American Lilia Vu received her first most important name on Sunday, defeating compatriot Angel Yin with a birdie on the primary playoff hole to seize the LPGA Chevron Championship.
In the year’s first girls’s golf main, Vu and Yin each completed seventy two holes on 10-below par 278 on the Jack Nicklaus Signature direction at The Woodlands close to Houston, Texas.
Vu, who birdied 17 and 18 to grab the clubhouse lead, became forced to more holes while Yin birdied 18 as properly.
But Yin determined water on her technique in the playoff and Vu sank a anxiety-packed 14-foot birdie putt for the victory.
“I can’t even positioned into words what I became feeling,” Vu stated. “I turned into fearful. I turned into scared. I turned into bloodless. I simply wanted to hit the putt and just be carried out with it.
“I simply noticed my line and pace – I knew it became going to be a quick putt – and trusted myself.”Moments after making the prevailing putt, Vu followed a event tradition that started at its former domestic in California of leaping into water, taking her plunge into the equal chilly greenside lake where Yin’s ball sank earlier.
“I had a difficult, now not clean, past days,” Vu stated. “I become honestly my very own enemy. I do not know how I pulled this out. I’m just absolutely glad and proud.”
Vu fired a four-beneath 68 and set the score to conquer. Yin unraveled with bogeys at sixteen and 17 but sank a six-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th to shoot seventy two and force the playoff.
Vu had taken into consideration giving up golfing years before, however said after the win that, “everything takes place for a reason,” and for all the horrific matters she has faced, “I consider myself as the biggest impediment.”
World wide variety 12 Vu received the $765,000 top prize in handiest her ninth most important start. The 25-12 months-old American won her first LPGA name in February at Thailand and turns into the tour’s first multi-event winner this year.
She became the twenty first player to say her first major identify at the event.
World number 172 Yin, in handiest her third LPGA begin of 2023, hadn’t managed a pinnacle-10 LPGA finish on the grounds that sharing 0.33 in last May’s Founders Cup.
But the 24-year-antique from Los Angeles have been the 2019 US Women’s Open runner-up and took a Ladies European Tour victory at Dubai in 2017.
“I feel like I felt after I started the round,” Yin said. “Not a whole lot has modified apart from I misplaced. Just satisfied with how I am playing.
“Today just wasn’t hitting it excellent and sixteen and 17 became simply terrible club decision, bad membership selection and horrific attitude on sixteen off the tee.”
Playing in cool and windy situations, Vu turned into 4 adrift of co-leader Yin whilst the spherical started out.
Vu birdied the second and par-3 third and introduced some other at the par-5 eighth earlier than stumbling along with her lone bogey to shut the the front nine. She accompanied seven pars with birdies at 17 and 18.
Yin birdied the par-five thirteenth to seize the lead alone at eleven-underneath, one beforehand of Thailand’s Atthaya Thitikul, who closed with a double bogey to fall out of contention.
Yin landed a pressure chip inches from the hole to installation a par at 14 and but stumbled late, finding a fairway bunker at 16 and lacking a six-foot par putt then landing in a bunker at the way to a bogey on the par-3 seventeenth, forcing her to birdie the 18th simply to force a playoff.
Yin went six toes beyond the hole on a long eagle putt however made the comeback attempt.