Kim Sei-young yesterday made a 6-foot birdie putt on the par-five 18th for a one-stroke victory in the Blue Bay LPGA.
The 22-year-old from South Korea won for the third time in her rookie season on the LPGA Tour, closing with a two-under 70 at Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Course for a two-under 286 total.
After high wind sent scores soaring the first three days on the difficult course, the players faced only a moderate breeze on a rainy afternoon along the South China Sea.
Photo: AFP
Third-ranked Stacy Lewis, Kim Kaufman and Kaohsiung-born Candie Kung of the US finished a stroke back. Kim holed her winning putt after playing partners Lewis and Kung missed birdie tries — Lewis from 20 feet and Kung from 10 feet.
Lewis finished with a 70 for her sixth runner-up finish of the season and the 21st of her career. She won the last of her 11 LPGA Tour titles in June last year.
Kung shot a 71. Kaufman, playing a group ahead, had a 69 for the best round of the day.
Kim won playoffs this year in the Bahamas and Hawaii in events also played in strong wind on seaside layouts. The five-time LPGA of Korea winner earned US$300,000 to move up a spot to fourth on the money list with US$1.7 million and is projected to jump from 11th to eighth in the world.
Kim dropped into a four-way tie for the lead on the par-three 17th when she three-putted from about 120 feet on the massive beachside green. Kung hit to 2.5 feet and Lewis to 4.5 feet, but they missed their putts to the right.
Kim’s best shot of the day came on the par-four 10th, when she holed a 40-foot flop from the rough to save par after hitting her approach long and left into the water.
She pulled even with Lewis with a birdie on the par-four 13th. Kim’s three-wood drive took a big forward bounce off a cart path, leaving her a sand wedge approach that she hit to 6 feet. Lewis three-putted for bogey, missing a shot from 5.5 feet.
Kim moved ahead on the par-five 14th when she made a 10-foot birdie putt and Lewis missed an 8-footer.
Kaufman had her best finish in her first two seasons on the tour. The 24-year-old former Texas Tech player from tiny Clark, South Dakota, birdied on the ninth, 11th, 14th and 15th holes, then missed mid-range birdie tries on the final three holes.
Top-ranked Lydia Ko shot her second straight 70 to tie for eighth at four-over. She had the best weekend total in the field after opening with rounds of 77 and 75.
Taiwan’s Hsu Wei-ling carded a three-over 75 to finish tied for 14th, Yani Tseng tied for 23rd after a final round one-under 71 and Min Lee’s 14-over total of 302 landed her in a tie for 46th.
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