South Korea’s Ji Yai Shin led the money list on the LPGA Tour in her first full year with winnings of US$1.8 million, and also won the LPGA Rookie of the Year Award.
Despite a slow start to the year, she won three times – the HSBC Women’s Championship, the Wegmans LPGA and the P&G Beauty. By the first week of November she officially clinched the LPGA Rookie of the Year award
Ji Yai Shin had broken all existing Korean records when she won 10 events from 19 starts in 2007, and followed this up the following year with three victories in ten tournaments on the LPGA Tour including the Women’s British Open and the ADT Championship. She became the first-ever non-LPGA member to win three LPGA tournaments.
Ji Yai Shin is the latest in a long line of Korean teenagers who has made a big splash in the pro leagues. In 2005, while still in high school, she was the only amateur to win a KLPGA event that season when she claimed the SK Enclean Invitational.
