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Lilia Vu heads to Wilshire Country Club, this time as a major champion

April 26, 2023

HOLLYWOOD — During her star-studded career at UCLA, Lilia Vu spent a lot of time practicing and playing at Wilshire Country Club, site of this week’s JM Eagle LA Championship. But this week is the first time that the Fountain Valley native has played Wilshire as a major champion.

At last week’s Chevron Championship, played at Carlton Woods in Texas, Vu rallied from four shots behind on the final day to get into a playoff with fellow California native Angel Yin. Vu won the title with a birdie putt on the first extra hole, earning Vu her first major championship and elevating back to the rarified air she experienced during her time at UCLA.

Vu was the 2016 Pac-12 Freshman Golfer of the Year and was No.1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking for 31 weeks in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, she was named the WGCA Player of the Year and Pac-12 Conference Golfer of the Year. But once Vu turned professional her fortunes changed, missing all but one cut in her first season on the LPGA Tour and struggling to play the way everyone expected.

She spent the next two seasons on the Epson Tour and in 2021 she posted 10 top 10 finishes, including four wins, earning her way back on to the LPGA Tour in 2022 and since returning, she has looked and played like the player who dominated college golf.

In her return to the LPGA last season, Vu posted eight, top-10 finishes, including a tie for third at the BMW Ladies Championship and a 10th place finish at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Armed with renewed confidence, she opened this season by claiming her first LPGA title at the Honda LPGA Thailand and two months later she won the Chevron.

“It’s starting to feel real now, but waking up on Monday, it didn’t feel real,” Vu said during a media conference on Tuesday at Wilshire. “I felt like I was dreaming because I had a pretty tough weekend and I didn’t really feel like I was in the tournament until basically 17 and 18 happened, and then I was back in it again. I just couldn’t believe it, to be honest.”

When Vu landed at LAX on Monday afternoon, she went directly to a family celebration at her dad’s friend’s Vietnamese restaurant called Thanh My restaurant in Westminster where the newly crowned champion enjoyed some comfort food.

“It was really nice to be home for not even a day because I drove up this morning, but yeah, it’s very comforting,” Vu said. “I love home, and I just love California. It’s nice that we’re playing here this week in LA, not too far from home, so family and friends are going to be coming out, so that will also help me.”

And Vu loves Wilshire Country Club, a course she feels extremely attached to after spending so much time there while at UCLA.

“It’s nostalgia, and there’s really no golf course quite like Wilshire,” Vu said. “I don’t think you can really compare it to anything in my opinion because they’re just so different from the typical surrounding LA courses around here. It’s not easy. Putting is going to be difficult. I think it’s going to be difficult for everybody. It’s just another target golf course. You want to drive it well off the tee and you want to keep it below the pin. I think it’s going to be pretty difficult and fun, though.”

This is the fifth straight year that Wilshire Country Club has hosted the LPGA but it is the first time as the LA Championship, a new event on the schedule. It features one of the strongest fields of the 2023 LPGA Tour season including the four past champions at Wilshire. Players will be competing for a $3 million tournament purse, one of the largest prize funds on the LPGA Tour outside of major championships.

Vu is one of 13 players in the field this week who played their college golf at either UCLA or USC. UCLA Alumni are Vu, Bronte Law, Alison Lee, Ryann O’Toole, Patty Tavatanakit, and Mariajo Uribe. USC Alumni include Jennifer Chang, Allisen Corpuz, Muni He, Annie Park, Lizette Salas, Jennifer Song, and Gabriella Then.

Corpuz was tied for the lead heading into the final round at the Chevron but stumbled a bit and finished fourth. Like Vu, she is thrilled to be back in her native Southern California and to be playing a course she knows so well.

“We practiced here my first two years at USC,” Corpuz said. “The course has changed a little bit but overall the design is the same. It’s a beautiful course. I really like how it’s set up. I think it suits my eye really well. There have been so many Trojans this week that come and say, ‘Hi, fight on!’ I am in my own bed, and I’m like 10 minutes from the course, so it makes the commute easy. I had fun last year out here, and I’m excited to have another fun week.”

The tournament starts on Thursday, with the final round scheduled for Sunday.

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