Lilia Vu is only 25, but already she has lived two different lives on the LPGA. There was Lilia Vu the rookie, who stepped out in 2019 after a decorated career at UCLA and fell flat, making just one cut in her nine starts. That sent her back to the Epson Tour to find her way back.
She would. In 2021, she won three times, notching 10 top-10 finishes, and led The Race for the Card to get a second shot at the LPGA. And now she’s a completely different player. At 25, she already has won twice this season, including the year’s first major, the Chevron Championship.
What led to her being a different player?
“Maturity. Growth. I feel like I put a lot of my self-worth into my golf game, and that's really not the way to do it out here, because I'm more than just my golf game,” Vu said. “I really had to learn that the hard way. I don't take it for granted; I needed to go through that rough patch in order to get where I am today, so I appreciate that, too.”
One good byproduct of all the time that Vu had off during COVID was that it gave Vu some time to think and reflect, and do a deep dive on where she was and what she was doing with her career. She decided she needed to make sure golf was fun again.
“I could get that tatted on my forehead, because I say that all the time, but my best golf comes from having fun on the golf course.”
