2022 LPGA Tour rookie Ruoning Yin made the most of a great opportunity at the AmazingCre Portland Classic, playing alongside LPGA Tour winners Brooke Henderson and Ayaka Furue in the first two rounds. She matched her playing partners shot for shot, entering the third round at -7, one stroke behind Furue, one ahead of Henderson and just three strokes behind the leaders.
“They are the best players in the world, so I still can learn lot of things from them,” Yin said of her superstar grouping in Portland.
So who exactly is Ruoning Yin, the teenager behind the round John Lennon sunglasses? Now just 12 days shy of her 20th birthday, the 2022 LPGA Tour rookie from Shanghai won nine amateur titles in 2019, including the China National Amateur Championship. After turning professional in 2020, she won her first three consecutive CLPGA Tour events, the most in the history of that tour.
In December 2021, Yin finished T4 in the LPGA Q-Series to earn LPGA Tour Membership for the 2022 season. She made just two cuts in her first nine starts and admitted that the pressure to quickly make her mark on the LPGA Tour was daunting. With a shy smile on her face, Yin said she relied on the sage advice of her mother to get her past those nerves.
“I got to thank my mom for that, because we been talking a lot about the mental (side of the game),” Yin said. “I told her how stressful I play on the Tour, and she just goes, you have to enjoy it.”
With that new mentality, Yin fired a first-round 65 at the Dana Open presented by Marathon and saw her name at the top of an LPGA Tour leaderboard for the first time. She’s again within striking distance in Portland and ready for the challenge. “Always feel good about seeing my name on the leaderboard,” she said. “I think it's kind of motivation for me to keep playing better.”
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