With nearly 10 years of friendship, Juli Inkster and Angel Yin make an impact on each other and the golf world at the 2026 Dow Championship
By Elle Chavis
Midland, Mich., -- Nearly 40 years span the age gap between World Golf Hall of Famer Juli Inkster and her longtime mentee Angel Yin. The California native has been swinging clubs on the green longer than Yin has been alive.
Though the two both hail from the Golden State, they come from differing backgrounds. Yin, born and raised in Los Angeles is a first-generation Chinese American while Inkster grew up further north in Santa Cruz. Inkster didn’t pick up a golf club until she was 15. By that age, Yin had already made history as the youngest player in the field at the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open, and the second youngest in the tournament’s history.
Inkster started out on the LPGA Tour in an era before maternity leave or huge television broadcasting deals, two things that have become almost commonplace on the Tour in the past few years. She has seen the game be continually thrust into the spotlight often due to the star power of players like Angel who have entered the game expecting things Inkster and others often did without.
But you would only see the similarities between the two as you watched them talk and laugh on stage as they prepare to tee-off in the 2026 Dow Championship
The pair first met in 2017 when Inkster, as the 2017 Team U.S. Solheim Cup Captain, choose Yin as her captain’s pick, the youngest player on either team that year.
“The moment she picked me I was really in shock. She really just looked at my game and that was it,” Yin said. “I think that really gave me a lot of hope for a lot of things.”
From that fateful Solheim Cup—which the U.S. won by a score of 16.5 to 11.5—the relationship between the pair has blossomed. They began spending time together in Los Angeles with another LPGA great Judy Rankin, who both Yin and Inkster say makes the best pork chops during their meet-ups.
“I love watching her game,” Inkster said of her mentee-turned-friend. Angel always comes across sometimes kind of carefree and whatever, but she’s a very loyal friend.”
For Yin, Inkster has been a paragon of resilience and genuine love for the game of golf, no matter the ups and downs that come with it.
“If you do it right, you can do it forever,” Yin said. “That’s something really hard to see, because being out on Tour and growing up with kids that you play with, a lot of them during college get so burnt out they don’t want to see the golf club.”
Both women have taken steps to try to and help the upcoming generation avoid that burnout and play golf for the right reasons: simply because they love it. Inkster champions the Inkster Award presented by Workday, named in her honor, which celebrates the highest ranked women’s collegiate golfer in her final year of NCAA eligibility.
“I like following through,” Inkster said. “Playing four years at your college and representing your team and your coach and your school, it meant a lot to me to put my name on that.”
As part of the award, Inkster becomes a mentor for the winner, helping her adjust to life post-grad and transition smoothly to the professional ranks.
Yin serves as a Girls Golf ambassador, a program for 6 to 17 year-old girls that inspires and empowers them through learning to play golf. Her work with the organization, in part, has earned her nomination for the Dow Impact award.
“It’s been such a huge honor to be selected,” Yin said. “With this nomination, my part will be just every day doing your duties, what you’re supposed to do to be a good person.”
With community-oriented perspectives, nearly 10 years of friendship, and dozens more of golf experience, Inkster and Yin, or Frick and Frack as they have chosen as their team name—though they have yet to decide who is Frick and who is Frack—are ready to make an impact at the 2026 Dow Championship and beyond.
