In Chevron hunt, emerging LPGA star opens up on cheating scandal

HOUSTON – The night before the final round of a major championship isn’t the ideal time to talk about a cheating scandal. But South Korea’s Ina Yoon agreed to it anyway.

Currently solo fifth at the Chevron Championship, the LPGA’s first major of the season, Yoon can’t escape what a quick Google search reveals: In 2022, she was suspended for three years from the Korea Golf Association (KGA) and KLPGA for playing the wrong ball and not telling anyone.

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Yoon, 22, using the help of an interpreter, recalled what transpired at the DB Group Korea Women’s Open Golf Championship on June 16, 2022. During the first round, on which hole exactly she can’t remember, Yoon missed a tee shot right into the rough. Other players helped her to find it. Yoon said she didn’t realize that the ball wasn’t hers until she got to the next tee.

“I wasn’t sure what to do because this had never happened to me, so I was a bit frazzled,” said Yoon, who was 19 years old at the time. “My caddie said to hit it. I shouldn’t have listened, but I did. I should have reported it right away, but I was really nervous and scared about that. I missed the cut, and I thought it would be OK. The people around me told me that it shouldn’t be too much of an issue, so I listened.”

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A month later, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily, Yoon’s agency released a statement saying that she was first accused of playing a wrong ball at the Korea Women’s Open on July 14. The next day, she self-reported. Yoon went on to win the event she was playing in that week, the KLPGA’s Evercollagen Queens Crown, for her first KLPGA title.

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While she stepped away from the tour as officials decided her fate, Yoon noted that her caddie at the time went on to do interviews with the Korean press, saying that he had given her two options: to hit the ball or not.

“He said that I chose to hit the ball, and people believed that,” said Yoon. “People believed what the caddie said, and I was pretty upset that that became the truth at that time.

“He told me to hit it,” she continued, “but at the end of the day, I am the player and the player takes responsibility. I think I was just young and naïve and I listened to it.”

The KLPGA Reward and Punishment Subcommittee ultimately banned Yoon for three years, releasing a statement that said, “We will continue to deal sternly with similar incidents.”

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Long sentences aren’t unusual in South Korea. In 2019, the KPGA doled out a three-year ban to Bio Kim after he made an obscene gesture to fans after a cellphone camera went off during his downswing. Kim was the tour’s leading money winner at the time.

“People around me that knew the situation felt that it wasn’t fair,” said Yoon of the length of the ban, “but whatever the punishment was as a player, it was my fault at the end of the day, so I took that on.

“But, as a golfer, three years is a lot of time. My future seemed a bit bleak at the time.”

Yoon grew emotional on Saturday after play had finished at Memorial Park, as she talked about the toll that it took, causing her to nearly give up the game she’d been playing more than half her life. She felt lost.

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“I didn’t do it with malicious intent, but people were pointing fingers at me,” she said. “But then, on the other side, there were fans, so I didn’t want to try to think too negatively.”

Needing someplace to compete, Yoon moved to Tampa, Florida, in 2023, and played on the men’s Minor League Golf Tour. After playing in 13 events on that tour with three runner-up finishes, she donated $10,000 to the Sandhill Crane Junior Golf Program. Her mini tour scoring average: 67.92.