Former World No.1 Yani Tseng Books US Women's Open Return After Switching To Left-Handed Putting

Five-time Major winner Yani Tseng will play in the US Women’s Open for the first time in nine years after qualifying for the Erin Hills Major.

The Taiwanese star emerged from a 5-1 playoff at Arizona Country Club. After Yusang Hou won the qualifier by one, it left five players, including Tseng, T2 and facing at least one additional hole to determine the final player to earn her place at the Major, which begins on May 26^th.

Tseng then held her nerve to win the first playoff hole, with Dottie Ardina named as a first alternate following the second extra hole and Ryann O’Toole as a second alternate after the third hole. Hira Naveed and Laetitia Beck missed out.

The US Women’s Open is one of two Majors 36-year-old Tseng has yet to win, with the other being the Amundi Evian Championship. The closest she has come so far was 15 years ago, when she finished T10 at Oakmont as Paula Creamer took the title.

Tseng topped the world rankings for 109 consecutive weeks between 2011 and 2013 although she suffered a severe downturn in form in the years that followed, while a back injury she picked up in 2019 forced her out of the game for almost two years.

After returning to LPGA Tour action in 2021, she struggled to recapture her best form before another long spell away from the game, on that occasion of almost three years, ended with her appearance at the 2024 Drive On Championship, where she missed the cut. Further appearances have followed, where she has largely struggled, although her best placing since her return came with a T10 at the 2024 Sampo Ladies Open on the Taiwan LPGA Tour.

Incredibly, despite dominating the women’s game early in her career using exclusively right-handed clubs, Tseng now putts left-handed. That change was first observed at the Chevron Championship, even though she was still lining up and reading her putts right-handed.

During the tournament, the Golf Channel's Morgan Pressel offered some insight into why she had made such a big change, explaining: “I actually sat with her at the past champions dinner the other night and we were talking about this. She was talking about putting left-handed, she just feels like her stroke is more fluid from that side. Doesn’t have a little bit of hitch in the stroke like she sometimes has with the right-handed putting stroke.”

Tseng later told Golfweek's Beth Ann Nichols she made the change before the start of this season after suffering with the yips. She said: “Long story short, I’ve just been really having trouble with my right-handed short putts.To be honest, I had the yips. I just couldn’t make the short putts.”

Given the confidence with which she rolled in the winning putt to qualify for the US Women’s Open, she will be hoping it is a decision that is beginning to pay off.