After rock climbing injury nearly derailed her career, Amy Yang back on top as CME champion
It wasn’t all that long ago that Amy Yang wondered if her LPGA days were numbered. She’d taken her new hobby of rock climbing – at the gym – a bit too far and suffered from tennis elbow in her left arm. She lost distance as it hurt too much to get through the ball.
Now 34-year-old Yang, a four-time winner on the LPGA who joined the tour in 2008, is fully healed and back to playing some of the best golf of her life. She showed that game this weekend as she claimed the 2023 CME Group Tour Championship title with a score of 27-under 261 at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, shattering the event’s previous record by four shots.
Yang shot a final-round 6-under 66 and was three shots better than Alison Lee and Nasa Hataoka.
World No. 1 Lilia Vu, who finished solo fourth this week, won the Rolex Player of the Year Award. Atthaya Thitikul (solo fifth) won the Vare Trophy, given to the player with the lowest season-long scoring average.
Who are they wearing? LPGA players walk the green carpet at the 2023 Rolex Awards dinner
“This is very meaningful,” said Yang in her new bright blue blazer, the CME trophy by her side and a $2 million cardboard check somewhere nearby.
Yang stayed strong down the stretch mentally at Tiburon Golf Club, where she holed out for eagle on the 13th hole and birdied the last two holes. It was Yang’s first LPGA title since 2019 and her first on U.S. soil.
Yang, who shot 61 in the third round of The Annika last week, is no stranger to low scores. She holds a share of the LPGA’s nine-hole record in relation to par at 9 under as well as a share of the lowest nine-hole raw score (27). In 2015, she tied Annika Sorenstam’s record for total birdies in one round at 13. Yang also shares the record with Beth Daniel for most consecutive birdies in one round at nine.
For Lee, finishing runner-up in her last three LPGA events felt bittersweet. While she’s playing the best golf of her life, that elusive first LPGA victory remains out of reach.
Good friend Megan Khang, who finally broke through with her first victory earlier this year at the CPKC Women’s Open in her 191st career start, sat in on Lee’s post-round press conference.
“This isn’t really a question,” said Khang as she took the mic, “but as a friend, I am a proud of you. You’ve been playing so good, Alison. It’s coming.”
An emotional Lee, who made her 179th career start at the CME, has credited new friend Fred Couples with helping instill the confidence she’s felt in recent months, noting that he texts her daily with words of encouragement.
“So many times I would joke around saying I’m just never going to win out here,” said Lee, who was a standout amateur player at UCLA before turning professional. “I really didn’t think I could ever do it.
“But to play the last three weeks just continuously putting the pressure on everyone on the leaderboard and putting myself in contention has just been really cool for me and been a really awesome experience.”
It wasn’t long ago that Yang, who suffered from tennis elbow after too much rock climbing, wondered if her career might come to an end earlier than expected. She also wondered how much longer she wanted to keep grinding through tour life.
Longtime coach Tony Ziegler told her life’s too short to keep playing if she wasn’t happy. She needed to make a decision.
Two weeks later, Yang came back and told him that she wanted to keep playing and she wanted to win. Ziegler repeated what he’s said to her often in recent years: “Your best golf is ahead of you.”
“Back in the day,” said Ziegler, “when she played really good golf, she had a lot of pressure and expectation, and she didn’t know how to deal with it.
“As she’s gotten older, she knows how to deal with it.”
For a long time, Yang was always in the best-to-never-win-a-major conversation on the LPGA. With 21 top-10 finishes at the majors, including two top 5s this season, she mostly flies under the radar at big events now.
“She’s just at ease with herself, no pressure, no expectation,” said Ziegler. “Basically playing for herself.”
Yang enjoyed a champagne bath on the 18th green after many of her friends came out to celebrate. Even before the injury, a burned-out Yang wondered if it might be best to retire. In time, she learned how to create a more balanced life, and wrapped up her 16th season on tour looking like a woman who has more time to shine.
“You know,” said Yang, “I still can’t believe I did it.”
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Amy Yang once thought her LPGA career was over. Now she's the CME champion
