The PuttingZone congratulates Amy Yang for her T4 finish in the LPGA’s Kraft Nabisco Championship, Rancho Mirage, CA, with the best putting in the field.
Yang, who worked earlier in the week with renowned putting coach Geoff Mangum of the PuttingZone, finished only 2 shots back of the winner after her opening round 6-under 66 that featured only 19 putts in 18 holes. Prior to the Kraft Nabisco, Yang averaged 31.3 putts per round in four previous events. For the Kraft Nabisco week, Yang had only 102 total putts for a per-round average of 25.4 putts. No other player in the major field was close to this level. The field average for the week was 30.0 putts per round or 120 total putts. The other top-10 finishers averaged 116 putts per round.
In Yang’s record-setting first round, she hit only ten greens in regulation (GIRs), while other top-10 players that round were hitting between 14 and 16 greens), and yet she birdied 8 of these ten greens — 7 with 1-putts and 1 with a chip-in. She also avoided bogey on all but two of the remaining 8 holes where she failed to reach the green in regulation. And the two bogeys were not the result of two-putting, as all 8 of these greens were 1-putted. That’s 15 1-putt greens for 7 birdies and 2 2-putt pars, with two bogeys occurring off the green. Yang’s first round featured 1.10 putts per GIR.
In her post-round interview, Yang commented: “”It was a great day,” Yang said of her 6-under 66 in Thursday’s first round. “My game felt good. Everything was working well. I think especially my putting was worked better than other tournaments. I had a couple shots like went into the trees, and it was hard to play, but I had some good par saves and good birdie putts.”
Geoff Mangum, founder of the PuttingZone, said, “I’ve been a big fan of Amy Yang’s golf since she won the Australian Ladies Masters as the youngest player ever, age 15, and then she won three times in her first year on the Ladies European Tour as a teenager. It’s a real privilege to work with her on putting. She’s a great ball striker and I want to help unleash her putting skills to team up with her top-10 iron play. Based on the Kraft Nabisco, Amy is going to do a lot of dominating.”
About Amy Yang
Playing in her 5th season on the LPGA, Yang started playing golf at the age of 10. She credits her parents and family as the individuals most influencing her career. After winning the 2008 HypoVereinsbank Ladies German Open presented by Audi on the LET, she donated her first-place earnings to the victims of the earthquake in China’s Sichuan province. Yang qualified for the Tour on her first attempt.
About Geoff Mangum and the PuttingZone:
Geoff Mangum is widely regarded as the most knowledgeable putting coach in the world and has spent over twenty years studying and coaching putting to amateurs and professionals on all tours. The PuttingZone community includes 23 international Acadamies and 109 certified coaches in 20 Countries worldwide. Mangum combines the best putting lore with modern neuroscience for human perception and movement in putting’s four skills as an integrated system — reading, aiming, stroking, and controlling distance. The result is a permanent and dramatic increase in putting competence and the added confidence that comes with real skill. His book Optimal Putting: Brain Science, Instincts, and the Four Skills of Putting has been called “the best putting instruction book in the history of golf”. His teaching video with PGA Tour winner Steve Elkington, The Reality of Puttting, showcases Mangum’s innovative approach to putting. For more information, visit Geoff Mangum’s PuttingZone, 518 Woodlawn Avenue, Greensboro NC 27401, email him at geoff@puttingzone.com, or call him directly at (336) 340-9079.
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