Skip to content

Tseng reveals Rory inspiration

Image: Yani Tseng: Looking to claim her third successive Women's British Open title this weekend

World number one Yani Tseng believes she can make yet more history at Royal Liverpool Golf Club this week.

Latest Golf Stories

World number one determined to rediscover best form at Hoylake

World number one Yani Tseng believes she can make yet more history at Royal Liverpool Golf Club this week and will use in-form Rory McIlroy as her inspiration. The 23-year-old from Taiwan, the youngest player of either gender to win five majors, is bidding for an unprecedented third successive Ricoh Women's British Open title this weekend. She does so over the same course where Tiger Woods won the 2006 Open, but while she has been studying video of that week, it is McIlroy's three wins in the past month that have really attracted her attention. The Ulsterman went through a summer slump before capturing the final major of the season and now Tseng aims to follow the same path. "I think Rory is very good for me to look at," said Tseng, who has missed the halfway cut in three of her last five starts. "He was a little down, but after he won the PGA Championship he won another two. "So I'm like 'okay, it's my turn to win again'. "I watched his interviews and he was saying he loves this game and there's nothing that can get him too stressful because this is his dream. "I feel like I'm living the dream too. I'm very hard on myself this year and I'm never like that before, so now I want to get back and enjoy the game again and smile on the golf course as I used to do. "This week my goal is just to have fun and show my smile to the fans out here." Her mood over the coming days might be tested given the wind, rain and even hailstorm the 156 players have already had to contend with in practice. But Tseng continued: "A smile can make the weather better, I think. "This is England - you expect the weather like this - and I really like playing in these conditions.

Ready to rock

"I'm ready to rock. I'm just excited - I just really need to get that confidence back that when I'm out on the golf course I'm the best." Tseng admits she was hurt by reading criticising of her recent performances, adding: "I'm a personality that really cares what people talk about me. "I should not look - it's all negative things and sometimes it really breaks my heart. "Maybe they really don't know how tough golf is. It's hard to always be on top. "I feel like I'm learning a lot and I feel if I can win again it will probably be my best trophy ever." Tseng met Woods for the first time at a charity event recently, but forgot to ask him about Royal Liverpool. "I was just so excited I forgot everything else, so I didn't get any tips, but I know it's going to play like a totally different golf course," she said. For Woods the links were bone dry and he used his driver only once all week, while Tseng has put a three-iron in her bag for the first time since her amateur days in order to keep the ball low in the wind. Although Tseng has not added to her major tally so far this year, all three have nevertheless gone to Asian players. South Koreans Sun Young Yoo and Na Yeon Choi won the Kraft Nabisco and US Women's Open respectively and China's Shanshan Feng the LPGA Championship. The retired Annika Sorenstam is the only woman to win any of the majors three years in a row, while in the past 100 years the only men to do it were Walter Hagen - four successive PGA crowns back in the 1920s - and Peter Thomson at The Open between 1954 and 1956.

Around Sky