Free-Spirited Feng Seeks Second Straight Title At TPC Kuala Lumpur
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- Category: Inside Golf
- Published: 2017-10-25
China’s Shanshan Feng During The First Round Of The 2017 U.S. Women’s Open. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
Shanshan Feng, China's most successful golfer, is a free spirit.
She also is one of the sports idols of a country with a population of nearly 1.4 billion people — a trendsetter and champion in a game that swings back and forth and in and out of favor with the nation's communist government.
The 28-year-old Feng heads to one of her favorite courses and events this week as she looks to defend her title in the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, set to begin competition at TPC Kuala Lumpur.
Feng also won this tournament in 2014 and was runner-up in both 2013 and 2015, so it would be a surprise if she was not in the mix from the opening tee shot to the final putt.
"At the prize ceremony last year, I was like, 'Can I get a membership card here because I play so well here?'" Feng said.
Feng followed her initial statement with her trademark booming laugh.
"Every time when I lose my confidence, maybe this is where I should come back and play and try to find it," Feng said. "I really love the course and the city and always enjoy my time here."
Feng begins this week's event ranked sixth in the world and in 14th in the LPGA's Race to the CME Globe standings.
She has won once this season, in May at the LPGA Volvik Championship in Michigan, and showed that she's in good form in advance of playing one of her favorite events with a tie for third last week in the Swinging Skirts LPGA Taiwan Championship.
Feng's season includes nine top-10 finishes and more than $1 million in earnings.
For her career, she has 75 top 10s and has garnered over $9 million in prize money since she turned professional in 2008. She is the first player from China to become a member of the LPGA Tour,
Feng has seven victories on Tour, including the 2012 LPGA Championship, in which she shot a bogey-free 67 in the final round to win by two strokes. That win made her the first player from China to capture an LPGA major championship, as well as the first player from mainland China (male or female) to triumph in a major championship.
At the age of 10, Feng started playing golf with her father, who worked for the Chinese sports bureau. Because of limited resources and a lack of established golf coaches, Feng's father worked with her every day. Golf quickly became Feng's focus and just a few years after picking up a club, Feng started winning major tournaments in China.
In 2004, she won the China Junior Championship and China Junior Open and then went on to win the China Amateur three years in a row, a tournament she would capture three years in a row.
An agent discovered Feng at a tournament in China when she was in high school, and shortly after she met coach Gary Gilchrist. Impressed by her play, Gilchrist offered Feng a full scholarship in late 2007 to attend his junior golf academy in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
<p">The then-17-year-old accepted and left her homeland and her family behind with little knowledge of the English language or the country, and culture (both on and off the course), to which she was moving. In only six months, she decided to try to qualify for the LPGA.
By December 2008, Feng became the first golfer from mainland China to earn her LPGA Tour card.
"There were no other Chinese players, so it was a huge surprise that I made it on my first try," Feng said. "Everyone from China was surprised, but really happy for me. I never thought I was going to make it past Q-school, to be honest."
While her play on Tour resonates in the golf world, Feng gained considerable more accolades in her homeland for winning the bronze medal in women's golf at the 2016 Rio Olympics than she did becoming the first Chinese player to win a major championship.
She got a hero's welcome home from Rio at the airport in Guangzhou and was among the large Olympic contingent who met Chinese president Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing after the games. Standing on the front row of the more than 400 athletes that had represented her country in the Games, Feng spoke up when President Xi approached to shake her hand.
"When it came to my turn, I was like, 'President, you're so handsome,'" Feng said. "The others didn't say anything, but when it came to my turn, I did say that."
"He shook my hand," Feng added. "He was shocked, and then he shook my hand one more time. I've only seen our president on TV, but that was in person, real life, and he looked so handsome to me at the moment. He looked really confident."
It was expected that Feng's success in the Olympics and on Tour would drive more Chinese to golf, but the windfall of good feelings about the game in China has fallen under debate recently. The LPGA was forced in September to cancel a tournament in Shanghai less than one month before it was due to be played after failing to get local government approval for the event.
The Alisports LPGA tournament was scheduled for Oct. 5-8. It is the second time in three years the tournament, previously known as the Reignwood LPGA Classic, was canceled.
Since 2011, the government has closed at least 113 of the country's 683 golf courses, citing illegal land and water use, according to state media. Just last week authorities shut down two high-end golf courses at a resort in northeastern China owned by Chinese real-estate tycoon Wang Jianlin.
So until the game finds favor again, Feng — who is now married and lives in Los Angeles — will carry the mantle for her country on some of the world's best golf courses and play the game at its highest level.
"I still believe that golf is going to become so popular in China," Feng said.