CHASKA, Minn. — Ina Yoon has been nearly invincible this week. Her nine-under 63 on Thursday posted the lowest score in the history of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. On Friday, she took the field and made four more front nine birdies for a 69.
She finally came back down to earth on Saturday (six bogeys to three birdies to shoot 75), but she’s still in great position with 18 holes remaining in the third major of the LPGA season – and one major round away from capturing her first major championship.
Pressure? She said she felt it on Saturday. Though Yoon’s path to this point is unlike any of her peers.
Four years ago, Yoon, now a 23-year-old South Korean professional, was suspended from the Korea Golf Association and the KLPGA over a cheating scandal.
There were few details about the suspension, although Golf Week Beth Ann Nichols interviewed Yoon through a translator earlier this year and learned more. As a 19-year-old rookie playing in the first round of the 2022 Korean Women’s Open, Yoon missed the fairway and was helped by her playing partners to find the ball. She played it only to realize on the grass that it was the wrong ball, but she didn’t tell anyone about it.
“I wasn’t sure what to do because this had never happened to me, so I was a little exhausted,” Yoon said. golf week. “My caddy said to hit it. I shouldn’t have listened, but I did. I should have called it out right away, but I was really nervous and scared about it. I missed and thought I’d be fine. People around me told me it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, so I listened.”
A month later, at another tournament – the Evercollagen Queens Crown KLPGA, which she eventually won – Yoon was accused of violating the rules and admitted it a day later.
The KLPGA’s Remuneration and Punishment Sub-Committee took immediate action, suspending her for three years. The committee said in a statement: “We will continue to respond strictly to such incidents.”
Yun told golf week that although she did not break the rules with “malice” she accepted the ban as her mistake.
Thanks to appeals, the ban was eventually cut in half to 18 months. During her suspension, Yoon moved to Tampa, Florida, played as the only woman on the Little League golf tour and donated all of her winnings to junior golf programs.
She returned to the KLPGA in 2024 and received LPGA membership for 2025 through the LPGA Q-Series.
Last year as a freshman, she made 18 of 26 cuts and had one top-10 finish, but this season she’s taken it one step further. She missed just one run in 11 starts and had four top-10 finishes, and even threatened to win the season’s first major, the Chevron Championship, before tying for fourth place.
Now she has the next best chance to win a major title. She led the KPMG Women’s PGA after the first and second rounds, but after turning 75 on Saturday she is now nine years younger in third place. Haeran Ryu leads at 11-under and Brooke Henderson is second at 10-under. Alison Lee and Nelly Korda are tied at seven under and four off the lead.