Teenage sensation Yana Wilson has won the Mizuho Americas Open before, albeit in the AJGA portion of the event. Now the 18-year-old Wilson will tee it up at Liberty National Golf Club in New Jersey for the first time as a professional. And with her first pro win on her résumé, to boot.
The tournament is a special place for Wilson after her junior golf win here in 2023 and knowledge of the course.
“I feel like it’s going to be a little bit different. The tees are moved a little bit back so some holes will play different than the others, especially the par 5s,” Wilson said. “Liberty National is still one of my favourite courses ever, so I am just really excited to be back and just trying to hit as many fairways and greens as possible this week.”
Wilson is the first player to play in the event—in its fourth year—as a junior and then as a professional.
Wilson won last week for the first time on the Epson Tour at the Reliance Matrix Championship at Spanish Trail Country Club in her hometown of Las Vegas. It was a special gift for her mom.
“It was really cool. It was my mom’s birthday. I did want to win it for her birthday,” Wilson said. “She hasn’t seen me win a golf tournament since I think Mizuho [in 2023], so that was really cool to do that. We went out to Korean barbecue and had dinner, and I had to jump on a red-eye flight to be here.’”
Yana Wilson (left) poses with tournament host Michelle Wie West and (center) and Rose Zhang after the 2023 Mizuho Americas Open. Elsa
And now, the win means she’s armed with the confidence as she plays on a sponsor exemption this week on the LPGA. Wilson spoke at a news conference in Jersey City, New Jersey alongside Rose Zhang. The two have plenty in common—prodigies who turned pro at a young age and both have wins at the Mizuho Americas Open. Zhang won here in 2023 in the first pro start of her career, becoming the first player to win her first event since 1951.
Wilson has three top-10 finishes in five events on the Epson Tour. Her win moved her to No. 2 in the Race for the Card as she looks to earn full-time LPGA status for next season.
Unlike Zhang, who balances being a student at Stanford and her professional golf career (she will be back in school in the fall), Wilson chose to bypass college and turn professional.
Asked what she thought it was about her maturity that allowed her to make that decision, Wilson said, “I guess my level of talent and level of work ethic was up there [and] pretty equivalent, maybe not with the LPGA Tour players but on the Epson Tour maybe. So getting those reps in early was just the big key for me, getting used to the traveling and working with caddies and dealing with money and dealing with sponsors. I wanted my life to be more of that than studying and trying to balance golf and studies at the same time.”
Wilson had quite the resume to make that jump. She won the 2022 US Girls’ Junior Championship and the 2022 Hilton Grand Vacations Annika Invitational. Wilson also became the youngest to person to win the Joanne Winter Arizona Silver Belle Championship in 2020 when she was 14. She’s played in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur three times.
It all led to that first professional win–one she’ll never forget.
“It was really special to win in my hometown in front of everybody. I had a lot of people that came out there that I did not expect to come out there,” Wilson said. “My seventh- grade history teacher came out to watch with her husband. I haven’t seen her since seventh grade, so that was really special. I think just having that good energy there really helped play well that entire week, and I was just really happy to do it during that tournament.”
