Lee Hsin (李欣) won the third annual WPG Ladies Open, a NT$10 million TLPGA Tour top-tier event, on Saturday for her first professional title, breaking the tie with a 11-foot final-hole birdie. The win is worth NT$2 million.

Lee lifted her first TLPGA Tour winner’s trophy in 2018 at the YTS & SUNCITY Heritage Tour. But this week’s victory marked the first in an official 54-hole open tournament.

“It’s surreal,” Lee exclaimed. Her coach Huang Yu-Chen came to hug her the moment she sank the final birdie putt. “She congratulated me and said to my ear that, ‘you finally won!’ I had to hold my tears back.”

The 25-year-old Taiwanese, with an indigenous heritage, turned pro in 2014. Eight years passed, with Lee occupying the lead during a tournament on numerous occasions, and now she “finally won”.

“Today, I kept a positive mindset, made sure I executed my game plan, which is to put my focus on and around the greens and not to drop any shots, and I didn’t even feel nervous on that final putt. I just really trusted myself and went for that 11-footer. And it dropped in.”

“I want to thank my parents for always being so supportive, and my coach, Huang Yu-Chen, for believing in me through highs and lows in these eight years,” said Lee. “Also, I thank my team and my sponsors, Yerng Der, Hsin Chu Golf Club, V Plus and Kinosho.”

Lee, who started the round holding a two-shot advantage on 3-under remained steady throughout. While TLPGA Tour No.1 Wu Chia-Yen (吳佳晏), Shih Cheng-Hsuan (石澄璇), and Liang Yi-Ling (梁宜羚) all leveled it to 3-under, all three of them could only wait in the clubhouse for Lee to finish the 18th and hoping for a play-off chance. However, Lee comfortably sent the ball to 11 feet on her third shot, and eventually sealed the deal on the first attempt.

Wu, who won the first WPG Open in 2020, shot a final-round 69 that included five birdies and two bogeys, to rise back into equal-second at 213 with Shih and Liang, tying her 2021 performance.

Babe Liu (劉嬿) mounted a late surge with a back-nine 31 to close the event on 2-under 214 after a final-round 67, pulling her from T14 way up into solo fifth.

17-year-old Liao Hsin-Chun (廖信淳) won the low-amateur honor on 1-over 217, which put her in a tie for ninth on the scoreboard. She will be representing Team Chinese Taipei to compete in next week’s Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship held in Singapore.

WPG, an ESG-friendly, global-leading distributor of semiconductor components, leveraged its relations in the industry, pulling in six more sponsors into the event and increasing the purse from NT$6 million in 2021 to $10 million, more than doubled when it was first held in 2020 (NT$4.5 million).

With an even greater ambition, WPG Holdings CEO Chang R-G. announced in the prize ceremony that the WPG Ladies Open is expected to bring the purse up a notch again in 2023. WPG President Chen K-Y. felt proud that a world-class golf course such as the Sunrise Golf & Country Club, which was an LPGA Tour event venue, is giving their players an amazing setting and a challenging layout to sharpen their skills for. He aims to build the WPG Open into a mainstreamed four-round structure in the near future.