GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT | Golf was
not a whole lot of fun for Andrew Yun last
summer. To be sure, the season began
pretty well for the Stanford University
student, who had just completed his fresh-
man year. “But I started getting frustrated
with myself, and my game suffered,” he
says. “I didn’t have any problems when I
played well. But I let every little thing get
to me when I didn’t.”
Things came to a head when the
20-year-old Tacoma, Wash., native tried to
qualify for last year’s U.S. Amateur, which
was taking place at Chambers Bay, just
down the road from his hometown.
“I really wanted to make it, so I could
compete in front of my friends and family,
but I didn’t play well all day,” he recalls.
“Still, I only needed a birdie on the last
hole to get in. But I got a bad break and
made triple (bogey) instead. I thought a lot
about it afterwards and realized I needed
to change my mental approach. I needed
to be better emotionally and spiritually
balanced. I needed to always be positive
no matter how I was playing if I wanted to
play at the highest possible level.”
Yun says it all came down to chang-
ing his attitude, and that has led to real
changes in results. In fact, the future
sociology major has gone from being just
another player on the strong Stanford
squad to one of the best college players
in the country, winning his first intercol-
legiate event (Prestige at PGA West) last
year, earning 2011 Division I first team
All-American honors, rising to the top five
of the World Amateur Golf Ranking and
putting himself very much in the running
for a spot on this year’s Walker Cup team.
A year ago, Yun was No. 131 in the world
rankings.
