How COVID led to LPGA pro’s first win in 10 years: ‘Turning point’

On Sunday at the 2026 ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open, longtime pro Jenny Shin did something she hadn’t done in over 10 years: she won.

However, just like her decade-long drought, Sunday’s win didn’t come easy. She fought off a three-bogey stretch and a charging A Lim Kim to shoot 75 and win by two shots.

“I feel like I’ve done everything wrong, just wasn’t hitting it like I was the last three days and was hitting it into bunkers, bushes, and it wasn’t fun. With the three bogeys in a row, I thought, ‘Oh, boy, I don’t know where this is going to go?’” Shin said immediately after her round. “But yeah, I hung in there and so I’m quite proud of myself. Very happy.”

Shin’s only other victory came back in May of 2016 at the Volunteers of America Texas Shootout. In the years following her first win, Shin experienced a loss of motivation and considered quitting pro golf.

But her entire perspective was shaken during a long layoff amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a shift that eventually led to her victory on Sunday.

Jenny Shin after Women’s Scottish Open win: ‘COVID really turned around my entire life’

Shin’s public golf career began at a very young age. In 2006, at just 13 years old, Shin became the youngest winner of the U.S. Girls’ Junior, and by 2010 she had turned pro, quickly earning her LPGA Tour card by 2011.

When she captured her first LPGA victory at the 2016 Volunteers of America Texas Shootout, the future looked bright for Shin, who was only 23 at the time.

Instead, years of struggles followed, during which Shin searched for motivation and questioned her identity as a pro golfer.

“I had a pretty rough patch in my career. This is my 16th and from Year 8 to probably 12, I really struggled out here. I didn’t know what my goal was or motivation,” Shin explained Sunday night. “So I spent a lot of my prime years searching for who I am. And I don’t regret spending that time at all but I learned a lot about who I am and what I want.”

Once the pandemic struck, though, everything changed. The experience helped her rediscover a “spark” and a newfound “love” for the game of golf.

“And COVID really turned around my entire life. I feel like the last four years, I’ve kind of found a spark again to really love — because I’ve always loved golf. It’s just this job is so hard. This is such a difficult job. And to find love and to continue to love this job is incredibly difficult,” Shin said. “So I found that spark after COVID, and I’m really glad I did because my No. 1 goal was to win again. I’m going to do everything I can to win again.”

Mission accomplished.

“I can’t believe — I can’t believe it happened this week,” Shin added.

Jenny Shin on love for competition: ‘We’re all lunatics out here, and I’m one of them’

When reporters pressed Shin for specifics on her COVID-era revelation about her golf career, she said she spent a lot of time early in the pandemic wasting time on Instagram and doing “lots of weird stuff” as she experienced joblessness for the first time.

“Everything and nothing. I was doing drunken lives on Instagram. I was doing really weird stuff. But I think being jobless for six months really kind of gave me an idea what it’s like to not golf professionally,” Shin explained.

That period of being unable to play pro golf became “a turning point” in her career.

“Because I still golfed every day, but, yeah, it sucked not being able to do what I’m really good at. That was a very important — like a turning point in my life,” she said.

As for what she missed most about pro golf during COVID, Shin said it was the “competition,” calling herself an adrenaline “junky.”

“I kept looking at the leaderboard and I hate being chased but at the same time, I think I love adrenaline. I’m definitely a junky. So I just love competing,” Shin said. “Just the whole, you know, the mental width that I had with [Pajaree Anannarukarn], as well. She was making a bunch of birdies and I was making bogeys and I could feel her breath right next to me. It was fun. That was exhilarating.”

She concluded: “So yeah, we’re all lunatics out here, and I’m one of them.”