Between 2008 and 2011, Yani Tseng won five Major championships. At 22 years old, she was the youngest pro golfer - male or female - ever to win that many Majors. Then, the Taiwanese player was World No.1 for 109 consecutive weeks from 2011 to 2013 after winning three times in the first half of 2012. She did it all with exclusively right-handed clubs.
But after slowly fading away, and even taking a two-year hiatus from the game due to a combination of a back injury and the global Covid-19 pandemic, Tseng was struggling to find her A-game again. The struggle wasn't completely down to the flat stick, mind. Instead, it was largely a lack of trust in her swing.
In a bid to solve her problems and return to world-beating form, Tseng reportedly went on a two-week meditation trip without her phone. Having gained a fresh mindset and created a swing that Tseng felt was even better than the one she dominated with a decade before, the five-time Major winner arrived back on tour with optimism, but still she failed to compete at the right end of leaderboards on a consistent basis.
Her prevailing issue now lies with the putter. Following several years away from US TV cameras, Tseng is making her first LPGA Tour start of 2025 at the Chevron Championship.
It was midway through her opening round alongside World No.2, Jeeno Thitikul and 18-hole leader, Haeran Ryu that the broadcast team noted Tseng was striking every other club right-handed before pulling a left-handed putter out of the bag.
broadcast noted that she still READS putts from the right side but hits them lefty. Wild! pic.twitter.com/xOWej2qvEaApril 24, 2025
The 36-year-old, who was still lining up and reading her putts right-handed, had spoken to Golf Channel's Morgan Pressel about exactly why that was earlier this week.
Pressel - the 2007 Chevron Championship winner - said live on air Thursday: “I actually sat with her at the past champions dinner the other night and we were talking about this. She was talking about putting left-handed, she just feels like her stroke is more fluid from that side. Doesn’t have a little bit of hitch in the stroke like she sometimes has with the right-handed putting stroke.
“For a player to do something this drastic, you really have to be fighting some demons. This is when you’ve tried everything else. When you’ve exhausted all other options.
"Whether it’s the long putter, the arm-lock, or a claw grip, left-hand low - there are so many different ways to putt right-handed, or in your natural hand. To flip to the other side of the golf ball is definitely, probably last resort.”
Tseng later revealed to Golfweek's Beth Ann Nichols after her first round that she made the change before the start of this season after suffering with the yips since her enforced break five years ago.
“Long story short, I’ve just been really having trouble with my right-handed short putts,” she said. “To be honest, I had the yips. I just couldn’t make the short putts.”
The Taiwanese player had tried everything in the meantime - hip surgery, switching hands, different stances, a broomstick putter. None of it worked. It was her new instructor, Brady Riggs who first suggested putting left-handed instead.
Tseng first ran with the idea in an event back at home and admitted she could not believe how comfortable she felt stood over the ball, especially with short putts.
Recalling the first time she putted left-handed in competition, Tseng said: "I was so nervous. So I stood over it, and I’m like, 'Oh wow, I feel good.' The feeling was gone, right away. On that day I didn’t miss any putt inside 5 feet. That’s how stupid our brain is. It’s so easy to trick.”
Tseng's new strategy didn't quite pay off in Texas, however, as she putted 31 times in a two-over round of 74 on Thursday after hitting 11 of 18 greens in regulation. That left her nine strokes behind Ryu and facing a battle to make the cut at The Woodlands.
Tseng is not alone in trying something quirky to curb putting problems, with Ladies European Tour pro, Marianne Skarpnord actually carrying both a right and left-handed putter in her bag.
Explaining why, the five-time LET winner said: "I had the worst yip you could ever imagine with a right-handed putter.
"(Because of this) I changed to a left-handed putter around a year-and-a-half ago, but then I never felt that I got really good at distance control with it and I can't aim with it, so now I've got a right-handed putter for long putts and a left-handed putter for short putts."
Meanwhile, intending to stick with her right-handed stance, Nelly Korda remains unhappy with her own short game and could well be looking at switching putters once again.
The World No.1 shot 77 in her opening round at the Chevron Championship with 33 putts and was apparently keen to "try something different" as she hunts weekend tee times.
