Ready For Primetime
Y.E. Yang moves from footnote (the man who beat Tiger in the '06 HSBC) to PGA Tour winner at the Honda Classic
RISING TO THE OCCASION: Yang, who had dropped to 460th in the world, felt the pressure Sunday but scrambled effectively to win by one.
Not since Bernie Madoff has has anyone found Florida's Palm Beaches to be as happy a hunting ground as Y.E. "Olde" Yang did in the Honda Classic. Even better since Yang's profits were demonstrably real.
The 37-year-old ex-sergeant in the Korean Army, whose initials actually stand for Yong-Eun and who was previously best known for outlasting Tiger Woods in a 2006 Asian encounter, managed to survive Jack Nicklaus' Bear Trap to beat John Rollins by one shot at PGA National's Champion Course. The title makes Ye Olde, who, like his countryman K.J. Choi, uses the initials to make it easy on us: 1) a national hero in Korea; 2) the second Korean to win on the PGA Tour; 3) the proud bearer of a get out of Q-school free card; 4) a million bucks; 5) a rematch at Doral with the aforementioned Woods; and 6) a return trip to Augusta National. This is not bad for a guy who played the game for three years before someone told him folks can actually make a living at it.
Something funny happened to Yang on the way to becoming a teaching pro—he kept getting better himself. He won on the Japan Tour and the Asian Tour. Then he won the '06 HSBC, co-sponsored by the European Tour, where he beat Woods by two shots. Suddenly, he was in the top 40 in the World Ranking and a member of the European Tour. He went through the PGA Tour's qualifying school in '07 and disappeared.
His caddie, A.J. Montecinos, carried Yang's bag in the second stage of that '07 Q school. They went their separate ways afterward, but hooked back up when Yang returned to Q school last fall, again at second stage. The difference in Ye Olde golf swing between the two was dramatic. In the first incarnation Yang had a strong grip and hit a low hook. He knew he needed to change and began working with Brian Mogg at last year's Memorial Tournament. At first, they concentrated on putting but that accelerated quickly into a full swing makeover. Yang weakened his grip, worked on his swing plane and staying behind the ball into impact. If you don't believe sometimes you have to get worse to get better, consider that he dropped to 460th in the world.
At the Honda Sunday, Yang called Mogg about 30 minutes before his tee time just to hear a calming voice, and Mogg's advice was to do everything—walk, talk—at the same cadence. "His rhythm is impeccable, and his mind is second to none," said Montecinos.
Mogg is equally drawn to Yang's intangibles. "I also work with three [Korean] LPGA players and, collectively, I have been so impressed with the Korean mindset," Mogg said. Beyond the work ethic, Mogg was impressed by "the passion and desire to be the best and to get their games to be at a world-class level while also having to go through issues like language, food, travel."
The biggest issue Yang had to deal with at the Honda, however, was the Bear Trap, Nicklaus' three-hole gauntlet, comprised of two par 3s sandwiched around the 434-yard 16th, none of which should be particularly terrifying unless you have to play them in a howling wind, which is pretty much every day in March in South Florida. In a lot of wind, PGA National is a lot of golf course. Then again, if you have the nerve to stare down Tiger Woods, John Rollins must look like an after-dinner mint.
Yang took a one-shot lead into the final round and built it quickly with three consecutive birdies on the third through the fifth holes. By the time he finished the ninth he was 10 under par and his closest pursuers were Robert Allenby, Jeff Klauk and Rollins, all four back. After a couple of birdies at the 11th and 12th, Rollins just wanted to finish solo second while everyone else seemed to be obligingly falling apart.
"I honestly was playing for second place," said Rollins, whose finish got him into the WGC-CA Championship at Doral. "When I was four shots back, I was playing as hard as I could to make sure I didn't come back to the guys behind me."
That included an all-world par 3 at the 17th when he was between clubs and hit a touch-'em-all 3-iron into the upper deck of the stands behind the green. Rollins says he carries a "Jim Furyk" set: a weak 3-iron, a strong 5-iron and an extra wedge. In the absence of a 4-iron, he took it downtown.
It was up to Yang to either survive the Bear Trap or not. It was nearly not. Yang showed some frayed nerves when he drove it right on the 13th. Partially blocked by a tree, he recovered with a beautiful punch 8-iron. The next hole was the kind of break that defines "your" week. Yang's drive was headed O.B. left but hit a tree and kicked right, falling into the rough. From there he ripped a 4-iron pin high left of the green and got up and down for another miraculous par. At the 15th, the first leg of the Bear Trap, Yang pulled a 5-iron into the left bunker and bogeyed. He played the 16th flawlessly while, up ahead, Rollins got up and down on the 18th to finish eight under. At the 190-yard 17th Yang hit it into the back-left bunker, blasted to within nine feet but missed for another bogey. Now the lead was just one. But the tees were up on the 18th and one was plenty. Yang striped his drive on the shortened par 5, hit a perfect lay up, pulled his wedge roughly 50 feet left of the hole, lagged it to a foot, holed out for his winning score of nine-under 271 and let the emotions flow.
