Kevin Yu became the third golfer from Taiwan to win a US Open championship when he made back-to-back birdies on the 18th hole. He also won the Sanderson Farms Championship, as predicted by his father.
The Taoyuan native, who represented Taiwan in golf at the Paris Olympics, defeated Californian Beau Hossler in a playoff at the Country Club of Jackson, Mississippi.
Yu made it into the playoffs by sinking a 15-foot putt, and on the first extra hole, he made sure to join T.C. Chen and C.T. Pan, the Taiwanese winners of the 2019 RBC Heritage Tour.
Following his victory, he said: “I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was five…This is the dream for all golfers, to win on the PGA Tour.”
He added: “I did it today. I’m thankful for my parents. Without them, I couldn’t have done that.”
Tommy, Yu’s father, built a driving range after his son began golfing at the age of five. Upon arriving at the course early in the week, Tommy took the wrong path in search of a parking spot.
Yu shared: “He saw a parking spot in the very beginning and I told him, ‘That’s for past champions, we can’t park here’. He was like, ‘Oh, OK, OK. We can park here after this year’.”
He added: “I don’t know – it just happened. I just had a good start for the week and then had good momentum, and my dad and my mom, they always trust me very much and that’s very special.”
Source: CNA