“I love Australia.”
So said Korean Min A. Yoon after being crowned World Sand Greens champion at Binalong yesterday.
Yoon, 22, gave the WPGA Tour of Australasia field a master class in something she scarcely knew existed just one week ago, playing a truly remarkable round of four-under-par 66 on a day made both long and problematic by heavy rain.
Almost all players battled to adjust to the radical change in conditions forced by overnight and morning downpours that delayed the start of play by five hours.
But Yoon, who began the final round two shots behind Cholcheva Wongras, at first studied the changes required, then purposefully put those lessons to great use with a withering back-nine finish.
Only five players broke par on the final day, so Yoon was particularly pleased to have played bogey-free golf with the world title on the line, eventually finishing at 11-under, four clear of her Thai rival.
Abbie Teasdale, playing in the final group, finished impressively to win something of a derby against her West Australian peers, finishing at one-under to be third but the top Aussie. Fellow Perth products Maddison Hinson-Tolchard and Kirsten Rudgeley shared fourth at even-par.
But none, not even the precociously talented Wongras, could go with Yoon when she put her foot down.
Yoon led outright for the first time when Wongras made her third bogey on the ninth hole and then seized the momentum with a superb and rare birdie on the tough par-3 11th hole.
“That was [the] moment,” Yoon said. “[I had] played good until then, [but] at [that] moment, I had confidence.”
Pars on the tough 12th and 13th holes were followed by a near-ace on the 14th for the first of a hat-trick of birdies that iced the result.
Yoon drove well all week and putted well in the key moments, but it was her surgical chipping from inside six metres of greens she’d never dreamt existed just a week ago.
“I couldn’t believe them [when I first saw the greens]; never in Seoul would anyone think about this for golf. But I learn to play to the front of the greens, and my chipping was good.”
That’s an understatement and is reinforced by her father – and occasional translator – Jin, who said Yoon is revered for her sand-wedge precision throughout her native KLPGA Tour.
It’s Yoon’s second win in Australia, after her 2023 win at the TPS Victoria event at Rosebud against the men of the Aussie PGA Tour.
“It’s a great place, a lucky place for me. I love it here,” she said.
Wongras, who turned 18 just last week, was runner-up in this event for the second year running after losing in a playoff at Walcha in the inaugural event last year.
Remarkably, after she set a breathtaking course-record 63 in Thursday’s opening round, she couldn’t find a birdie until the 17th hole yesterday.
Yet nestled in among a swag of Aussie mates in the clubhouse, the delightful Thai took great pride in the fact that the result took her past Rudgeley and to the top of the WPGA Tour’s Order of Merit standings, effectively unassailable with just one round to play and Rudgeley to miss the event.
