#360view: Feng should show more desire

Joy Chakravarty 23:42 12/12/2015
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  • Aim higher: Shanshan Feng.

    The most stunning four-round performance ever seen on Majlis course was when Thomas Bjorn put together a 22-under par effort in winning the 2002 Dubai Desert Classic.

    Well…that can surely happen when a certain Tiger Woods is chasing you and he is on your tail for most part of the tournament. It’s easier to run when someone is either trying to hunt you down, or is running with you.

    Which is why Shanshan Feng’s effort this week of shooting 21-under par is  awe-inspiring. She was out their all alone, with not a single rival pushing her and yet she kept up the motivation and kept going for one birdie after another.

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    Majlis wasn’t playing easy. There was a steady breeze blowing on each of the last three days which made scoring difficult. But nothing mattered to Feng as she played as if in a zone.

    Here are the bare stats of her dominance – just two bogeys in 72 holes, an average of 15 greens hit in regulation each day, not a single three-putt, 28 putts average each round and a winning margin of record 12 shots. These are sensational numbers indeed.

    There are a few things about Feng worth emulating.

    It was remarkable how rigid the Chinese world No6 was in following her game plan. There are four par-5s at Majlis course, and except for the 10th hole, the other three can be reached in two depending on the tee position.

    On all four days, and on all four holes, she was content in laying up with her second shot, and then hit a wedge in. It resulted in only six birdies for her on the par-5s, but she was happy with it.

    Feng seems to have mastered the art of keeping her own expectations down, and also of not letting pressure get on to her.

    By her own admission, she did not watch the leaderboard even once, until reaching the 18th green. And throughout the duration of the event, she kept insisting that her only goal was only to finish inside the top-five.

    And yet, while lowering her own expectations may be helping her win now, it might not be such a good idea if she wants to win majors and advance in the world rankings.

    For someone with her quality and consistency, she has been hovering around the world No5 mark for quite some time now. She must step up and challenge the likes of Lydia Ko and Inbee Park on a regular basis.

    The 2012 LPGA Championship winner did not win a single tournament in America in 2015, which seems like a rather ridiculous notion on the basis of her dominant performance this week. Feng must find out what is stopping her from winning on the LPGA Tour.

    She is a very happy-go-lucky character and there is a possibility that she is not being hungry enough. Even when asked earlier in the week about her ambitions of becoming the world No1, she dodged the question by saying players like Ko, Park and Stacy Lewis were far too consistent.

    What Feng now needs to do is use this win as a springboard to do better in her LPGA Tour season in 2016. Perhaps she can start by realising that dreaming of becoming the best player in the world is not such a bad thing after all.

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