Since the TLPGA Tour was founded in 2001, women’s golf in Taiwan is at the epicenter of growth within the sports spectrum. The developmental TLPGA Heritage Tour, especially, gave more than 9,000 young hopes, male or female, a chance to prove and improve themselves swinging alongside the country’s best in over 90 Heritage Tour tournaments.

The Heritage Tour features a special format in which the pros and amateur players are paired in the same group so the young ones can closely interact with the elites and pick up valuable learning experience. The system has nurtured the likes of LPGA Tour champions Yani Tseng (曾雅妮), Hsu Wei-Ling (徐薇淩), and Olympic medalist C.T. Pan (潘政琮), inspiring a whole new generation that is now making its mark on the TLPGA Tour as well as on the global scene such as Chen Yu-Ju (陳宇茹), Hung Jo-Hua (洪若華), An Ho-Yu (安禾佑) and more.

However, with the Heritage Tour serving more as a subsidiary, closed circuit to the TLPGA Tour, the fact that it just garners less media attention and hence less sponsorship appeal has seen the number of the high-tier Open-level tournaments increase while the Heritage Tour events in decline.

The worries are growing in the heart of TLPGA chairwoman Liu Yi-Chen, a former Japan LPGA Tour professional. “The Heritage Tour is an important stepping stone, for those talented young players who aspire to have their place on the sport’s top level. I feel the responsibility to keep the torch lit,” said Liu, who pitched the idea of hosting a new Heritage Tour event to her students at the iGolf Academy and Yi Chen Fan Club, and was surrounded with passionate support beyond her imagination!

In 2020, when the YICHEN event was ready to launch, Liu, supporters, and sponsors decided to elevate it to Futures-tier (YICHEN Future Open) with a higher NT$1.5 million purse, in light of the difficult Covid-19 situations as many tournaments were cancelled. Starting from 2022, the event went back as the original plan as a Heritage Tour addition, featuring the pro-junior format and a NT$600,000 total prize.

The fifth YICHEN Heritage Tour will return in action this week at the Lily Golf and Country Club , which played host to 59 pro elites, 31 top junior and amateur players, as well as 6 TLPGA Member Qualification Test participants, as the TLPGA Tour professionals vie for a NT$71,000 top prize through a 2-day competition.