Freshman golfer Windy Huang is a perfectionist.

As a gymnast, as a student and as a golfer. Yun-Chu "Windy" Huang, who is from Taiwan, wants to be the best.
    
Her mother, Hsiang-Yu Hsu, had been a gymnast, so at age six, Huang followed that path, specializing in floor exercises, uneven bars and vaulting.
     
"I was best at floor exercises (which included a lot of back flips) and I had a coach who told me I had the potential to go a long way in gymnastics," she recalled.  She also remembered placing first in a gymnastics competition in her early years.
       
At age 10, she noticed that a classmate and friend was out of the classroom a couple days a week.  That held an appeal.
     
"I asked my classmate what she was doing and she asked if I wanted to play golf with her," said Huang.
       
Yes please, she said… and for the next couple of years she did both sports.  And that first year playing golf was when she decided she ultimately wanted to play it professionally "because when I do something, I want to be the best."
       
It wasn't going to be easy living in Taipei and New Taipei because golf was expensive.  That meant much of her early training came on the driving range.
        
"Until I was a junior in high school, I really didn't play much golf, but I spent a lot of time at driving ranges," Huang said.
       
As a junior, she decided she had to have a regular place to play, so she auditioned to qualify for a membership in the Taipei Golf Club, a 36-hole course with a nine-hole par three and one of the two best public courses on Taiwan.  Even without extensive on-course experience, she qualified.  And that meant she'd be playing in tournaments representing the club.
       
First, though, she had to catch up after years of concentrating on only on her long game.  Suddenly she found herself up before 6 a.m. three times a week and reporting to the course at 6 or 7 a.m. for golf lessons. 
      
"It takes 35 minutes to drive from my home to the course every day without traffic, an hour with traffic.  I got up every day about 5:50 a.m. to practice," recalled Huang.   And, she got better.
       
Huang represented her course in tournaments and traveled with the National team to Indonesia.  She also won the seasonal ranking tournament.
       
During this time, she had to make a decision.        
       
With parents holding Masters Degrees (Mu-Chi Huang and his wife are both pharmacists), academics also were a priority.  And, Huang was smart and good academically, placing first in her class all four years at Senior High School in Taipei.
     
"I'm a good student.  Some of my teachers, coaches and friends said maybe I should concentrate on studying, rather than working so hard on golf," she said.  It's hard to do both in Taiwan because serious athletes go to an athletic university where the academic side isn't as important. 
      
Many athletes "go to an athletically focused university because they aren't as interested in academics."
      
Huang was prepared with an answer.
    
She decided at age 11 that she wanted to attend college in the US.  "My coach at that time said it was the only way for me to play and study at the same time."
    
A Division I golf coach at a school other than Portland State contacted Huang during her junior year because a friend from Taiwan was friends with the coach.  And, that prompted her to take a trip, by herself, to the United States during her junior and senior years to explore opportunities here.
     
Her travels took her to both coasts.  Landing in California, she went to North Carolina intent on playing in the US Amateur qualifying round.  Before that happened, she heard about the College Golf Combine, a tournament in California for potential college players, so it was back to the west coast.
     
And, that's where she came to the attention of PSU Golf Coach Kailin Downs, as well as several other Division I schools.
      
"I saw her at the Golf Combine.  Her strengths were that she had a full swing in the long game.  She had a good swing and was really accurate (not surprising given her time at the driving range)," said Downs.
     
Besides her driving range time, Huang credits her strength to her gymnastics background.  "I had comparably more power than the other gymnasts," she said.
      
She chose PSU after a campus visit because "I like being downtown and I really liked the coach.  I talked with other players who'd come because of the coach."  Portland is about 2/3 the size of Taipei and Huang liked being able to go off-campus without having to drive.
      
Huang has taken to American culture, said Downs.  "She's fun, easy going and has really embraced the culture here so far," she said.
     
There have been some pleasant surprises and some of the usual cultural differences that pop up for many foreign students,
    
"I didn't know there'd be people from so many different countries and I like that," Huang said.  Also, the food is different.  "The portions are so large and the food isn't as healthy.  I still try to maintain a good diet, but I slip sometimes."
      
She also likes the weather and trees in Oregon and saw snow for the first time on a team trip to Mt. Hood.
     
Over the years, she was tutored in English, which helped her score a 96 (71 needed to pass) on an English proficiency test given by the Taiwanese government for people wanting to spend extended time in the US.
      
She's still found some quirky differences between languages.  For example, "how are you?" is often a throw away greeting not requiring a serious answer.  "If someone in Taiwan asked that question, they'd expect a real answer.  If they didn't, they'd just say 'hi'," she said.
      
On the course, Downs said Huang needed to improve her short game.  And, she's already done that, knocking nearly four strokes off her fall average in the Vikings' last tournament, going from 77.5 to 73.6.  In fact, she shot a five-under-par 67 in the final round of the Grand Canyon Invitation in late February to lead the Vikings to a come-from-behind tournament title.
      
She credits a trip home over Christmas and work at a golf camp there for the improvement.
      
Downs sees a lot of upside potential for Huang.
      
"My expectations are to see her as one of our top three players.  I expect her to continue getting more consistent in her ball striking.  She hits a lot of greens," said Downs.
      
And Huang is looking forward to the rest of her time here.  Her expectations are to help the team to return to the Big Sky Championship (The Vikings have seven titles since 2003) and to get some individual tournament wins.
      
Oh, and she wants to get her average down to 68 to facilitate her transition to fulfill that dream she's had since the age of 10, playing on the Women's Professional Golf Tour.