THE WOODLANDS, Texas – About five months ago, five-time major winner Yani Tseng started putting left-handed. When asked why after the first round of the 2025 Chevron Championship, she didn’t sugarcoat.
“Long story short, I’ve just been really having trouble with my right-handed short putts,” she said. “To be honest, I had the yips. I just couldn’t make the short putts.”
The 2010 Kraft Nabisco champion tried everything, switching hands, moving her legs around, a long putter. Actually, the long putter didn’t make it into competition because she couldn’t keep her hands from shaking.
“I can’t even hold the putter,” she said laughing, “I don’t know how.”
Tseng, 36, said she has struggled off and on with the yips for five years and hoped that hip surgery might fix it. It’s not brain surgery, good friend Suzann Pettersen quipped.
Yani Tseng’s new instructor is who first suggested putting lefty
Tseng’s new instructor, Brady Riggs, was the one who first suggested she try putting left-handed. After she hit the ball well at the AIG Women’s British Open last summer but missed the cut, Tseng came to the conclusion that she’d never win another golf tournament putting right-handed.
The first time Tseng putted lefty was at a tournament in Taiwan late last year, and she couldn’t believe she left herself a dreaded 3-footer on the first hole.
“I’m like shit! I was so nervous,” recalled a smiling Tseng. “So I stood over it, and I’m like, ‘Oh wow, I feel good.’ The feeling was gone, right away. On that day I didn’t miss any putt inside 5 feet. That’s how stupid our brain is. It’s so easy to trick.”
Tseng actually reads putts from the right side before stepping over to hit it from the left. She still needs to work on speed control and sometimes gets confused on left-to-right or right-to-left.
“I feel like I’ve given myself a second hope that I can still go out and win a tournament,” said Tseng, who opened with a 2-over 74 playing alongside No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul and clubhouse co-leader Haeran Ryu, who shot 65.
Ryu told the media after the round that when she was younger, Tseng was her father’s favorite player.
A 15-time winner on tour, Tseng spent 109 weeks atop the world rankings from 2011 to 2013 and is four points shy of the LPGA Hall of Fame. One of four active players with three different major championship titles, she needs to win the U.S. Women’s Open or Amundi Evian Championship to achieve the career grand slam.
Golf Channel’s Karen Stupples played against Tseng during her peak years and was out following her group on Thursday reporting on Ryu’s red-hot round.
“Honestly, it was remarkably similar to what I was used to seeing from Yani of old,” said Stupples of her game from tee to green.
Tseng was a club longer than Ryu and Thitikul and still capable of hitting it a mile off the tee when it made sense.
“When she had a straightaway hole, she hit one drive that was 20 yards past the other two,” said Stupples. “The shot shape itself is every similar to how I remember watching Yani play in her prime.”
The commitment and the confidence isn’t the same as it was a dozen years ago, but Tseng hopes that comes with repetition. She’ll play next week’s event in Utah and then hopes to improve her status in the reshuffle.
She can play the KPMG Women’s PGA and British Open as a past champion and will play in a U.S. Women’s Open qualifier on May 5 in Phoenix.
“When TV was following me today, I played much better than when I’m by myself,” she said. “I just feel more pumped up, like I want to show you. I just feel like I still have that inside of me, that I really want to show what I’ve got, but that takes a little time.”
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