The 21-year-old Shanghai Chongming girl became the third person in history. The Chinese golf team announced the Olympic roster
The China Golf Association announced the list of athletes participating in the Paris Olympics on the 26th. The male athletes are Yuan Yechun and Dou Zecheng, and the female athletes are Yin Ruoning and Lin Xiyu. Among them, Yin Ruoning, a 21-year-old girl from Chongming, Shanghai, ranked fourth in the world, will compete in the Olympic five-ring arena for the first time, becoming the third Chinese mainland female Olympic golfer after Feng Shanshan and Lin Xiyu.
The Paris Olympics will be Yin Ruoning's first Olympic experience. This "post-00" player has performed well in recent years and ranks fourth in the latest world rankings. She had a burst of form last year and once topped the world rankings. She is the second world No. 1 female golfer of the China Golf Association after Feng Shanshan, who won the bronze medal at the Rio Olympics. In this Olympics, she will make a push for a medal. Lin Xiyu will be participating in the Olympic Games for the third time. She once created the first hole-in-one in the history of women's golf in the Rio Olympics and is currently ranked 15th in the world.
Some time ago, Yin Ruoning also participated in the LPGA Grand Slam event in the United States - the U.S. Women's PGA Championship. Before each U.S. Masters Tournament, the "Champions Dinner" hosted by the previous champion and inviting all the previous champions is well known to the world.
The host of the 2024 Women's PGA Championship "Champions Dinner" is none other than the familiar "China's New No. 1" - Yin Ruoning. A year ago, Yin Ruoning played well at the Baltusrol Golf Course in New Jersey, relying on the key uphill birdie on the last hole to stand out from the melee of more than a dozen people competing for the championship, becoming the "second Grand Slam champion" in the history of mainland China and winning her second LPGA championship trophy.
In the new season of 2024, Yin Ruoning's performance was slightly up and down due to a hand injury. A month ago, she retired from the Mizuho American Open for the first time in two years since joining the LPGA due to injury. However, in the last two games that completed four rounds, the performance of the Chinese No. 1 sister was quite outstanding. In this year's US Women's PGA Championship, Chinese player Yin Ruoning caught two consecutive birdies at the beginning, but swallowed four bogeys in the middle. She caught a birdie again on the last hole and shot 73 strokes. The four-round score was 292 strokes, 4 strokes above par, tied for 24th place.
Chinese player Yin Ruoning greets the audience before the start of the game on March 7. On the same day, the 2024 LPGA Blue Bay Masters started in Lingshui Li Autonomous County, Hainan Province.
When Shanshan Feng won the LPGA Championship, the predecessor of the Women's PGA Championship, in 2012, she only won $375,000 of the $2.5 million total prize money. However, last year, the total prize money of the tournament reached $10 million for the first time, and Yin Ruoning's championship check was as high as $1.5 million - four times that of Shanshan Feng that year.
The good income from the competition allowed Yin Ruoning to get rid of the life of renting a house in a foreign country. Just two weeks before this week's title defense, she owned her first property in the United States - she bought a house in Dallas.
On June 25, 2023, Yin Ruoning celebrated with the trophy in hand.
On the same day, the 2023 PGA Women's Golf Championship held in New Jersey, USA came to an end, and Chinese player Yin Ruoning won the championship.
Dallas is located in Texas in the central United States. Chinese players such as Dou Zecheng and Zhang Xinjun have chosen to settle here during their careers in the United States. "It's just for the convenience of travel. Dallas is located in a central location with convenient transportation. There are also direct flights to Shanghai, so it's great and will make my life more comfortable," Yin Ruoning explained.
Regarding her first Olympic Games, Yin Ruoning said that this was her dream since she was a child. "I feel like I can't express my feelings in words. After all, participating in the Olympics and representing China has always been my dream." She said, "I remember the 2008 Olympics was held in Beijing. I watched the Olympics on TV at the time and was particularly impressed by the 100-meter sprint and other events. I was thinking at the time that it would be cool if I could represent my country one day. I am very happy that I can realize this dream this year."
On October 1, 2023, Chinese team players Liu Yu, Lin Xiyu and Yin Ruoning were at the award ceremony.
On the same day, the women's team final of the Hangzhou Asian Games golf event was held at the Hangzhou West Lake International Golf Course. The Thai team won the championship, and the Korean team and the Chinese team won the second and third place respectively.
For men, Yuan Yechun will compete in the Olympics again after the Tokyo Olympics. This year, he has achieved good results. Through his outstanding performance in the Sony Open in Hawaii and other competitions, his world ranking has risen to 155th, and he has successfully obtained an Olympic ticket. Dou Zecheng will be participating in the Olympics for the first time; in order to qualify for the Paris Olympics, he has actively participated in competitions in recent months to obtain enough points, and finally achieved his wish.
There are 60 golfers in the Paris Olympics, both men and women. In terms of the number of participants and ranking, the American men's team still maintains its dominance as a traditional strong team, and is the only team with four players qualified. The world's No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and last year's Olympic champion Xander Schauffele will compete together. In the women's category, the American team and the South Korean team each have three players qualified, failing to continue the situation of both teams having four players in the Tokyo Olympics.
The golf event at the Paris Olympics will feature two gold medals for men and women, with four rounds of 18-hole stroke play to be held at the French National Golf Course.
