Suzann Pettersen won the HanaBank Championship yesterday for her ninth LPGA Tour title, beating Catriona Matthew with a 5-foot birdie putt on the third hole of playoff after blowing a big lead.
Defending champion Yani Tseng was third at 10-under after a 69. The top-ranked Taiwanese player won three of the first five events of the season.
Seven strokes ahead of Matthew at the start of the round, Pettersen shot a 2-over 74 to finish at 11-under 205 on Sky 72 Golf Club’s Ocean Course. The 43-year-old Matthew finished with a 67.
They played the par-5 18th three times in the playoff, halving the first two extra holes with pars.
“I felt like I had it all in my hand both the first time around, second time around and the third around,” said Pettersen, the Norwegian who also won the 2007 event. “‘It’s getting closer. I’m getting closer to the hole.’ And the third time around I just made a solid stroke, and it dropped.”
Pettersen took a five-stroke lead over South Korea’s Ryu So-yeon into the final round after opening with a course-record 63 and shooting a 68 on Saturday.
Matthew, from Scotland, had a two-stroke lead after Pettersen’s double bogey on the par-3 12th. Pettersen rallied with a birdie on the par-4 14th and Matthew dropped a stroke on the par-4 16th to leave them tied at 11 under.
“My game felt great and I had a great warm-up this morning, but did not get off to a good start,” Pettersen said. “I made a few birdies on the back nine, but overall I felt like I played pretty good, but it was just not a scoring day. I tried not to look what was going on around me as that can stress you out.”
She also had a double bogey on the par-3 third and bogeyed the par-3 eighth.
She earned US$270,000 to move into ninth place on the career list with US$9,035,662, passing Beth Daniel and Laura Davies.
Pak Se-ri was the top South Korean player in the country’s lone LPGA Tour event, closing with a 70 to finish fourth at 9-under. American teenager Lexi Thompson and Germany’s Sandra Gal followed at 8-under. Thompson shot a 70 and Gal had a 71. Ryu shot a 73 to tie for seventh at 7 under.
South Korea’s Kim Mi-hyun shot a 78 to tie for 61st at 8-over in the final round of her career. The eight-time tour winner announced her retirement this month and received a sponsor exemption into the field.
“Even until the last putt dropped, it didn’t really hit me that this was my last round,” Kim said. “But after turning in my last scorecard and seeing the other players coming up to me and crying with me, and for me and just seeing all you guys in the press conference, it is hitting me now.”
Michelle Wie closed with a 70 to tie for 30th at even-par. Cheyenne Woods shot a 75 to finish 60th in the 68-player field at 7-over. Woods is Tiger Woods’ niece.
The tour will remain in Asia the next two weeks. The LPGA Taiwan Championship is scheduled for next week, followed by the Mizuno Classic in Japan.
Fenerbahce on Thursday earned a rare 2-1 win in England, but were still knocked out of the UEFA Europa League by Nottingham Forest in the playoffs. Forest entered the second leg with a healthy 3-0 lead from the opener in Istanbul — where Vitor Pereira made an impact in his first game in charge — and that proved enough to advance to the round-of-16 with a 4-2 aggregate score. The result was a boost for Forest, struggling at 17th place in the Premier League, in their return to Europe after three decades. They next face Real Betis Balompie or Kerem Akturkoglu gave Fenerbahce
Soccer officials yesterday offered “full support and assistance” to the Iranian team in Australia for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup after the US and Israel launched massive attacks on their homeland. Iran’s 26-strong squad arrived on the Gold Coast days before the strikes on Saturday killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Washington and Tel Aviv seek to topple the Islamic republic. They are due to open their tournament today against South Korea. The AFC in a statement said it “continues to closely monitor the recent developments in the Middle East during this challenging period.” “The AFC’s foremost priority remains the welfare, safety and
ROAD RASH: Marc Marquez retired after a crash, marking the first time after 88 consecutive races stretching back to 2021 that a Ducati bike failed to make the podium Marco Bezzecchi yesterday won the MotoGP season-opening grand prix in Thailand from pole position as defending world champion Marc Marquez retired late with a buckled wheel. Aprilia’s Bezzecchi led from start to finish to top the podium in Buriram, with KTM’s Pedro Acosta second and Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez third. Ducati’s Marquez is chasing a record-equaling eighth world title this season, but he exited the race in dramatic fashion while in fourth place with five laps to go. The Spaniard, who started from second on the grid, took a corner wide, with the jolt to his bike dislodging the rear tire, badly damaging his
EVERY DAY A VICTORY: Players on the women’s team faced pressure from society just getting out onto the field as they prepare for their first Women’s Asian Cup game today Bangladesh’s national soccer team face daunting odds at their first-ever Women’s Asian Cup, but have already scored a major victory by qualifying. In the South Asian nation of 170 million, social stigma, family expectations, poverty and religious hardliners have long relegated women and girls to sports sidelines. The first women’s soccer league matches took place in 2011 and the squad, known to fans as the Red and Green, have kept pressing forward despite deeply embedded prejudices. “Many more girls would have joined us if the community had been even slightly supportive,” captain Afeida Khandaker told AFP ahead of her side’s March 3
RSS