2026 Maybank Championship recap: Miyu Yamashita goes back-to-back

Miyu Yamashita is a winner for the third time this year on the LPGA Tour, and she goes back-to-back at the Maybank Championship, the LPGA's event in Malaysia. I'm Ryan Ballinger with Golf News Net, here to look back at the Maybank Championship. $3 million tournament featuring 78 players in a no-cut event at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club in Malaysia. The aforementioned Yamashita, who is a major champion in her own right, having won the AIG Women's Open in 2025. She was the defending champion this week. She wound up bettering her total from last year by a couple of shots. She wins on 22 under to win this tournament by a couple of shots over Yan Liu and then by three shots over Pauline Roussine Bouchard and amateur Marissa Towhey. So huge week for Yamashita, who has been on a tear of late. She shot 65 to open, and then just one stroke worse than that every day. 65, 66, 67, 68 for 266. That was more than good enough for the win. She had a kind of somewhat tenuous lead going into the final round, in part because Yan Liu shot 63 on Saturday, but that wound up not being enough to challenge her on Sunday. They both shot 68, and the margin remained at two shots. So. Now Yamashita has won three times on the LPGA this year. She started her tear with her first win of the year at the Meyer LPGA Classic for Simply Give in Michigan. She lit it up at the CPKC Women's Open in Canada, setting the LPGA scoring record for her 72-hole event against total aggregate, not against par, but an incredible feat nonetheless. Then she went to her native Japan. She won the JLPGA Championship there for her third win of the year. Then she finished third at the Lotte Championship in Hawaii, which was kind of the bridge between the American portion of the schedule on the LPGA and this fall Asian Swing. She made a stopover in South Korea to play on the Ladies European Tour, one of their richer events, $2 million tournament. She won that, the Aramco Korea Championship, and then she won the Maybank Championship in consecutive starts. So she's won three out of her last five tournaments. She's been in the top 10. In the last seven of them, which is pretty incredible for Miyu Yamashita. She's now fourth in the world, starting to threaten that third position, and she's really flexing her muscle as a world champion in women's golf.