CHASKA, Minn. – Ina Yoon has been nearly invincible this week. Her nine-under 63 on Thursday matched the lowest score in her history The KPMG PGA Women’s Championship. She went out on Friday and made four more first birdies and shot 69.
She finally came back down to Earth on Saturday (six bogeys in three birdies to shoot 75), but she’s still in the lead with 18 holes remaining in the third major of the LPGA season — and a remarkable round away from claiming her first major championship.
The pressure? She said she felt it Saturday. Although Yoon’s path to this point is different from that of any of her peers.
Four years ago, Yoon, now a 23-year-old South Korean professional, was suspended by the Korea Golf Association and the KLPGA for a cheating scandal.
However, there were few details about the suspension Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols interviewed Yoon through an interpreter earlier this year and learned more. As a 19-year-old rookie playing in the first round of the 2022 Women’s Korea Open, Yoon missed a fairway and her playing partners helped her find her ball. She played it, only to realize on the green that it was the wrong ball, but didn’t tell anyone.
“I wasn’t sure what to do because this had never happened to me, so I was a little numb,” Yoon said. Golf week. “My caddy said to hit it. I shouldn’t have listened, but I did. I should have reported it right away, but I was really nervous and scared about it. I missed the cut and thought it would be OK. People around me said it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, so I listened.”
A month later at another tournament — the KLPGA’s Evercollagen Queens Crown, which she eventually won — Yoon was charged with a rules violation and admitted it a day later.
The KLPGA’s Reward and Punishment Subcommittee took swift action, suspending him for three years. In a statement, the committee said: “We will continue to deal strongly with similar incidents.”
Yoon said Golf week that while she did not break the rules with “malicious intent,” she accepted the ban for her mistake.
Through appeals, the ban was eventually cut in half to 18 months. During the suspension, Yoon moved to Tampa, Fla., playing as the only woman on the Minor League Golf Tour and donated all her earnings for junior golf programs.
She returned to the KLPGA in 2024 and earned her LPGA membership for 2025 through the LPGA Q-Series.
Last year, as a freshman, she made 18 of 26 cuts with a top-10 finish, but she has taken another step this season. She has missed just one cut in 11 starts and recorded four top-10 finishes, and she even threatened to win her first title of the season, the Chevron Championship, before settling for fourth.
Now she has her best shot at a major title. She led the KPMG Women’s PGA after the first and second rounds, but after her 75 on Saturday, she is now nine under and in third place. Haeran Ryu leads at 11 under, with Brooke Henderson in second place at 10 under. Alison Lee and Nelly Korda are both tied at seven under, four off the lead.
