Miyu Yamashita just won the LPGA Maybank Championship for the second year in a row. The 25-year-old from Japan shot a final-round 68 at Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club in Malaysia on Sunday, finished at 22-under 266, and beat China's Yan Liu by two shots. I woke up Sunday morning in Alabama to the result, and once I read how she did it, I knew it was worth a post. This wasn't a wild comeback or a miracle shot on 18. It was a calm, one-hole-at-a-time defense of a lead, and that's the kind of golf I can actually learn from.
Here's what happened, why the back-to-back title is a first for this event, and what a mid-handicapper like me can take from it.
Miyu Yamashita at the Maybank Championship: the final round
Yamashita started Sunday with a two-shot lead. According to the AP report on LPGA.com, she had led since Friday's second round. On Sunday she made five birdies and one bogey, and Bernama, Malaysia's national news agency, lists where they came:
- Birdies on the 3rd, 5th, 8th, 11th and 18th holes
- Her only bogey came on the par-4 9th
- Final round: 4-under 68
Her four rounds were 65, 66, 67 and 68. That's every round in the 60s, and a 72-hole total of 22-under 266, according to the LPGA's official final scoreboard. AP called it "a near perfect week."
The person chasing her was Yan Liu. Liu shot a 9-under 63 on Saturday to get into the hunt and then shot 68 on Sunday too. But here's the simple math: Liu started the day two back, both players shot 68, so Yamashita won by the same two shots she started with. Liu finished at 20-under 268. The LPGA's scoreboard and Bernama both list 20-under. One line in the AP story says 18-under, but 268 on this par-72 course works out to 20-under, so that looks like a typo.
Final leaderboard: the top of the Maybank Championship
Here's the top of the final scoreboard on the LPGA's official scoring site:
- 1st: Miyu Yamashita (Japan), 22-under 266
- 2nd: Yan Liu (China), 20-under 268
- T3: Pauline Roussin-Bouchard (France) and Marisa Tojai (Thailand, amateur), 19-under 269
- 5th: Robyn Choi (Australia), 17-under 271
- 6th: Achiraya Sriwong (Thailand), 16-under 272
- 7th: A Lim Kim (South Korea), 15-under 273
Two other names jumped out at me. Tojai, an amateur, tied for third against a full LPGA field, and she shot 65 in both the second and third rounds. Roussin-Bouchard led after the first round with a 64 and kept herself in it all week. Amy Yang of South Korea finished in a big tie for ninth at 13-under.
The event has a $3 million purse. Bernama reports Yamashita's winner's check at $450,000.
Why this back-to-back Maybank title is a first
The Maybank Championship is still a young event. It joined the LPGA Tour in 2023, and the LPGA's past-winners list shows a different champion every year until now:
- 2023: Celine Boutier, who won a nine-hole playoff over Atthaya Thitikul
- 2024: Ruoning Yin
- 2025: Miyu Yamashita, who won a three-way playoff with a birdie on the first extra hole
- 2026: Miyu Yamashita again
So Yamashita is the first player to win this tournament twice. What I like is how different the two wins were. Last year she needed a playoff at 18-under. This year she was four shots better at 22-under and never needed extra holes.
After the round, she told reporters, as quoted by Bernama and the Malay Mail, that she didn't expect to win the tournament two years in a row. "So, I just focused on playing each hole," she said.
Miyu Yamashita's 2026 season so far
This is Yamashita's second LPGA Tour win of 2026. In August she won the CPKC Women's Open at Royal Mayfair in Edmonton, Alberta. AP says she led that one wire-to-wire and won by nine strokes. She also won the 2025 Women's British Open, and AP counts this week as her fifth career title. Bernama lists her as world No. 4.
The LPGA's late-season Asian swing has one more stop: the Toto Japan Classic at Omitama, outside Tokyo, next week. If Yamashita tees it up there, she'll be playing at home with two wins this season, so I'll be watching.
What amateur golfers can learn from how she won
I'm not going to pretend I know her swing thoughts, her equipment or her practice routine. None of the reports I read cover that, and I won't make it up. But the scorecard and her own words tell a pretty clear story, and three parts of it fit my game at RTJ Grand National.
1. Play the hole you're on, not the scoreboard. Her quote is the whole lesson: "I just focused on playing each hole." When I'm having a good round, I start adding up my score on the 14th tee. I start thinking about breaking 90, and then I make a double. If it works for a tour player defending a title, it can work for me on a Saturday morning.
2. One bogey isn't a collapse. Her only bogey came on the 9th, right at the turn, with a two-shot lead and a player behind her who'd just shot 63. She birdied the 11th, two holes later. My bad habit is letting one bogey turn into three. Next time I make a bogey, I'm treating the next tee shot as a fresh start, not a chance to get the shot back.
3. You don't need a career round to win. You need to avoid the bad one. Her worst round all week was a 68. Liu shot a 63, two shots better than Yamashita's best round of the week, and still finished second. When I shot 98 on the Links Course at RTJ Grand National, it wasn't because I never hit good shots. It was a handful of big numbers. Steady beats spectacular for tour players, and it matters even more for those of us who can't hit spectacular on purpose.
My practical takeaway for next weekend: pick one simple target for every hole, like a bogey or better on the hard holes and a par chance on the easy ones. Then stop counting until I'm off the 18th green. That costs nothing, and I can do it with the used clubs I already have.
The bottom line
Miyu Yamashita didn't win the Maybank Championship by overpowering the field. She showed up with a lead, matched the 68 from the player chasing her, and played one hole at a time until the trophy was hers. She's now won this event twice and has two LPGA wins this season, and the Asian swing wraps up next week in Japan.
Sources: AP report published on LPGA.com, the LPGA's official final scoreboard and past-winners page, Bernama and the Malay Mail. Facts are as reported on Sunday, November 1, 2026.
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