Angel Yin defeated Rolex Rankings No. 1 Lilia Vu in a playoff with a birdie on the first extra hole to win her first LPGA Tour title in her seventh season on Tour at the Buick LPGA Shanghai.
Yin started the final round after sleeping on the 54-hole co-lead with Swede Maja Stark, and found her first birdie of the day on No. 4. At that point, fellow American Vu had taken the lead at 13-under, and Yin’s first birdie joined her as the final groups embarked on the front nine. A bogey on six after finding the fairway bunker brought her out of the top spot, but she leapt back with a birdie on 9 to make the turn at 13-under. She went on to par the next seven holes until a birdie on the par-5 17th. After choosing driver on the tee of the 18th, she found another fairway bunker – but was anything but disappointed.
“I said to my caddie, this is a great lie. Everything is perfect. If I can't hit it, I just suck. So that was either this or that. I told him everything is set up for me to do it. If I can't, then that's just on me,” said Yin of making a par on the 72nd hole to card a 2-under 70 on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Vu – who was in the penultimate grouping – closed with a 4-under 68 to finish with the clubhouse lead at 14-under as she awaited Yin’s final hole. Vu put on a ball-striking clinic on the front nine, notching four birdies in her first five holes until a bogey on No. 6. A crucial up-and-down on No. 8 helped her stay towards the top of the leaderboard, and as the top became more compact, Vu went birdie-bogey on Nos. 11 and 12. Her birdie on 17 meant she’d eventually face Yin in a flashback of The Chevron Championship, where they went head-to-head for the major title in a playoff in Texas.
Both players hit the fairway in the playoff, and both had birdie look from opposite directions of the pin. A miss by Vu meant it came down to Yin’s final stroke, to seal the deal in front of her mother’s home country fans. As the ball dropped, Yin felt the relief of finding the winner’s circle as a professional for the first time since 2017.
“Honestly, I'm still living in the moment so much that I haven't been able to draw on the past to think about the journey and where I am right now. I'm still so much in the present, and I think sometime golf you have to be like that. That's where I am right now. If I can just give you an answer that's in the back of my head, it's always very special, and throughout the round I was thinking to myself, it's not easy to win. It's not easy to win. Just very grateful. Honestly, 18 that bunker where I was in, anything could have happened, but I was very fortunate to have a very good lie and was able to hit a good shot and everything played out the way it played out,” said Yin. “It's been a special week.”
“I made a lot of mistakes today, to be honest, and I felt like this was definitely not my A-game, but I knew that the more I play the golf course the better I get at it, and I knew I had a good chance today,” admitted Vu. “Today was just Angel's day. I'm happy for her.”
Five players finished in a tie for third, including Korean Hye-Jin Choi, who was first to close at 13-under after a bogey-free 64.
China's Yu Liu earned her third-straight top-10 finish in the Buick LPGA Shanghai, and ended the week as the top player from the People’s Rep. of China among 22 featured in the field.
