She came from 8 shots back, survived a weather delay, and now has two wins in her first full season.

Eight shots down heading into Sunday. That’s the kind of deficit that makes you think about your dinner plans more than the trophy ceremony. But someone forgot to tell Miyu Yamashita that comebacks like this don’t happen in professional golf. The 24-year-old Japanese rookie fired a bogey-free 65—the best round of the day—to storm from nowhere into a three-way playoff at the Maybank Championship in Malaysia. It’s tied for the second-largest final-round comeback in LPGA Tour history since 1980. Yeah, you read that right.

When the Leader Couldn’t Close

Hye-Jin Choi started Sunday with a four-shot lead and the tournament seemingly wrapped up with a bow. But golf has a funny way of humbling us when we get too comfortable. The 26-year-old from South Korea watched her cushion evaporate as putts refused to drop and the pressure mounted. Hannah Green from Australia joined the party late, and suddenly we had a three-way tie at 18-under. Choi now has 29 career top-10 finishes on tour. Still no wins. That’s got to sting a little.

Rain, Music, and a 20-Footer

After regulation ended, Mother Nature decided to crash the party. A rain delay pushed the playoff back more than 30 minutes, leaving three players to sit and stew in their thoughts. Yamashita’s approach? She popped in her earbuds and zoned out to music. When play resumed, she stepped up to the par-5 18th and drained a 20-foot birdie putt while Choi and Green could only manage pars. Tournament over. Just like that.

Two Wins Before Thanksgiving

This wasn’t just any victory for Yamashita—it’s her second win of the season, the other being that little major championship called the AIG Women’s Open back in August. She’s only the second player this season to win multiple times, joining world No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul (who, by the way, finished just one shot out of the playoff). Yamashita is now just 25 points behind Thitikul in the Player of the Year race with three events left. A rookie chasing Player of the Year? Now that’s a storyline.

The Heartbreak and the History

Let’s take a moment for Choi. Four-shot lead. Final round at home in Asia. Twenty-nine top-10s in her career but still searching for that elusive first win. She’s got the game—everyone knows it—but golf is as much about timing and luck as it is about talent. Her day will come. But Sunday belonged to the rookie who refused to believe eight shots was too many. Yamashita walked away with $450,000 from the $3 million purse and cemented herself as one of the most exciting stories of the 2025 season.