Norway’s Suzann Pettersen overcame a nine-stroke deficit then defeated South Korea’s Choi Na-yeon at the first playoff hole on Sunday to win the LPGA Safeway Classic.
Pettersen started the final round of the 54-hole tournament nine off the overnight lead held by Choi, but carded a seven-under-par 64 for a total of 207. Choi, who could have won with a par at the final hole of regulation play, closed with a bogey for a two-over 73 that also left her on six-under 207.
They returned to the par-four 18th for the playoff and Choi’s second shot went into the water right of the green. She missed a bogey putt, before Pettersen drained her winning shot.
Photo: AFP
Pettersen, who won the Ladies European Tour’s Ladies Irish Open at Killeen Castle on Aug. 7, captured her second LPGA title of the year and her eighth overall.
Her final round included five birdies and an eagle at the 10th, with no bogeys.
With the win she jumps to No. 2 in the world rankings behind Taiwan’s Yani Tseng. Tseng shot a 73 to finish tied for 13th place on one-over 214. Fellow Taiwanese Candie Kung shot a 69 to finish on four-over 217, while compatriot Amy Hung also carded a 69 to finish a shot further back.
“I didn’t really expect this when I when I woke up this morning nine strokes back,” Pettersen said. “I guess when you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll.”
Despite her recent successes, Pettersen said her mind has not been all on golf of late.
She recently lost a close family friend in a skydiving accident and she was stunned by the July 22 attacks in Norway that left 77 people dead.
“It makes you realize life’s not all about golf,” Pettersen said. “It makes you put things in perspective.”
Choi started the day with a three-shot lead over Stacy Lewis, but endured a difficult day. She bogeyed the second, sixth and ninth, before her first birdie of the day at the par-five 10th.
Her third birdie of the day at the par-four 17th gave her a one-shot lead heading to the final hole, but after missing the green she failed to get up-and-down for par.
South Korea’s Park Hee-young, still seeking a first LPGA win, carded a 67 and finished third on 208. American Paula Creamer carded a 68 for 209.
For Choi, it was a second straight runner-up finish at Pumpkin Ridge. Last year she finished tied for second, two strokes behind Japan’s Ai Miyazato.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier