KINGSMILL CHAMPIONSHIP

victory at the Yokohoma Tire LPGA Classic in Alabama, flown to Bangkok for media interviews and sponsor appearances as the star of Thailand’ s surging presence in women’ s golf, and returned to the United States to play in Williamsburg.

Little did she know, however, that her wild 2016 ride was still just in launch mode.

Jutanugarn quickly shook off her doldrums and won by a stroke at Kingsmill. In

fact, she was the only player to shoot four rounds in the 60s.

The next week in Michigan, she won the Volvik Championship by five shots, becoming the only LPGA player to win the first three titles of her career in successive events. It also made Jutanugarn the first to win three straight on tour since Inbee Park in 2013.

At the end of July, Jutanugarn collected her first major trophy, the Ricoh Women’ s British Open, by three shots. That made her the first player from Thailand, of either sex, to win one of golf’ s majors.

And in August, a week after she withdrew from the Rio Olympics with a knee injury— she was the first-round leader— Jutanugarn recovered to win the Canadian Pacific Women’ s Open by four shots.

By the end of November, Jutanugarn had captured the LPGA money crown with $ 2.55 million, was the Rolex Player of the Year and had pocketed a $ 1-million bonus for winning the season-long Race to the CME Globe points race. Oh, and she turned 21.“ I never think like my name can be( on) this trophy,” Jutanugarn said at the CME Group Tour Championship, where she clinched the Rolex award.“ Right now, I’ m really proud( of) myself.”

This was the same player who somehow missed 10 consecutive cuts the season before, a stat in hindsight that seems simply unbelievable.

Also the same player who began 2016 on a dubious note by blowing the season’ s first major, the ANA Inspiration, by bogeying the final three holes.

As the season ended, however, Jutanugarn could be philosophical about her trials

and failures. Without enduring all of her disasters, she said,“ I’ m not going to win all this stuff this year.”

Now, buoyed with belief and a finely tuned support team, there may be no limit to her winning.

Jutanugarn, No. 2 in the world behind Lydia Ko, is perhaps the LPGA’ s most physically impressive player, a strong and powerfully built athlete who regularly hits 2-irons to where most of her rivals hit drivers.

But until a year ago, Jutanugarn nursed a fragile psyche exacerbated by her 2013 shoulder injury. Not long after playing well at Kingsmill that year as a 17-year-old sponsor’ s exemption— she led the first two rounds— Jutanugarn tore her labrum horsing around with her sister Moriya, also an LPGA player.

Jutanugarn returned in 2014 but logged just one top-20 finish, breaking 70 only six times in 35 rounds. The following season, which included that three-month cut drought, wasn’ t appreciably better.

Frustrated, vulnerable and searching early in 2016, Jutanugarn turned to a team of new coaches, mental tutors Pia Nillson and Lynn Marriott, creators of the Vision54 program, and veteran swing technician Gary Gilchrist, who runs an academy near her Orlando, Fla., home.

They helped Jutanugarn forge a new foundation, inside and out, starting with a relaxed and consistent pre-shot routine. It focused her on the fun she was having on the course rather than the worries she’ d fallen into about spraying her driver.

“ Golf for her comes very easy and she can get bored,” said Gilchrist, who said Jutanugarn was dooming herself with negative self-talk.“ Then when she starts to struggle