By: Max Bechtoldt
Ruoning Yin’s incredible final round at the Buick LPGA Shanghai propelled the 22-year-old superstar to a dominant win in her home country.
On a day where scoring was low, Yin took advantage, shooting a fantastic -8 64 to finish the event at -25 overall. The front nine was a bit slow going for Yin, making birdies on holes one and five, before exploding on the back side. Yin came back in at -6 on the back nine, making birdies on 11, 13, 14, 15, 17 and 18. She finished six strokes ahead of her closest contender, Sei Young Kim.
Yin hit 10 fairways and 15 greens in the final round, but did much of the damage with her putter. It only took Yin 26 putts on Sunday, and 113 putts for the entire tournament. Throughout the final round she was hitting them in from long distance, including on her final hole to seal the win. This weekend, she went the last 50 holes without making a bogey or worse.
Sei Young Kim finished second at -19 with a -4 round on the final day. This was Kim’s best finish since the crazy playoff at the 2021 Pelican Women’s Championship, where she competed against Lexi Thompson, Lydia Ko and eventual winner Nelly Korda. It does mark the second top-three finish in a row though for the 2020 Player of the Year.
Overnight leader Mao Saigo seemed to be the only player on the first page of the leaderboard to really struggle, shooting just -1 despite hitting 12 fairways and 16 greens.
For Yin, this makes it four wins now on the LPGA Tour, all in the last two years. She is the first native of China to ever win this event
