The most staggering feat of Ruoning Yin’s historic victory at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship was the 37 consecutive greens she hit to close the championship. It’s the longest streak by any player on the LPGA in 2023. That it came on the weekend of a major championship on a brute of a test like Baltusrol’s Lower Course makes it all the more impressive.
Yin, 20, came into the week leading the LPGA in Strokes Gained: Approach per round in the KPMG Performance Insights, a data platform that is now available to fans and media. At the KPMG, she also led the field in that category, gaining 2.39 strokes per round for the championship. Yin was the only player in the field to gain at least 1.5 strokes gained approach in all four rounds.
“I think, more mature,” said Yin of how she’s grown since joining the tour in 2022. “Like before, I just go straight at the flag every shot, and right now I think I play smart, more smart right now.”
Yin, now the second Chinese player to win a major after Shanshan Feng (2012 Wegmans), closed with a bogey-free 67 on Sunday and notched only six bogeys on the weekend, tied for the fewest of any player in the field along with Stephanie Meadow, who finished third.
Yin hit 66 of 72 greens for the week, or 92 percent. She hit 44 of 48 greens when hitting her approach from the fairway and ranked fourth off the tee in strokes gained driving for the week.
“For the last couple days, my ball-striking was perfect,” said Yin after clinching the title with a dramatic 12-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole.
Yin won her first LPGA title in March at the DIO Implant LA Open. She practices out of Tranquilo Golf Course in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, former site of the LPGA’s season-opening Tournament of Champions, and works with swing coach Holton Freeman.
“I could tell immediately when I met her a year and a half ago that she had some special intangibles that are difficult to teach if a person/player doesn’t already have them,” Freeman wrote on Instagram after her first victory.
“Trust and self-belief, executing under pressure, refusing to give in when she is faced with chaos and adversity, etc. Those were all on display yesterday when she made three bogeys in a row to lose the lead, followed by four consecutive birdies to reclaim the lead. A great example and lesson for younger players to learn from.”
Yin’s caddie, Jon Lehman, called his new boss wise beyond her years, saying she plays more like a 35-year-old under pressure. Yin called Lehman in to help her on the greens this week, and after losing more than six strokes to the field putting in rounds two and three, she gained 0.41 putting on Sunday. She mostly struggled with speed control.
Yin rose to No. 5 in the world after becoming only the second woman to win on the Lower Course, joining 1961 U.S. Women’s Open winner Mickey Wright. She heads next to Pebble Beach Golf Links, where she’ll make her second USWO appearance.
