“Started Playing Worse,” Battling for Her Fourth Title, Lilia Vu Makes an Honest Confession About LPGA Tour’s Most Prestigious Award

With 20 birdies in this week alone, Lilia Vu is striding towards her fourth title win this season at the Annika Driven by Gainbridge at Pelican. A first-place finish will earn her 30 points to her tally of 166 and let her cruise past Celine Boutier’s 166 comfortably. Moreover, this will solidify her chances of winning the prestigious Rolex Player of the Year award.

Inevitably, after Moving Day, when she spoke to the media, the question of the Rolex Player of the Year award came up. Going to the final round, is winning the prestigious award circling in her mind? Well, she did give it a thought earlier, but then she “started playing worse.” So, how is she trying to counter the pressure?

Lilia Vu just wants to play well

Although the prospect of winning the Rolex Player of the Year Award is strong, Vu doesn’t want to give it much thought. The reason being, when she started thinking about it, she played worse. But it didn’t come to her mind until her second major victory this season at Walton Heath.

Before that, after missing cuts in four consecutive tournaments, her main concern was getting back to her A-game. “I think because I just didn’t do well at KPMG and the U.S. Open, and I was just kind of more worried about getting my game kind of good, back to good, not even like great.” But once she won the AIG Women’s Open, edging past Charley Hull in the playoff, the American star started thinking about it.

But that affected her performance, as the three-time LPGA Tour winner said, “Then [I] started thinking about it [and] started playing worse.” After her second major win, the LPGA Pro missed a top-ten spot in her next two tournaments. “So, now, I just try to play well,” admits Vu. At the tail end of the season, her goal is to strike the right balance. “It’s just balance,” she confessed to the media. It’s the same mantra that landed her the second major of her career.

She is playing more than ‘well’ at the Annika Driven by Gainbridge. Vu knocked off eight birdies in the third round and moved up eight spots on the leaderboard.

Vu recorded her lowest score of the season

The current World No. 2 notched an 8-under, 62 in the third round at the Pelican Golf Course, her best performance this year, surpassing the previous record of 64 that earned her first victory of this season at the Honda LPGA Thailand. Currently tied for the second spot with Amy Young, if she can win this tournament, she will tie Boutier as the only two players this season to have four titles on the bag.

Read More: Lilia Vu WITB September 2023: The Major Master Has a Great Tool Kit Against Her Solheim Cup Rivals

The French international is also topping the Race to CME Globe ahead of her. A victory at the Pelican will give her 500 points to narrow the deficit with Boutier to only 95 points ahead of the CME Group Tour Championship. But probably she has banished all these from her mind. Her only goal now is to “play well.”

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