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 Following her 15th and final LPGA Tour victory in March 2012,
Tseng began to second-guess herself on the course, her form
disappeared along with the ever-present smile and the barren run saw
her slip to 90th in the world just two weeks ago.
To say she was washed up at the age of 26 would have been an unfair
assessment of her golfing future but with a lack of top 10s
overshadowed by a plethora of missed cuts, it was hard to envisage
Tseng competing with emerging stars like Park In-bee and Lydia Ko.
Tseng knew she needed to act and opted to go back to a style of
inhibition-free golf at the start of the season and the "just whack
it" approach appeared to be paying dividends with a solid
second-place finish in Thailand last week.
On Thursday, Tseng was brilliant in the first round of the HSBC
Women's Champions event in Singapore, her six-under 66 earning her a
tie for first place alongside South Korea's Park and two strokes
clear of Ko.
 "Oh, it's fun... it's so much fun," Tseng told reporters of her
resurgence. "Like I tell my friends and parents that they don't have
to scroll down to see my name on the website any more. They can see
me right on top of the first page."
Despite the promising signs, Tseng was not thinking too far ahead
and remains focused on the present rather than the future.
"Yeah, it's a marathon not a sprint," she added. "I want to play one
shot at a time, like today, I finished with six-under. I don't know
how many birdies I made, so that's how I need to feel out there.
"Tomorrow is another new day and it's very exciting out there... I
will try to not think too much about Sunday."
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Tseng also believes a few changes in the off-season have helped
revive her fortunes as well as having a fresher outlook.
"I changed to a new trainer, new coach and started working on the
mental side of the game more and more. I feel more awareness of
myself now. It actually helps me a lot, too," she said.
"Self-talk is one of the biggest things out there, because like I
say, I tried to be patient and if I don't tell myself to be patient,
it's hard to be patient.
"I'm very, very happy. I'm happy that I'm playing good golf again."
(Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
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