Atthaya Thitikul and Ruoning Yin, a couple of 21-year-old hotshots who have risen to No. 1 in the past, teamed up for the first time at the 2024 Dow Championship and walked away winners.
The partnership came together during a Callaway sponsorship shoot last November. Thitikul, who had never played in the event before, asked Yin to team up with her.
“She doesn’t have any option,”said Thitikul, who buried the winning birdie putt on the par-3 18th. “I’m just forcing her to play with me.”
Yin, who goes by “Ronni,” and Thitikul, who goes by “Jeeno,” chose the team name “Jin and Ronic” after one of their coaches’ favorite drinks.
It was LPGA victory No. 3 for both players, who closed with a 62 in the best-ball format at Midland Country Club to finish at 22 under for the tournament, edging Ally Ewing and Jennifer Kupcho by a shot. Solheim Cup captain Stacy Lewis certainly kept a close eye on the American duo as a potential pairing for this year’s Solheim.
“Alternate shot, I think we’re by far a really, really, really good alternate shot team,” said Ewing.
Danish players Nicole Broch Estrup and Nanna Koerstz Estrup took a share of third with South Koreans Haeji Kang and In Kyung Kim at 19 under.
Charley Hull, another first-time Dow participant, teamed up with lifelong friend Georgia Hall to take a share of third with Auston Kim and Grace Kim (no relation).
Brooke Henderson and Lexi Thompson highlighted a logjam of players in a share of eighth that included Nasa Hataoka and Jin Young Ko as well as the all-star mom pairing of Brittany Lincicome and Brittany Lang, two longtime Solheim Cup partners and major winners.
Lincicome and Lang, who are both 38, joked that they were going to change their team name from the “Killer Bees” to “AARP” or “Life Alert” because they now feel so old.
“Tour old,” Lang clarified.
John Shippen Women’s Invitational winner Georgia Oboh and her partner Lakareber Abe, who were both playing on a sponsor exemption, also tied for eighth. Neither player has LPGA status.
Yin, No. 4 in the world, and Thitikul, No. 12, have both battled injuries of late. Thitikul’s thumb injury kept her away from her golf clubs for three months. She returned to the tour at the Chevron Championship in April and said she’s now pain-free.
“The reason that I played five weeks in a row, I just want to get back to, like, feeling competition feelings, the imaginations,” she said. “It’s been a long time that I missed like three months that I don’t touch any clubs, not hitting balls at all. I just want to stick back to how can I see the ball, how the ball is going to react over my shots.”
Yin, meanwhile, injured her wrist in May at the Mizuho Americas Open and still feels a great deal of pain. She will skip the next major, the Amundi Evian Championship, and return to competition at the Paris Olympics.
“I really, really, really wanted to play Evian, but for my body, I think it’s a good decision that I have a break,” said Yin, who said on a scale of 1 to 100, she’s 60 percent toward being healthy.
For Thitikul, this marked her first victory on tour since she won twice in 2022. She admits to putting too much pressure on herself last year to win again.
“Still want to win,” she said, “but it’s less than last year because what I focus is I try to improve myself every day and just trying to be Jeeno out there, like 100 percent Jeeno out there.”
She was no doubt her authentic self in Midland, where players get the chance to smile more and relax with a partner by their side. Yin told her mom on Saturday that this was the fastest week she’s ever had on tour.
“Time flies when you’re …” Yin began.
“When you’re happy,” Thitikul interjected.
“Yeah, when you’re having fun,” Yin continued. “When you’re around good people. Yeah, it’s a good week.”
