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Opinion
Jenny Shin's Women's Scottish Open victory after a closing 75 tells us more about the failures of golf's biggest names than it does about the winner herself.
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Let me say something nobody in the congratulatory chorus seems willing to say. Jenny Shin did not win the Women's Scottish Open. Everyone else lost it.
A closing 75 - three over par - with bogeys on the final two holes is not a triumph. It is a survival act. And the fact that it was enough to win by two tells you everything about the state of the chasing pack this week in Scotland.
Shin's decade-long drought on the LPGA Tour has been well documented. Ten years without a title is brutal. The mental toll is real, and I would never question her resilience. But resilience and excellence are different things.
She built a big enough cushion early in the week that she could afford to wobble home on Sunday. Good for her. Genuinely. But let us not pretend this was a masterclass. She limped across the line while everyone behind her tripped over their own feet.
This is the part that should genuinely alarm women's golf heading into a major week. Nelly Korda - the world number one - finished tied 15th at two over. A closing 69 papered over an otherwise anonymous week. Charley Hull, playing on home soil, came in tied 44th at ten over. Defending champion Lottie Woad was tied 37th.
These are supposed to be the standard-bearers. The players casual fans tune in to watch. And they were nowhere near the lead.
Miyu Yamashita, the reigning Women's Open champion, tied for fifth. Respectable. But five shots adrift of a winner who posted 75 on Sunday is not exactly a statement of intent either.
Yes, links golf is volatile. Scottish weather punishes everyone eventually. Closing rounds in Scotland can be brutal, and a two-shot winning margin is a winning margin regardless of how it looks on the card. Shin played 72 holes better than everyone else. That is the only maths that matters.
Fine. I accept that. But golf is a sport of narrative as much as numbers, and the narrative here is weakness at the top, not strength from the champion.
The Women's Scottish Open exists partly as a major tune-up. If the best players in the world are using it to find form, most of them failed spectacularly. Korda needs to find another gear. Hull needs to find any gear at all. Woad looked a shadow of last year's champion.
Shin's victory is a lovely personal story. A ten-year wait ended. Nobody can take that from her. But if we are being honest - properly, uncomfortably honest - this was a tournament defined by collective mediocrity rather than individual brilliance.
The Women's Open deserves better. So does Shin, frankly. She deserved to win with a birdie, not a bogey-bogey stumble that happened to be enough.
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Copyright 2026 VIASPORT
Eva Hernández, Editor-in-Chief
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