Call from President caps YE Yang’s title celebrations

Yang, who didn't even take up the sport until he was 19, started the final day two shots behind Tiger Woods but a nerveless round of 70 gave him an eight-under-par total — three ahead of the shattered world No1.

The 37-year-old became the first Asian to win a major and his triumph sparked wild celebrations back home.

Even South Korea President, Lee Myung-bak, watched the tournament live on TV. He later phoned Yang to offer his congratulations to the new champion.

"I woke up at dawn today to watch the broadcast, and you played in a calm manner," Lee told Yang, according to the president's office. "First of all, you enhanced our people's morale by winning the major title for the first time as an Asian."

Woods had never lost on the 14 previous occasions he had gone into the final round of a major as the leader and in the past nine years he had never been defeated in any tournament when leading by two shots after three rounds.

But Yang was not daunted by the challenge of trying to rewrite the record books and revealed how he coped with the pressure.

"I've sort of visualised this quite a few times, playing against the best player in the history of golf, playing with him in the final round in a major championship," said Yang, who rose from 110th to 34th in the rankings today. "I've always dreamed about this.

"Throughout Tiger's career a lot of players have folded on the last day when playing with him. So when I was at home or at tournaments watching Tiger in the clubhouse, I'd try to visualise and try to bring up a mock strategy on how to win, if I ever played against Tiger.

"When the chance came, I sort of thought hey, I could always play a good round of golf and Tiger could always have a bad day'. I guess this was one of those days."

Until now, South Korean women had enjoyed the greater success with seven players winning a total of 11 majors. But Woods was not surprised that Yang, his full first name is Yong-Eun but he goes by his initials, had made the biggest breakthrough.

He said: "If you look at him as a player overall, he's always been a wonderful ball-striker.

"In the final round he went out there and executed his game plan. He was driving the ball beautifully, hitting his irons in the correct spots.

"He didn't really make a lot of putts except for a couple of par putts here and there. But he did exactly what you have to do."

Yang's steady game was in stark contrast to Woods's final round, which saw one of the most effective weapons in his armoury, his laser-like putting stroke, break down.

Thirty-three putts gave him a final round of 75 but the American refused to blame his poor final showing on his long lay-off following a knee operation.

Woods said: "I played well enough to win. The frustrating thing is I didn't make any putts.

"I had a few misreads out there and I hit some bad putts. It was just a bad day at the wrong time — that's the way it goes."