Lilia Vu: From Women’s Am Champ to Two-Time Major Winner

INSPIRED BY HER GRANDFATHER, LILIA VU HAS ACHIEVED SUCCESS IN GOLF EVERY STEP OF HER JOURNEY
Golf phenom Lilia Vu — currently 27 years old and perched at No. 2 in the Rolex World Rankings — grew up in Orange County’s Fountain Valley, where her parents took root after leaving Vietnam in 1982. If we look no further back than that, her rise from carefree-kid-with-a-club at age seven to becoming a two-time major champion is already a fairy-tale saga. But when you peer up the family tree to her beloved maternal grandfather, it’s time to hire a Hollywood screenwriter and think blockbuster movie.
In a nutshell, grandpa Dinh Du made like Noah and hand-built an ark to escape from his repressive, postwar homeland. That he also planned to help 54 others leave Vietnam behind sounded daft on paper, but then he managed to cram 83 people onboard! The odds were 1,000-to-1 against a happy ending — which miraculously arrived in the form of the USS Brewton, an American naval ship on patrol in the vastness of the South China Sea.
On the day they left Vietnam, Lilia’s mother, Kieu Thuy, was only 12. She often told her daughter the story of running barefoot in the rain to her father’s boat, shouting: “We’re going to America!”
After extended stops in Singapore and Indonesia, her distant dream came true: The family arrived in the United States in the spring of 1983. Fast forward some 20 years, when Kieu’s daughter Lilia Vu first grasped a golf club at the tender age of seven. The rest, as they say, is history still in the making.
“It all started at Arcis Golf’s (now Lilia’s corporate partner) David L. Baker course in Fountain Valley,” Vu recalled during a recent interview. “My dad eventually became a golf teacher there and my brother had already started playing, so I began by imitating him, just trying to be funny. They had a great program where a monthly fee let you hit unlimited range balls — so Andre and I would practice until the lights went out, like every day!”
She said of her late grandfather with obvious affection, “I do think that the quiet, hardworking attribute that he had was passed down to me. Instead of just talking about how I want to win the U.S. Open a million times a year, I know what it is that I need to do and then just go ahead and do it. I don’t post about it or talk about it, but I am doing stuff behind the scenes revolving around ‘is this going to make me one percent better?’ Let me go do that.”
Vu has been doing just that for over a decade now, racking up a prodigious roster of titles and trophies, starting with the 2013 AJGA Junior tourney at then-named Robinson Ranch GC (now Sand Canyon CC), followed by a win at the 2016 SCGA Women’s Amateur.
At UCLA, she stocked the mantel with shiny statuettes during a blazing college career, where she was a three-time All-American and ranked first on the all-time career victory list with eight individual titles. She honed her game at the Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed Valencia CC, another Arcis property and a nails-tough proving ground.
From the vantage point of her current world ranking and two major titles, you might think that the path to her professional success was forever strewn with rose petals and confetti — but you would be mistaken. She made only one cut in nine outings on the LPGA Tour in 2019, but turned around and picked up three victories on the Symetra Tour in 2021, finishing first on that mini-tour’s money list and earning back her LPGA Tour Card for 2022.
As for 2023? Ho-hum, Lilia won two majors — the Chevron Championship and the Women’s Open (by 6 strokes) — and was suddenly the No. 1 player in the world.
So far this year, Vu has tied for second in The Open (missing a critical birdie putt to tie on the 18th) at St Andrews. Disappointed? Sure, but Lilia did wax ecstatic about hanging with Xander Schauffele and Tommy Fleetwood at the Men’s Open the previous
week.
“I played a day-after practice round there and the greens were insanely hard and the rough so thick, it kind of tells you how much power and finesse those guys have. Plus, they were really nice!”
And she was also a proud member of America’s Olympic golf team this year. No medal this time around, but a powerfully minted memory of the pomp and circumstance.
“Since I got paired up with France’s Celine Boutier the first two days, the crowds were huge and passionate — they weren’t the usual quiet golf fans but were really going wild which was cool to see. And I had my parents and family there, which made it even more special.”
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
More impressive yet is the fact that she has come back from persistent back problems early in 2024 that sidelined her for three months. Given her sunny disposition and track record, it’s hard to imagine that Vu was at times riddled by doubt and downright pessimism. But the truth is that, after her uninspired first year on Tour, she even thought of throwing in the towel and applying to
law school instead.
“But once you get a glimpse of success,” she said of those darker days, “you come to expect more of the same. In 2023, I just had this feeling like I was going to win, I didn’t know when or how. But then the wins started coming all of a sudden. It’s when you hit a rough patch and you’re not winning — that’s when the frustration and confusion set in.
“The funny thing about winning tournaments is that you can’t think about trying to win, that just deters you from trying to beat the golf course day by day. How do you do that? By taking it one shot at a time, one hole at a time — when I’m locked in on that it usually works out pretty well. Funny how you have to make small goals in order to win big.”
During her rookie-season dark days — mid pandemic, to make things worse — she paid an emotional hospital visit to her ailing grandfather, telling her troubles to a man who had faced more than his fair share.
“He basically told me to stop worrying and start playing. If you only have fun when you’re playing well, it’s kind of like shooting yourself in the foot. Whereas if you just try and have fun, the golf will kind of get better by itself. Does that make sense?”
Eminently so. It’s that tender balance between working hard and having fun that makes Lilia Vu so good at what she does — an attitude that came in handy during her recent health hurdles.
“It was hard not to be disappointed when I was hurting and had to step away for three months,” she said. “Then, unexpectedly, I won the first tournament I came back to after just playing a few rounds beforehand. I made my goals really small that week — just make good contact with the golf ball and take it from there.”
Small turned out to be beautiful. That comeback week, Lilia drained a birdie putt on the third playoff hole at the Meijer LPGA Classic to clinch her fifth title. “Winning that way was the craziest thing ever,” she said, “but it just shows that I did the right thing by letting my body heal and becoming grateful for just being able to play golf at all. And now I’m much more aware of my body and when it seems to be off, instead of just focusing on technical things in my swing. I have my trainers to thank for that.”
During a recent, too-brief visit to Orange County, Lilia decompressed by advising adoring junior girl golfers at David L. Baker, then going to dinner with her sizable crew of BFF’s from UCLA.

“They were there for me when I was about to quit, and they’re still supporting me. Plus, when we hang out we talk about normal life updates and planning a girls’ trip in the off-season. That’s definitely a stress reliever — it’s tough to always have golf on your mind!”
One last trade secret from the champ: listening to the more positive Taylor Swift songs on her way to the golf course every morning.
“When I won the Women’s Open in 2023, Taylor’s song “Long Live” was stuck in my head the whole time,” she said with a laugh. “I was so nervous on the course that week, I told my caddie how it was my all-time favorite song and even explained the meaning to him. Somehow, that helped calm me down and get me through a challenging week. So, thanks Taylor!”