Ryu dials down the stress and learns to win again

NEW YORK: A year after experiencing the double-edged sword of becoming world number one, Ryu So-yeon has learned to like herself again, she said as she prepared for this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship outside Chicago.

Ryu arrived at last year’s Women’s PGA as the newly-crowned number one, but the increased expectations she placed on herself ended up being a burden that the South Korean acknowledged she did not easily handle.

The decibel level of negative self-talk started to ramp up when she could not parlay her number one ranking into a tournament victory during the four months she spent in top spot.

“It would have been great to win a tournament as number one,” she told Reuters in a telephone interview on Tuesday ahead of Thursday’s first round at Kemper Lakes in Kildeer, Illinois.

Losing the top ranking only made things worse.

“I had high expectations of myself and when I was no longer number one I couldn’t accept it,” she said.

“I was so harsh on myself. I don’t think I really treated myself really well. I kept just pushing myself and pushing myself. I needed to give myself room to breathe.

“(I felt) so much stress. I never gave myself a compliment. (I was thinking) you’ve got to practise more, practise more.”

Ryu ended her nearly one-year victory drought on the LPGA Tour by winning the Meijer LPGA Classic nine days ago, and said her game remained in top shape heading into this week’s third major of the women’s season.

Ryu added that the Kemper Lakes course, which is wet after heavy pre-tournament rain, would pose some difficult challenges around the greens for those hitting errant approach shots.