Win would make Tseng youngest to win all four
Has women’s golf found its Tiger Woods?
That is a question Yani Tseng will answer in the coming years. But the more immediate concern for the 22-year-old from Taiwan is the U.S. Women’s Open, where Tseng will try to go Woods one better.
With his eight-stroke victory in the 2000 British Open at St. Andrews, Woods became the youngest male — age 24 — to complete a career grand slam. Eleven years later, Tseng can become the youngest to claim a women’s career slam. She tees off Thursday in the opening round at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.
After bookending her 2010 season with major wins in the Kraft Nabisco and Women’s British Open — she also won the LPGA Championship in 2008 and this year — Tseng said she began focusing on the one major that has eluded her.
“I feel very calm. I don’t feel any pressure,” Tseng told reporters. “If I don’t win, I still have lots of years I can win.”
In four U.S. Open appearances, Tseng has never finished better than 10th. But she was inspired three weeks ago by the U.S. Open victory of another 22-year-old, Rory McIlroy.
| U.S. Women’s Open |
| When » Thursday-Sunday |
| Where » Broadmoor, |
| Colorado Springs |
| TV » NBC |
“I always feel so much pressure on [a] U.S. Open course,” Tseng said. “But after I see Rory McIlroy do it, I feel much [more] relaxed.”
Tseng has reason to feel inspired by another of her idols. The last time the Broadmoor hosted the Women’s Open 16 years ago, Annika Sorrenstam captured her first LPGA event (and first major). The Swede is the last of six women to capture a career slam, accomplishing the feat at age 32.
Tseng was overwhelmed early in her career when Sorrenstam declared she had the stuff to reach No. 1.
“At that time I was really shocked. I thought she was kidding,” Tseng said. “But this time, I feel it’s different. This time, I feel like, yeah, she might be true.”
Sorrenstam, who sold her Orlando, Fla., home to Tseng a year ago, said she sees many of the qualities in Tseng that made herself the top player in the game a decade ago.
“She wants to be the face of the LPGA,” Sorrenstam said. “What I saw many years ago was just that: I saw an impressive young lady with a lot of potential, a lot of will. She just has the pieces of the game that I thought would make it. And the pieces she didn’t have, she either went and found them or improved whatever she had.”
This course will be suited to Tseng’s power game. She ranks fifth on the tour in driving distance. At 7,041 yards, the Broadmoor is the longest test in U.S. Women’s Open history.
Perhaps the factor most favoring Tseng is that the tournament is a major. Half of her eight LPGA victories have come in major championships.
“I love a tough course,” Tseng said. “I love a challenge.”
