Lilia Vu beat Angel Yin in a playoff to win the Chevron Championship, a major victory that not way back appeared prefer it may by no means come.
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THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Lilia Vu’s Pro V1 hardly reached the backside of the cup earlier than tears began flowing down her face. After plucking the ball out of the gap, she pulled her visor down low over her eyes and wept.
After battling a chilly and windy Texas spring day, Vu was the final competitor standing. On a Sunday wherein simply three golfers broke 70 at Carlton Woods, the 25-year-old professional posted the lowest spherical of the day with a four-under 68 to finish a comeback victory and win the Chevron Championship for her first major title.
“I couldn’t believe that that happened,” Vu mentioned. “That we won a major.”
When you take a look at Vu’s resume, it is smart that she provides her identify to the Dinah Shore Trophy. She’s a former No. 1-ranked beginner in the world. She was once named Pac-12 Player of the Year. She received a whopping eight tournaments at UCLA. Her listing of beginner accomplishments is on par with some of the greatest stars in the recreation, and a profitable professional profession could be the subsequent logical step.
But the street to success is never linear.
In her first yr on the LPGA Tour in 2019, she made only one reduce and netted solely $3,830. She felt misplaced taking part in the recreation she liked. Away from the course, issues had been no higher. Her grandfather died early on in the Covid-19 pandemic, and she or he even contemplated giving up her pro-golf aspirations and going to legislation college.
“I was just in such a bad place,” Vu mentioned. “Everything was life or death. I just saw everybody that I’ve competed with being successful, and I just compared myself all the time.”
If she’d quit, Sunday at the Chevron would’ve been a lot completely different.
Coming into the ultimate spherical, few had Vu on the shortlist of potential champions. There was speak of Nelly Korda and her alternative to win with out her greatest stuff. Of Angel Yin and her alternative to breakthrough for her first victory. And of a potential cost by Atthaya Thitikul, as she sought her first major title.
For a lot of the ultimate spherical, that theme remained true. Korda battled her swing and stayed close to the top of the leaderboard, and Thitikul did make a cost into crimson numbers. A Lim Kim tried to nab one other major title in Texas, and Yin sized up the glass slipper. But in a span of one hour late in the afternoon, Vu catapulted herself into the championship dialog.
WATCH: Chevron winner Lilia Vu jumps into ‘new Poppie’s Pond,’ however not with out warning
Jack Hirsh
Of the 278 strokes Vu made at Carlton Woods this week, her tee shot at the par-3 seventeenth was maybe the most consequential. Standing 149 yards from the flag, Vu unleashed a towering brief iron onto the inexperienced. Moments later, she poured in the prolonged putt to chop Yin’s result in one.
The 18th resulted in one other circle. She blasted her drive into the fairway, lasered her shot over the inexperienced and obtained up-and-down to publish the clubhouse lead at 10 underneath.
“Somehow 17 and 18 comes, birdie-birdie,” Vu mentioned. “And then now we’re here.”
Yin had a likelihood to take the title in regulation with a 35-foot eagle strive, however when the putt motored previous the gap, it ensured the first iteration of the Chevron Championship held in Texas would wish bonus golf to find out a champion.
Both rivals break up the fairway with their drive, however with Yin taking part in first into the inexperienced, the clock lastly struck midnight. Her 5-iron rifled low and left, clattering off a stone wall brief of the inexperienced and into the hazard.
“I just didn’t hit a good shot,” Yin mentioned. “It just kind of spoke a lot about today.”
Once Vu poured her birdie putt into the cup, the solely drama remaining was whether or not or not she would take a plunge into the lake subsequent to the inexperienced. Although Poppie’s Pond is 1,500 miles away, many needed to see the conventional leap by the champion proceed.
They obtained their want.
Despite temperatures in the excessive 50s, Vu, alongside together with her caddie and coach, took a polar plunge off the dock constructed for the event.
“I don’t know how I pulled this out,” Vu mentioned clad in her winner’s gown. “I’m just really happy.”
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