Urgent phone call turned around my career, golfer Tiffany Chan says
- Said to have been close to quitting only months ago, the Hongkonger reunited with old coach Ian Godleman and flew to Australia to rebuild her game
- ‘I think she’s got four to five years now to probably achieve everything she wants to,’ Godleman says after Chan’s improved showing at Aramco event in Hong Kong
Away from the soggy headlines announcing the premature end of the Aramco Team Series’ stop in Hong Kong, and Janet Lin Xiyu’s monster putt to win a two-hole play-off, Tiffany Chan Tsz-ching was quietly going about her best finish in months.
The Hongkonger has struggled for the past two years on the LPGA Tour, and said at times she had been “feeling very helpless out there”, with missed or barely made cuts the rule not the exception.
According to several of those close to her, things had become so bad on and off the course that Chan was on the verge of quitting the game entirely just six months ago.
An information overload from numerous coaches and well-meaning others during Covid had ruined her swing, and the day-to-day life of a tour professional was taking its toll.
“It’s tough to be a tour pro,” Chan said. “I think a lot of people from Hong Kong don’t understand that, or even from all over the world. You see Full Swing on Netflix and it’s a little bit different from what normal people do.
“Travelling by myself, when you’re not playing well, it’s just very draining, but family in Hong Kong, that’s why I can keep going, keep lasting.”
An event on her home course in Fanling came at the right time, and Chan’s four-under-par finish in the storm-shortened tournament left the city’s first and only LPGA member tied for eighth alongside world No 1 Lilia Vu and Leonie Harm.
The return to form has coincided with the renewal of her partnership with coach Ian Godleman, which before Covid finally intervened had her finishing in a tie for eighth at the 2021 LA Open.
Her best result since then was a tie for fourth in the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, a team event, in July last year.
“I’m really glad that we’re back working together,” Chan said. “I gave him a phone call and told him I urgently needed help, I was feeling very helpless out there.
“We’ve worked really hard [on my game], and slowly seeing the scores more consistent, the results are getting better. It’s not the best yet, but I’m sure it’s going to come back.”
Chan was at home in Las Vegas when she made the call to her old coach in May. The next day, she got on a plane to Australia for a week, which turned into three weeks of intensive work on everything “for nine hours a day, for 21 days”.
“That showed me that she was really committed to getting back to where she was three years ago,” Godleman said. “She’d gone through a really tough two years and this was really the last throw of the dice.”
According to Godleman, the pair had a “really, really strong heart-to-heart” in Australia about her confidence and her game, during which Chan admitted how far she had dropped.
Since May, the Hongkonger has changed her swing, her chipping, her putting, in fact every facet of her game, and the coach believes the 30-year-old is ready to start challenging on tour.
“She is so close now,” Godleman said. “It was no surprise how well she did at the Aramco event, she looked good out there.
“She’s stronger and fitter than she’s ever been, she’s making better decisions on the golf course. I think she’s got four to five years now to probably achieve everything she wants to out there.
“I still don’t think we’ve seen the best of Tiffany. I’m convinced in the next two years you’re going to see her play her best golf.”
