{"id":765205,"date":"2026-06-28T06:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765205\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T06:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:16:09","slug":"pro-previously-suspended-for-cheating-in-contention-at-kpmg-womens-pga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765205\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro previously suspended for cheating in contention at KPMG Women’s PGA"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHASKA, Minn. \u2014\u00a0Ina Yoon has been nearly indestructible this week. Her nine-under 63 on Thursday matched the lowest score in the history of the KPMG Women\u2019s PGA Championship<\/a>. She came out on Friday and made four more front-nine birdies and shot 69.<\/p>\n

She finally came back down to Earth on Saturday (six bogeys to three birdies to shoot 75), but she\u2019s still in prime position with 18 holes remaining in the LPGA\u2019s third major of the season \u2014\u00a0and one great round away from claiming her first major championship.<\/p>\n

Pressure? She said she felt it on Saturday. Although Yoon\u2019s path to this point is unlike that of any of her peers.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, Yoon, now a 23-year-old South Korean pro, was suspended from the Korean Golf Association and KLPGA for a cheating scandal.<\/p>\n

There had been few details about the suspension, although Golfweek\u2019s Beth Ann Nichols interviewed<\/a> Yoon via an interpreter earlier this year and learned more. As a 19-year-old rookie playing in the first round of the 2022 Korea Women\u2019s Open, Yoon\u2019s drive missed a fairway, and her playing partners helped her find her ball. She played it, only to realize at the green that it was the wrong ball, but she never told anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure what to do because this had never happened to me, so I was a bit frazzled,\u201d Yoon told Golfweek<\/a>. \u201cMy caddie said to hit it. I shouldn\u2019t have listened, but I did. I should have reported it right away, but I was really nervous and scared about that. I missed the cut, and I thought it would be OK. The people around me told me that it shouldn\u2019t be too much of an issue, so I listened.\u201d<\/p>\n

A month later at a different tournament \u2014 the KLPGA\u2019s Evercollagen Queens Crown, which she eventually won \u2014\u00a0Yoon was accused of the rules violation and admitted to it a day later.<\/p>\n

The KLPGA\u2019s Reward and Punishment Subcommittee took swift action, suspending her for three years. In a statement, the committee said, \u201cWe will continue to deal sternly with similar incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yoon told Golfweek that while she didn\u2019t break the rules with \u201cmalicious intent,\u201d she accepted the ban for her mistake.<\/p>\n

Through appeals, the ban was eventually cut in half to 18 months. During the suspension, Yoon moved to Tampa, Fla., played as the only woman on the Minor League Golf Tour, and donated all of her winnings<\/a> to junior golf programs.<\/p>\n

She returned to the KLPGA in 2024 and earned her LPGA membership for 2025 via the LPGA Q-Series.<\/p>\n

Last year, as a rookie, she made 18 of 26 cuts with one top-10 finish, but she\u2019s taken another step this season. She\u2019s missed just one cut in 11 starts and recorded four top-10 finishes, and she even threatened to win the first major of the season, the Chevron Championship, before tying for fourth.<\/p>\n

Now she has her next best chance at a major title. She led the KPMG Women\u2019s PGA after the first and second rounds, but after her 75 on Saturday, she\u2019s now nine under and in third place. Haeran Ryu leads at 11 under, with Brooke Henderson in second place at 10 under. Alison Lee and Nelly Korda are both tied at seven under, four off the lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHASKA, Minn. \u2014\u00a0Ina Yoon has been nearly indestructible this week. Her nine-under 63 on Thursday matched the lowest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-765205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}