London, England: Asia has a new world number one in the shape of ‘Kevin’ Yu Chun-an.
A fifth-year senior at Arizona State University (ASU), the 22-year-old Chinese Taipei native has overhauled American Davis Thompson at the summit of The R&A World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) for men.
Fittingly, the achievement came within days of watching his close friend and compatriot CT Pan make a brilliant debut at the Masters Tournament, finishing joint seventh at Augusta National.
Indeed, Pan has played an important role in Yu’s career development, dating back to 2014 when they were part of the Chinese Taipei line-up that struck team golfing gold at the Asian Games in South Korea. For good measure, Pan won the individual gold, while Yu claimed bronze.
It was Pan who encouraged Yu to follow the US college path he had taken.
“He’s kind of like me: he’s from Taiwan, he went to college, played the Canadian Tour. He definitely knows my situation and he’s just like a big brother to me. On the course, off the course, he’s a role model to me,” said Yu.
Like Pan, Yu has also been a contender at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship (AAC). While Pan’s best effort in the event was a runner-up finish at Thailand’s Amata Spring Country Club in 2012, Yu has two top-five finishes in the AAC to his credit – fourth in 2015 and equal fifth last year.
Despite a restricted schedule in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Yu has had a string of top-10s since winning last year’s ASU Thunderbird Invitational, including fifth place among the professionals in the Emirates Australian Open.
In September, he made his third consecutive US Open appearance as an amateur. Although he missed the cut in all three of those starts, he knows he’ll benefit from the experience.
“The key thing I learned is that you have to trust yourself. You are as good as, or hopefully even better – you have to trust yourself that you can be at that level,” he told PGATOUR.COM.
Playing alongside the world’s best in nothing new to Yu. When he won the 2015 Junior Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, the field included future PGA Tour winners Matthew Wolff, Viktor Hovland and Joaquin Niemann. Wolff was also in the field when Yu won the 2019 Australian Master of the Amateurs at Royal Melbourne.
Yu is tentatively planning on turning pro late next year and is already setting his sights on emulating Pan, Wolff, Hovland and Niemann by winning on the PGA Tour.
He said: “Seeing them win on the Tour, I’m really proud of them. To know that you beat them before, it gives yourself confidence that when you’re out there, you can beat them. Hopefully in one year I can be out there winning on the PGA Tour, too.”
