Mighty Sampson Set for Success in Pro Ranks

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: China’s Sampson Zheng Yunhe will take the plunge into the professional ranks on PGA Tour Americas this week with a clear mission and dream to play his way onto the PGA Tour and win the famous green jacket at the Masters Tournament.

The 22-year-old Zheng recently graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and finished 14th on PGA Tour University, a programme designed to identify the best college golfers in the United States, providing them with a career pathway via the Tours, operated under the PGA Tour umbrella.

“I plan to turn professional at my first event on PGA Tour Americas,” said Zheng, who is in the field at The Beachlands Victoria Open presented by Times Colonist which starts at Uplands Golf Club in Canada tomorrow.

“My golf dream is to win the Masters. When I was 15 years old. I received a questionnaire for junior golfers including one about the dream. I filled in ‘Winning the Masters’, and since then it has never changed.

“The PGA Tour has always been my objective, my long-time desire. I’ve watched the PGA Tour all the time from a young age.”

Over the past two years, Zheng has emerged as one of the leading players in collegiate golf, winning once and posting 12 other top-10s while representing UC Berkeley in the US. He reached a high of 14th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.

At last year’s Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship (AAC) at Royal Melbourne, Zheng finished joint runner-up with Ding Wenyi, the Chinese duo being edged out in a sudden-death play-off by Australian Jasper Stubbs.

Zheng was also a stalwart of the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC) team that defeated the European Golf Association in the Ryder Cup-style Bonallack Trophy in Spain last August.

Zheng is the seventh member of that triumphant APGC team to have turned pro following Koreans Jang Yu-bin and Cho Woo-young, Japan’s Yuta Suguira, Australians Harrison Crowe and Jack Buchanan and Malaysian Malcolm Ting.

As a child, Zheng learned to play golf while growing up in Japan where his family resided for several years. He subsequently made his way onto US soil to advance his sporting ambition. He then earned a place at UC Berkeley where he graduated with an economics degree.

“I’m getting ready to start my career on PGA Tour Americas. I feel ready in some areas and needing to learn in other parts. Compared with PGA Tour players, my technical and mental strengths are not to my advantage yet, but I think I always have a clear goal when it comes to course strategy,” said Zheng, who idolises Tiger Woods, Max Homa and Collin Morikawa.

He believes the formative years spent sharpening his golf skills and competing alongside the best collegiate golfers have prepared him for his next phase of life as a professional golfer. Currently, Carl Yuan Yechun is the lone mainland Chinese golfer who holds a PGA Tour card, with Marty Dou Zecheng having limited status.

“I played in the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) and have one lasting memory of an event in Lake Mary, Florida where I wasn’t qualified. But someone withdrew and I got in and finished third. That really propelled my career.

“In the AJGA two months after, I played poorly in my practice round and I wasn’t very confident, but I shot 65 the first day and ended up winning the event. From then on, many doors opened for me. I think playing AJGA really helped with my mental strength,” said Zheng, whose parents hail from Tianjin.

“When I was at UC Berkeley, the golf courses that my college team played on were always challenging ones. But it helped me as those courses are somewhat similar to PGA Tour courses.

“Playing golf in college really helped improve my time management, too, and I always remember my coach saying: ‘You'll never be good if everything is handed to you.’ I think we endure difficulties and challenges to reach a higher level, and to be a better self.”

Zheng tried his hand at swimming and table tennis when he was young but got hooked to golf. He hopes his decision to pursue the game as a profession will help him emulate the likes of Yuan and Dou by qualifying for the PGA Tour, and subsequently becoming the first mainland Chinese winner on Tour.

“I started playing golf in Japan when I was nine years old. While it’s hard, golf is a good choice. It challenges you, for sure. I joined a summer camp in the US when I was 10, and I liked it. I then told my mom that I wanted to take golf as my sport or even as my future career, and I wanted to go to America. The next year, I came to the US.”

The Beachlands Victoria Open presented by Times Colonist is the first tournament of the North America Swing, and the seventh event in the inaugural season of PGA Tour Americas.

The 10-event North America Swing, comprised of nine events in Canada and one in the United States, opens this week (June 20-23) at Uplands Golf Club in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

The season-long race for the Fortinet Cup will continue with the top-10 players earning 2025 Korn Ferry Tour membership at the end of the season.