a braid, Lindblad was excited and a little surprised at the attention. When the USGA official read off her name, a prelude to listing the accomplishments of her round, she said: “Yes!” as if answering a roll call. When a reporter asked if she wished she’d turned professional a few days ago, considering the massive $10 million purse, she laughed and stated her commitment to remaining in college “for another year or so.”

Lindblad arrives at Pine Needles on the heels of an incredible season at LSU in which she was a finalist for the Annika Award — of course — as the nation’s best female collegiate golfer. In a late season stretch, she won four of five tournaments, finished second at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, and punctuated the torrid stretch with a victory at the SEC Championship. At the NCAA Championship, she finished in a tie for third, five shots behind the World’s No. 1 amateur Rose Zhang.

Now, she’s off to a hot start in what would be not just the greatest accomplishment of her competitive life, but one of the most remarkable stories in women’s golf. Lindblad is a fan of jigsaw puzzles — “at least a thousand pieces,” she said — and using those terms, she’s perhaps solved the borders at Pine Needles, but has a lot of space to fill in starting on Friday. The pressure will be unique, and so will the competition, but even at the young age of 22, she’s a proven winner who seems to have the talent and pedigree to follow in the footsteps of … well, you know who.

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By Keely Levins
The 2021 LPGA Tour season seems like it has belonged to Nelly Korda—her milestones including three wins (and her first major), a gold medal at the Olympics and climbing to World No. 1 for the first time in her career.

But Jin Young Ko’s dominant performance at the Cognizant Founders Cup on Sunday, a four-shot win over Caroline Masson at Mountain Ridge Country Club in New Jersey, serves as a reminder that the race for LPGA player of the year is far from over with three events left.

Ko, the World No. 2, came into the week talking about fatigue. The Founders Cup was the fourth straight tournament for the 26-year-old South Korean, and she said she was starting to feel the effects. Her play would lead you to believe otherwise, however. The most greens she missed in any round came on Sunday, when she missed just four. Her 18-under 280 total, kick-started by an opening-round 63 the propelled her to the wire-to-wire victory, earning her $450,000 and pushing her past $7 million in career LPGA earnings.

In the final round, played in cold, rainy conditions, Ko shot 66, her 14th consecutive round in the 60s, tying the LPGA record set by Annika Sorenstam in 2005 and equalled by So Yeon Ryu in 2016 into 2017. It isn’t the first time Ko has found herself in the company of golf’s greats in record books. In 2019, Ko broke Tiger Woods’ record for consecutive holes without a bogey. She played 114 straight holes at par or better, surpassing Woods’ record by four.

This win was Ko’s third of 2021, her first two coming at Volunteers of America Classic and the Cambia Portland Classic, and the 10th of her career, making her just the fifth Korean to claim double-digit LPGA titles. The only other player to win as many times this season is Korda. Both players are in good form, suggesting the LPGA’s player-of-the-year race isn’t likely to be decided until the final week of the season.

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By Kent Paisley
So Yeon Ryu’s U.S. Women’s Open victory 10 years ago at The Broadmoor continues to have a movie-like feel to her. The then 21-year-old directed the triumph through extended weather delays in Colorado, staging a climactic finish when she made a birdie on the 72nd hole on the fifth day of play to force a three-hole playoff with Hee Kyung Seo.

Like any director, Ryu managed the final scenes to the smallest detail. She wore an orange shirt and hat that Monday, symbolic of her flickering passion for professional golf.

With a decade’s worth of hindsight, it becomes clear just how important a victory it was for Ryu. Winning the Women’s Open is a turning point in any player’s career, but perhaps more so for the South Korean talent.

“If I was not able to win the tournament, it might be that I’m not playing right now,” Ryu told Golf Digest. “If I was not able to come to the LPGA, I think I would’ve quit.”

Ryu’s professional golf career got off to an exhilarating start. Maybe too exhilarating. In 2008, she won in her pro debut on the Korean LPGA at the Sports Seoul Open.

With the victory, Ryu, just 17, became an instant celebrity in her home country, the curiosity of a teenage champion inviting incessant scrutiny about her and her game.

“When I was in Korea, people were always talking about me in the media, even though I didn’t want to hear it. Somehow, I always found it out,” Ryu said.

She would continue to play well, winning six more times on the KLPGA before her U.S. Women’s Open triumph in 2011, but the attention felt suffocating. After every round, cameras were there wanting to talk. She’d see her face in newspapers, stories detailing her latest performances. Ryu’s family and sponsors quizzed her about what was going on. Whenever she would play in pro-ams, the participants peppered her about how well she was playing. It was exhausting to be defined only by how she played golf, making Ryu care more about what others thought of her than what she wanted for herself.

That stress drove Ryu to explore other career options less than two years after turning pro. When she was 19 and studying at Yonsei University in Seoul while also playing on the KLPGA, she began looking into graduate sports-marketing programs. It was on her mind after she won at The Broadmoor in 2011.

“My plan is if I retire as a golfer, I really want to try sports marketing or sports or golf clothes designer,” Ryu said in her post-round press conference.

Mike Ehrmann
Even after winning the U.S. Women’s Open title, Ryu hinted that her golf career might end early given the pressures she felt to perform back home in South Korea.

Ryu still loved golf and wanted to remain around the sport. And she appreciated what her team did to help her early in her career. So she figured why not help others in the game without the constant pressure of performing herself.

By winning the Women’s Open, however, Ryu earned the reward that motivated her even when she was ready to give up the game. “I just wanted to play the LPGA once before I retired,” Ryu said. “When I won U.S. Women’s Open, I thought OK, now I can join LPGA Tour and have a chance to play LPGA Tour, then maybe couple more years I can retire. That was my feeling.”

As it turned out, playing on the LPGA Tour proved a liberating experience. Being far from Korea allowed her the space she didn’t previously have. The attention on her at home remained, but she was far enough removed it no longer became a daily intrusion. She had the freedom to adjust to the culture of the United States and focus on learning English and building new friendships. Without feeling constantly in the spotlight, she adapted to playing on the LPGA Tour, where the vast difference in courses they played proved refreshing compared to the homogeneity of the tracks in Korea.

The new environment allowed Ryu to flourish on the course—she’s won five more LPGA titles, including the 2017 ANA Inspiration—as well as off the course. “I guess my personality is more suit for LPGA Tour and traveling all around the world,” said Ryu, who is currently 15th in the Rolex Rankings. “That joy definitely made me feel love to play golf more than ever.”

Ryu says she’s enjoyed the opportunity for constant learning. Already a book worm, she picked up ballet in 2016 to try something new. Lately she’s focused on nutrition; she makes a point of eating dinner by 5 p.m. to give herself enough time to digest.

Ryu claims she expresses her creativity on the course by shaping the ball instead of, in her own words, boring, straight shots. Her success in 10 years on the LPGA is a testament to her skills. It’s also evidenced in her consistency at the U.S. Women’s Open. The former World No. 1 has finished in the top 25 in all 11 of her career appearances in the major with six top-five finishes including her win. Ryu particularly relishes the challenges of the complex setups the USGA presents.

“Just thinking about U.S. Women’s Open makes me really exciting,” Ryu said. “You have to have all sorts of game to play well. To prepare for U.S. Women’s Open requires a lot of practice. That makes me more excited to play.”

That work lets her continue her movie-like run at U.S. Women’s Opens as she directs her effort at a third major victory at Olympic Club next week.

The post How big a deal is winning the U.S. Women’s Open? For So Yeon Ryu, it all but saved her career appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Keely Levins
Angela Stanford has been on the LPGA Tour for two decades, but it wasn’t until this 20th season, at age 43, that she finally got to win with her parents on site. To make it even sweeter, the win came in their home state of Texas.

Stanford’s victory at the Volunteers of America Classic outside of Dallas on Sunday was her seventh career tour title. And she did it holding off a daunting leaderboard that included Inbee Park (No. 5 in the world), So Yeon Ryu (No. 15) and Jin Young Ko (No. 1). Stanford’s seven-under 277 total was good enough for a two-shot victory over Ryu, Park and Yealimi Noh, which felt like it was going to be hers for the majority of the back nine.

While everyone else in contention seemed to struggle to post a low number, Stanford shot a four-under 67, with a stretch on the back nine starting on the 13th that included four birdies in five holes. The rest of the players in the top 10 shot one under or worse on the final round.

How did the 43-year-old conquer Old American Golf Club? In part, because she’s a native. Stanford is from Fort Worth, about 45 minutes away. Knowing how to play golf in Texas in December is a skill. All week, players were bundled up in fleece and down jackets, wind chills bringing temps into the 30s. Some said it was the coldest conditions they’d ever played in. Yet having grown up playing golf in Texas, Stanford knew how to handle it—something that will likely serve her next week as well as the U.S. Women’s Open is held a few hours south in Houston at Champions Golf Club.

“It was windy, it was cold, and I think growing up in Texas you have to play in a little bit of cold in the off season, so I knew … it was harder than I thought it was going to be this week,” Stanford said. “The course played really tough but, it just felt like Texas this week, so I was really comfortable out there.”

Playing in the cold isn’t just about learning how to swing with a lot of layers on, it’s also about commitment to club selection. When it’s cold, you’re hitting a lot more club than you’d be hitting in July.

“I told my caddie on No. 1, we hit 7-wood into 1 today, I said, It’s really hard to commit to a club that you never thought you’d hit into a green. We hit 9-irons and 8-irons and wedges into 1 last year, so I think just being in December and it being cold and the wind coming from a different direction that made it hard,” Stanford said.

Stanford also credits a short-game overhaul for her success. Though the veteran won her first major in 2018, the Evian Championship, she struggled in 2019. She missed 10 cuts of the 22 events she played that season, and never finished inside the top 20. It was frustrating.

“After the major, it would have been easy to be satisfied, and I think I was for a little bit. But then there’s just something about bad golf. I don’t like bad golf,” Stanford said.

Chuck Burton
Stanford won for the seventh time in her LPGA career, but the first in which her parents were at the tournament watching.

With the help of her coach Todd Kolb, she went to work, admitting that she’s spent her entire career relying on good ball-striking, without ever really knowing how to properly hit short game shots.

“I think mechanically I’ve always been pretty average when it comes to chipping and putting,” Stanford said. “My ball-striking has carried me for 20 years. And I think that’s why I haven’t been more consistent.”

She says now, she’s starting to understand it. She’s learned how to hit the high, soft chip—a shot she didn’t know how to really hit before. And they’ve worked on making sure her hands don’t get too far away from her body during the putting stroke. Clearly, the hard work is paying off. Not only did she win in Texas, she’s had other good results in 2020: T-3 at the Arkansas Championship and T-6 at the Pelican Women’s Championship the start before this week being the highlights.

“I just felt like if I’m getting close to the end of my career, I don’t want to leave any stone unturned,” Stanford said. “I want to find out, if I chip it the best I can, if I putt it the best I can, if I hit it the best I can, what am I capable of before I’m done.”

She’ll be an assistant captain to Pat Hurst for Team USA at the Solheim Cup in 2021 along with Michelle Wie West. Stanford has played in the Solheim Cup six times. After this win, many have been prompted to ask, is she going to make it seven? For now, Stanford says she’s happy to be in her assistant title, and doesn’t want to think that far ahead to the possibility of playing. Instead, she’s soaking up this moment where her parents finally got to see her win.

“I couldn’t even look over at my mom coming up 18 because I was starting to get teary-eyed. I’m like, Just don’t look over there, don’t look over there. I would have lost it if I would have looked over there again,” Stanford said.

Her mom’s breast cancer, which was in remission for eight years, returned in 2018 and metastasized in her bones. Though that caused her to miss the win at Evian, she was right there for this one, waiting by the 18th green to hug her daughter, a winner again on the LPGA Tour.

The post Angela Stanford does the unlikely: beats a stacked leader board to win in Texas at age 43 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
A memorable moment deserved a memorable gesture. That’s at least how So Yeon Ryu approached her one-stroke victory over Hyo Joo Kim on Sunday at the Korean Women’s Open, one of the flagship events on the Korean LPGA Tour.

In her first start since February due to the long break in competition in her home country and on the LPGA Tour from the coronavirus, Ryu shot a closing even-par 72 to take the title at the Bear’s Best Cheong Na Golf Club in Incheon. Shortly afterwards, the soon-to-be 30-year-old (her birthday is June 29) announced that she was donating the entire first-place prize of 250 million won ($206,000) to COVID-19 relief funds.

“I thought of donating since last night,” Ryu said. “Before the awards ceremony, I called my mom. I told her that I’m going to make the announcement so don’t get too surprised. She was just as happy I was. Since this tournament has a lot of meaning to me and I thought that I may be able to play better if I had a positive goal, I came up with it last night.”

A two-time LPGA major champion and former World No. 1, Ryu had never claimed the title in one of her country’s most prestigious events. That said, national championships are something she has experience in winning. She started her LPGA career with a victory in the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open, then added the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open in 2014, the World Ladies Championship on the Ladies European Tour in 2015 and the Japan Women’s Open Golf Championship in 2018.

This win, however, seemed a long time coming. Despite earning 19 titles around the world, Ryu had seen her world ranking fall to No. 18 having not had a victory since the Meijer LPGA Classic in June 2018. The last time she won a KLPGA event was 2015.

“Since it’s been a while since I competed in a tournament, I did want to win,” Ryu said. “But rather than being greedy, I just told myself to do my job. I was glad that I didn’t lose my focus until the end.”

Congratulations to @1soyeonryu on winning the Kia Motors Korea Women’s Open on the KLPGA! ?

Ryu announced after her victory that she will be donating her 1st place prize money to COVID-19 relief funds. ??#DriveOn | #WeClapForeYou pic.twitter.com/ssfymm5UQ3

— LPGA (@LPGA) June 21, 2020

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By Keely Levins
So Yeon Ryu dominated to start to the 2017 season, but the same can’t be said about the beginning of her 2018 season. In 2017, South Korea’s Ryu, 27, finished in the top 10 nine times in her first 11 events. In her first 11 events this year, she finished in the top 10 just twice.

But the direction of her season changed at the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give at Blythefield Country Club in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Sunday. The former world No. 1 shot rounds of 64-67-69-67 to win by two over Caroline Masson. Three shots back in third was another former world No. 1, Lydia Ko.

The win came at the right time for Ryu, who hasn’t been pleased with her season.

“If I look back on my season, I wasn’t really satisfied with it and I’ve been really, really struggling, I had a lot of crazy moments,” said Ryu. “I had some good rounds, I had some really bad rounds, so I couldn’t even really finish top-10 much compared to any other season. So all those reasons just drove me crazy.”

The win marks the sixth of Ryu’s career, which started on the LPGA in 2012. With the $300,000 winner’s check, she passes the $9 million in career earnings.

Winning at this point in the season is good for Ryu in more ways than just financially; it boosts her confidence heading into the season’s next major.

“I’m going to play the KPMG PGA Championship and that’s going to be our third major event,” says Ryu. “I haven’t played well at the major events this year yet, so hopefully this win going to give me extra confidence to focus on the major tournament.”

The post So Yeon Ryu wins Meijer LPGA Classic, boosting her confidence heading into KPMG PGA Championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Ryu, 27, now has taken up ballet. She already had been a foodie, and has developed a keen interest in wine, Napa Valley cabernets, among them a 2013 Far Niente cab she received from her instructor, Cameron McCormick, after winning the ANA Inspiration a year ago.

“He knows what I like,” she wrote on Instagram.

What she likes is depth in her life, a well-rounded and grounded one that helps explain why she has no issue with what others might have perceived as a slight: that she finished both first and second in the ANA Inspiration last year.

She won the tournament in a playoff with Lexi Thompson, but came in second in media coverage. The four-stroke penalty assessed to Thompson in the midst of the final round dominated game stories and television news accounts.

Professional golfers don’t travel light, and Ryu had no interest in adding bitterness to the weight of her baggage. “I understand the whole situation,” she simply said last week.

Meanwhile, as she prepares to defend her ANA title this week at Mission Hills Country club, she has eagerly moved on to loftier aspirations.

“The grand slam has become my next goal, especially when you see your friend is a grand slammer, a Hall of Famer,” she said of Inbee Park, her best friend. “I really didn’t expect to dream about it, but I thought after having two majors under my belt, OK, I can do it.”

Jeff Gross
Thompson’s rules controversy, not Ryu’s ultimate victory, was the focus on Sunday of last year’s ANA Inspiration.

Ryu has two legs of the four-tournament Slam (before the LPGA declared the Evian Championship a fifth major), having formally introduced herself to an American audience with her U.S. Women’s Open victory in 2011.

She, too, would like a second shot at occupying the No. 1 position in the Rolex Rankings that she held for 19 weeks last year after winning the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship.

“Actually I didn’t expect that I would become No. 1 back then,” Ryu said. “Before, I was No. 3 or 4. When you’re not even second, you’re not expecting it. That one came quicker than expected. The first two weeks I didn’t really feel it that much. Then I started to realize how much pressure I had.

“But the really good thing is that Inbee is my good friend, a former No. 1. Yani [Tseng] is my good friend, a former No. 1. Ai [Miyazato] is my good friend, a former No. 1. Like Yani said, when she was No. 1, she felt like she played golf for other people. Then Inbee told me she really felt like she had to play well every time because she was No. 1. Ai said she felt she couldn’t really enjoy it at that moment because she had so much pressure.

“Everyone is giving me [advice] to just think about yourself. I couldn’t do it 100 percent. I really tried hard to do it. When I look back, I’m kind of disappointed about my season last year, when I was No. 1. I didn’t win any tournaments.”

It is every professional’s lament, that there is always room for improvement, but Ryu did not leave much room last year. She won twice, was a co-Rolex Player of the Year (with Sung Hyun Park} and won the Rolex Annika Major Award for best aggregate performance in the major championships.

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
Ryu wasn’t even a member of the LPGA when she recorded her first major victory at the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open. Now she’s got her sights set on winning the career Grand Slam.

She is not inclined to settle for the status quo, hence her decision in 2016, in a year in which golf was added to the Olympics, to change her coach and her swing.

“The Olympics was my big goal,” she said. “So when I decided to change my coach, a lot of people say, ‘So Yeon, you’re crazy. This is your big year. Why did you decide to change your swing?’ Playing in the Olympics was my goal, but was not my last goal. I really felt I needed to change something to become the No. 1 player.”

Yet her goals are not obsessions. It is the reason she took up ballet, for instance. “I like to do something different,” she said. “I feel that all I’m doing is related to golf. I just wanted to do something else not related to golf.”

She also has retained her interest in music. “I would say my handicap [as a musician] was 0 when I was young,” she said. “Right now, I’m probably a 10. I’m so rusty. It’s the same as golf when you stop playing. I know I used to be great, and if I’m playing [music] right now I can’t listen to myself because it’s not that great. I’m mad at myself that I stopped doing it.

“I’m playing [the piano] with right hand only, left hand only, just trying to get back on track. I’m not really good at it, not really satisfied with my piano skill right now. I’m actually thinking of buying a piano.”

Music and dance, food and wine, and a golf game as good as any in women’s golf. Life is good. Far Niente says it best, an Italian phrase that translates to “without a care.”

The post So Yeon Ryu: A life in balance and a grand slam goal appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Keely Levins
Sung Hyun Park has become the new No. 1 on the Rolex World Ranking. This, despite the fact that she didn’t play in the most recent LPGA event in Japan.

However, the points were close enough that entering the Toto Japan Classic, So Yeon Ryu needed to finish T-6 or better to retain her previous No. 1 status. She finished T-33. So, when points were calculated on Monday after the event, Park took over the top ranking for the first time in her career, ending Ryu’s 19-week reign. Park is the first rookie to become No. 1 since the rankings began in 2006.

It’s another accolade in what is already a successful rookie season for Park. She had an outstanding career on the Korean LPGA before officially joining the LPGA tour in 2017. This year, she has won the U.S. Women’s Open and the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open, and is third on the CME points list with one event left before the CME Tour Championship. She also has already wrapped up the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year award.

Park, a 24-year-old from South Korea, is the fourth player to reach No. 1 this season. Lydia Ko held the No. 1 spot at the beginning of the year, but was overtaken by Ariya Jutanugarn to end Ko’s 85-week reign at the top. So Yeon Ryu passed Jutanugarn has held it for the position since June. Park is the fourth player from South Korea to be No. 1 in the Rolex World Ranking, joining Ryu, Inbee Park and Jiyai Shin.

The post An LPGA rookie is the new No. 1 female golfer in the world appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.