Paris, France: Much has changed for Feng Shanshan over the last couple of years. The now 34-year-old retired from professional golf in 2022 and has been up to quite a bit since her playing days on the LPGA Tour.

She got involved with the Chinese National Team as a coach and is a brand ambassador for numerous companies. She travels the world as much as she can when the opportunity arises, spending some time in Tibet last summer.

Feng even got married, sharing the happy news on her Instagram page last August on Chinese Valentine’s Day. But maybe most significantly, the 2020 Olympic bronze medallist has recently become a mother.

Feng posted photos of her son on Instagram on April 19 that were taken at the little one’s full moon party, a Chinese tradition that celebrates a newborn after its first month of life.

Motherhood has been a new adventure for Feng, who admitted she hasn’t spent much time around children. And it has got her thinking about just how her former LPGA Tour counterparts handle being a mother and a professional athlete, a challenge that she can appreciate a little more now that she’s gone from hitting drivers to changing diapers.

“Three years ago, when I decided to retire, I did want to get on a diet and then lose some weight, and then look more pretty and be able to fit in more pretty clothing, and I wanted to find a boyfriend. He became my husband,” Feng said.

“I went from single to being married and from being married to being a mom in one or two years. I think everything happened in a good way, and I’m really happy right now, even though I’m still learning a lot of different stuff because it’s just brand new.”

Feng’s son won’t know his mother as a professional golfer – that is unless she decides to come out of retirement at some point – but the rest of the world could never forget her humour and spirit as Feng competed around the globe on the LPGA Tour.

Her cow-print pants were famous, and you never knew what the China native would say next in post-round interviews. But for all of her goofy antics and despite her bubbly, effervescent personality, Feng was a fierce competitor on the golf course.

She captured 10 LPGA Tour victories in her 15 years as an LPGA Tour member, one of which was a Major title: the 2012 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Locust Hill Country Club in Pittsford, New York.

Feng ascended to number one in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings after winning the Blue Bay LPGA in her home country in 2017, becoming the first player from China to accomplish the feat. It was a position she held for 23 weeks until April of the next year.

But it was her performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics that would wind up being the most significant of Feng’s career achievements, an event that solidified her place as one of women’s golf’s biggest stars and changed the trajectory of her life in the biggest of ways.

Feng took home the bronze medal at Rio, posting a four-day total of 10-under – one shot behind Lydia Ko, who took silver, and six behind Park In-bee, who claimed gold for Korea.

Feng said: “A lot of people ask me which one is more important: to win a Major or to win the Olympic Games. I always said: ‘Of course, the Olympic Games because it’s every four years. There’s only one Olympic Games’.

“Every year, we have five Majors, so in four years, we have 20 chances to win a Major, but only one Olympic Games. I always thought winning the Olympic Games, or even just to attempt the Olympic Games, would be the most important thing for me as a golfer. I was very lucky that I could play twice and also get a medal.

“To be involved with the Olympic Games was a dream come true … and I ended up standing on the podium, so that was even more amazing, even though the medal colour wasn’t gold. I said we were all gold medallists because the gold medal is the gold medal, and then the silver medal is the light gold medal, and then the bronze medal is actually the rose gold medal.”

Feng was unsure if she would qualify for the Olympics in Tokyo, having taken an extended leave of absence during the entirety of the 2020 LPGA Tour season due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

She returned to professional competition in 2021, ultimately playing well enough to earn a spot in the 60-player field in Japan, something that she postponed her impending retirement to do.

“I decided to play 2021 even though I was 31 already,” Feng said. “I knew I was going down. I wasn’t at the peak of my career, but I was still the top-ranked Chinese golfer. I thought that I still had a responsibility to play the Olympic Games. Because I got the bronze medal in Rio, I wanted to try to get a gold medal before I retired, so I decided to play in the Tokyo Olympics.

“That was my goal. Even though the result didn’t come out how I wanted, I still gave 100 per cent and didn’t feel regret.”

At this week’s Paris Olympics, China is being represented by Lin Xiyu and Yin Ruoning, two LPGA Tour athletes who followed in Feng’s footsteps, just as she had hoped young players would after her KPMG victory.

Lin is a standout competitor on Tour, amassing 29 top 10s and making US$5,643,448 in career earnings since joining the organisation in 2014. She represented China alongside Feng at both the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, finishing in a tie for ninth in the latter.

Yin became a Rolex First-Time Winner at the 2023 DIO Implant LA Open, joining Feng as just the second Chinese player to win on the LPGA Tour. She once again joined Feng’s esteemed company at the 2023 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, capturing her first Major title at Baltusrol Golf Club’s Lower Course, fittingly the same Major that Feng herself won over a decade earlier.

Yin ascended to number one in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings last September, a position she held for four weeks. The 21-year-old also became a three-time LPGA Tour champion at this year’s Dow Championship, winning alongside her playing partner and fellow 2022 LPGA Tour rookie Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.

Yin and Lin lead a contingency of excellent players from China who are currently LPGA Tour members. While Feng can’t take credit for the individual success of every Chinese female professional golfer, she was the catalyst that ignited that spark of inspiration, her goal right from the start of her career.

“I was the first Chinese golfer to stand on the podium,” said Feng. “After I got the medal, of course, I would like more people to see how good Chinese golfers can be, and hopefully, more people will start to join the sport. That happened after 2016. We could see so many more junior golfers starting to play golf in China. I was very happy about it.”

Feng will get to watch the future she helped create when the women’s competition gets under way at Le Golf National today.

“I would really wish that they could complete my dream that I wanted to get a gold medal,” said Feng. “Now, I don’t have a chance anymore. But I believe that Chinese players will achieve that in the future.”

*This article by Sarah Kellam first appeared on the International Golf Federation website at