Thursday, June 21, 2012

Hannah Yun: What a Difference Two Weeks Makes

I followed Hannah Yun 2 weeks ago for the last 5 holes of her 1st round at Locust Hill in the Wegmans LPGA Championship and for the last 8 holes of her 1st round today at Grey Silo in the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic.  In Pittsford, she played with the 1st under-par leader in the clubhouse of the day, Mo Martin, and scrambled about as well as she did over her closing holes, making several fantastic par saves and only 1 bogey despite only hitting 1 green in that stretch (on 18, the toughest hole of the bunch).  Basically she was playing from the rough almost the entire time I was watching her and saving herself with her putter.  Fast forward and head northwest to Waterloo, and it was like night and day.  Playing the front (her back), Hannah hit 5 of the 6 fairways I saw her on, 7 of 8 greens, gave herself an eagle chance on the 1st par 5 she played, and birdied both of them to go -2 for that run and -1 for her round.  Of course, Locust Hill is one of the tightest courses they play and Grey Silo probably one of the most wide-open, but it was great to see Hannah playing well.


What's so amazing about this turnaround is that Hannah's been going through huge changes in the last month, changing coaches, swings, and sets.  She played a completely different set in NY than she played in NJ and in the week between the Wegmans and the Manulife she switched just about everything out again. 

I got a chance to interview her right after her round and here's the official Mostly Harmless transcript:

THE CONSTRUCTIVIST:  Nice round there!  You seemed to be playing very well today.  You outdrove Ryann [O'Toole] a few times out there, so--

HANNAH YUN:  Yeah. [laughs]

TC:  --that's nice.  So it looks like you had only 1 bad hole on your front 9....

HY:  Um-hmm.

TC:  Well, what are your impressions of the course?

HY:  Well, this course kinda sets up well to my eye, 'cause, you know, it's wide fairways, and, you know, there's a lot of birdie opportunities, and, you know, the greens are reasonable, they're rolling nice.  So I just felt comfortable coming in here and I really worked hard last week during our break.  Basically, I told my mom last night, "I did the best that I could to prepare for this, so now all that's left is to just go out and hit one shot at a time and just trust that I put in the work."

TC:  Yeah.

HY:  And that's basically, how I tried to play today.  Just, you know, "I've hit the shots before, I've done my work, I've done my homework, so all I need to do is hit it."

TC:  Yeah.  And you were hitting them nice in a, you know, gusty wind.  It seemed, like, a little changeable....

HY:  Yeah.  It was.  There's a couple of holes that were really tricky because of the wind and the greens firmed up.  It's just different.  I'm trying to trust myself more. 

TC:  Right, right.

HY:  You know, trust the work that I do.  And I was able to do it today.

TC:  And with changed equipment from last week.

HY (laughs):  Yeah, I've been changing my equipment a lot lately. [laughs]  It's just, I've found things that I feel comfortable with, you know, things that work for me and things that look good to me.  And, you know, it just, it works.

TC:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  So you feel good about a 70 on this course, 1st round?

HY:  Yeah, I do.  Yeah.  Other than that one hole I feel like I played pretty solid today.  Yeah, I'm just going to keep doing, you know, taking it one shot at a time, take it slow....

TC:  Last question.  How is the heat affecting you?  Do you like the heat?

HY:  Oh, this is perfect!

TC:  This is perfect?  For you?  Oh my god!

HY:  This is perfect.  I love this!

TC:  That's awesome.  All right, well, thank you!

HY:  Thanks for following me!  Good to see you again.

TC:  Great to see you!