LYDIA Ko, nursing an in a single day three-stroke lead, knew that if she performed regular golf on the ultimate day of the HSBC Girls’s World Championship at Sentosa’s Tanjong course in Singapore, she’d win the match.
“I began off actually constantly,” she mentioned. “I hit lots of greens, and I believe that was going to be the large key. So long as I performed regular golf and simply gave myself beauty for birdies, I felt like a few of them had been going to drop.”
They dropped on the sixth, seventh and eighth holes for a trio of birdies that gave the Kiwi champion a five-stroke lead and allowed her to just about coast dwelling for her first win in a match she has contested 11 instances.
“I believe that performed into my favour,” she mentioned, “that I’ve been there and finished that. So it didn’t really feel like a very new expertise.”
Ko shot rounds of 71, 67, 68 and 69 to win by 4 strokes from Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikal (71, 72, 66, 70) and Japan’s Ayaka Furue (71, 69, 71, 68).
A missed 1.5m putt for par on the eleventh gave the chasing pack a glimmer of hope, however one other birdie on 13, adopted by a spectacular 15m putt for birdie on the par-three fifteenth gave her an insurmountable lead.
She may even afford to bogey the powerful par-three seventeenth earlier than ending the match with a par on the final after discovering the greenside bunker.
“I dreamed final evening that I received, however then I awoke, and I used to be like, dang, it’s not actual but,” Ko mentioned. “To win right here in Singapore and get all of the love, not solely this yr, however for the years that I’ve come, it means quite a bit. It’s thrilling so as to add Asia’s ‘main’ to my main assortment.”
Thitikal, the pre-tournament favorite, made no errors and performed a bogey-free spherical, however may make no impression on the champion’s lead. It was the younger Thai’s tenth successive top-10 end, and he or she continues to impress as one of many recreation’s finest gamers.
“It’s greater than I anticipated, to be sincere,” she mentioned. “I knew after the second spherical, I used to be annoyed a bit bit how I used to be taking part in. However ending tied second – that’s actually, very nice.
Furue made a last-round cost, notching birdies on the sixth, eighth, thirteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth holes to climb into second place, however stumbled on the par three seventeenth, taking bogey.
Thitikal and Furue had been two strokes forward of a bunch of gamers on seven-under-par – Mexico’s Gaby Lopez (70, 73, 68, 70), Korea’s Jin Hee-im (72, 74, 68, 67), who owned the perfect spherical of the day, and England’s Charley Hull (69, 70, 68, 74).
Defending champion Hannah Inexperienced bogeyed the primary gap and couldn’t get something going, signing for a one-under-par 71 that left her tied for seventh place on six-under.
“I really feel like I’m exhausted simply from taking part in one week,” the Western Australian mentioned. “Clearly it’s all the time an enormous week defending but additionally on this local weather it makes it a bit bit harder. However I used to be grateful that I had some pals and lots of help on the market.
“Right this moment I didn’t get up feeling that nice. So I did nicely to shoot beneath par. I positively made essentially the most of my spherical. The putter was nonetheless actually scorching at the moment. Completely satisfied to defend the title, and hopefully deliver this way again to the States.”
Minjee Lee’s hoped disappeared when she took a double bogey seven on the par-five fifth gap, adopted by a triple-bogey seven on the twelfth, after she hooked her drive into thick tough.
Aside from these two horrors, the Western Australian performed nicely, accumulating birdies at six, eight, 11 and 18 for a one-over-par 73, and a four-round whole of four-under. She’s near her finest kind once more.
The opposite Australians – Steph Kyriacou (82, 71, 70, 72), Gabi Ruffels (80, 71, 76, 75) and Grace Kim (78, 77, 72, 76) – completed close to the tail of the 66-strong area.
NOTE: Inside Golf was a media accomplice for the HSBC Girls’s World Championship, one of many early season spotlight occasions on the LPGA Tour.
