Y. E. Yang not only won his first major championship at the PGA Championship, the first for an Asian player, but he became an answer to what will become a classic sports trivia question…who is the first player to come from behind on Tiger Woods on Sunday to win a major?
Yang is enjoying a career season in 2009. He won The Honda Classic earlier in the season and has 10 top 25 finishes on 15 events played. The win at Hazeltine moves Yang to seventh in the FedEx Cup standings and 34th in the Official World Golf Rankings, up from 478th at the start of the season. Yang’s notable finishes this year include a tie for 11th at the Quail Hollow Championship, a tie for eighth at the RBC Canadian Open and a fifth place at the Buick Open.
This is Yang’s third year on the PGA TOUR. He earned his status for 2009 through the final two stages of the PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament, finishing tied for 18th after shooting five of six rounds in the 60s. He played made 23 starts in 2008, making 17 cuts with his best finish coming at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (tie-9th). Back in 2006, Yang won the HSBC Champions Tournament (a co-sanctioned event between the Asian and European Tours) by two shots over Woods for the biggest payday of Yang’s career, plus full status on the European Tour.
Spotlight: Y. E. Yang
Yang is enjoying a career season in 2009. He won The Honda Classic earlier in the season and has 10 top 25 finishes on 15 events played. The win at Hazeltine moves Yang to seventh in the FedEx Cup standings and 34th in the Official World Golf Rankings, up from 478th at the start of the season. Yang’s notable finishes this year include a tie for 11th at the Quail Hollow Championship, a tie for eighth at the RBC Canadian Open and a fifth place at the Buick Open.
This is Yang’s third year on the PGA TOUR. He earned his status for 2009 through the final two stages of the PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament, finishing tied for 18th after shooting five of six rounds in the 60s. He played made 23 starts in 2008, making 17 cuts with his best finish coming at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (tie-9th). Back in 2006, Yang won the HSBC Champions Tournament (a co-sanctioned event between the Asian and European Tours) by two shots over Woods for the biggest payday of Yang’s career, plus full status on the European Tour.