ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Jiyai Shin received her first AIG Girls’s British Open 16 years in the past. At age 36, she’s the winningest participant left within the area on the Outdated Course, the place she leads defending champion Lilia Vu by one stroke, World No. 2 Nelly Korda by two and the LPGA’s latest Corridor of Fame member, Lydia Ko, by three.
Sunday in St. Andrews can be a generational battle. Shin has received greater than 60 titles worldwide. She left the LPGA on the peak of her recreation in 2014, taking her abilities to Japan, the place she’s now received 30 occasions. Her profession started near residence on the Korean LPGA, the place she received 21 occasions, and kicked into one other gear when she received 11 occasions from 2008-2013.
A rookie on the LPGA in 2009, Shin set targets for the subsequent decade, however reached all of them briefly order. She struggled to search out her subsequent step and motivation.
That’s when she determined she wanted a change, and joined the Japan LPGA to be nearer to household. She anxious about disappointing her followers, however then she met new followers.
“I had an incredible determination,” mentioned Shin, who needs to be a mentor to youthful gamers the way in which so many have been for her all these years in the past.
South Korea’s Jiyai Shin smiles on the seventeenth tee on day three of the 2024 Girls’s British Open Golf Championship, on the Outdated Course at St Andrews, in St Andrews, Scotland, on August 24, 2024. (Picture by ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE (Picture by ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP by way of Getty Photos)
Rely Ko, 27, amongst those that look as much as Shin, marveling at her 6:30 a.m. apply spherical earlier this week and the way in which she pushed herself within the health club.
It was Shin who performed alongside Ko when she received the Canadian Girls’s Open at age 15, a dozen years in the past.
“I feel that takes not solely a variety of work ethic however ardour in direction of the sport in what she does,” mentioned Ko, who referred to as Shin’s determination to go away the LPGA in her prime brave.
Ko comes into Sunday’s ultimate spherical a little bit lighter than most, on condition that she performed her means into the Corridor by advantage of a storybook victory on the Paris Olympics. That’s to not say she isn’t nonetheless “grasping” about eager to win extra, however there’s definitely nothing left to show.
“It’s positively good to know that I can return to my room, and even when I’ve a nasty day, there’s a gold medal, you understand, ready for me,” mentioned Ko, who smiled after which shortly added, “and my husband.”
Korda closed with a birdie to cease the bleeding on a again 9 that included two bogeys and a double. She led by as many as three on a sunny however windy day on the Dwelling of Golf however dipped to 3rd after a disappointing 75.
A victory on the Outdated Course would change the narrative on what’s been a difficult summer season for Korda, who received six occasions within the first half of the 12 months, together with a serious.
The final participant to win seven occasions in a season, together with a number of majors, was Yani Tseng in 2011. The final American participant to take action was Kathy Whitworth in 1967.
Tseng’s 2011 British Open victory at Carnoustie was the final time a participant received in back-to-back years on this championship. Vu has an opportunity to tug off the identical on Sunday as she vies for a 3rd profession main title.
Lilia Vu of the US tees off on the 14th gap throughout Day Three of the AIG Girls’s Open at St. Andrews Outdated Course on August 24, 2024, in St Andrews, Scotland. (Picture by Michael Reaves/Getty Photos)
After managing to keep away from the bunkers within the first two rounds, the 2023 LPGA Participant of the 12 months needed to take her drugs on the again 9 Saturday.
“I used to be positively a brat about it,” mentioned Vu, “as a result of I believed I hit a very good shot, after which it occurred to roll in.”
She credited her caddie for getting her thoughts proper.
Vu missed a number of months of competitors earlier this 12 months with a again damage and does all that she will be able to to fight the chilly. On Friday, she went forwards and backwards from the chilly plunge to the sauna and located the brand new routine useful, together with loads of scorching chocolate.
Final 12 months’s victory got here at Walton Heath, a parkland course, outdoors London. The gritty Vu acquired a kitten to rejoice, naming him Walton. There’s already a second bribe from her father in play that if she wins one other main, she will be able to get a second cat.
She’s already considered names, noting that she’d get a woman this time round and identify her Andie.
Lydia Ko of New Zealand poses for a photograph along with her caddie and crew throughout a Professional-Am forward of the AIG Girls’s Open at St. Andrews Outdated Course on August 21, 2024, in St. Andrews, Scotland. (Picture by Michael Reaves/Getty Photos)
Ko, who gushes about her pet Kai when requested, appears at what occurred on the Paris Olympics as one thing that was too good to be true. Think about then, how’d she’d really feel about topping it off with a victory on the Dwelling of Golf, snapping a serious championship drought that stretches again to 2016.
Would she wave goodbye on the Swilcan Bridge? Ko, who has lengthy mentioned she wouldn’t play previous 30, was requested a couple of walk-off retirement initially of the week.
“I feel you simply should hearken to your self,” mentioned Ko. “The way in which Suzann (Pettersen) did it after holing that putt at Solheim, I imply, she couldn’t have completed her profession on any extra of a excessive.”
The identical may very well be mentioned for Ko, who may finish her unimaginable profession within the place the place golf started. Doesn’t get extra epic than that.
