Ariya annexes Tour Championship title

MIAMI: Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn closed with back-to-back birdies to win the season-ending LPGA Tour Championship on Sunday, while American Lexi Thompson took the $1 million season bonus prize despite a last-hole heartbreak. Ariya birdied four of the last six holes, sinking a 20-foot birdie putt on the 17th and a 23-footer at 18, to shoot a final-round five-under par 67 and finish 15-under overall at Tiburon Golf Club in Florida.
“My caddie told me to look at the leaderboard so I did and I was like, ‘Oh shoot I need to make this putt,” Ariya said of her closing dramatics. “I was so nervous my hands were shaking and I started crying after I made it.”
Thompson and compatriot Jessica Korda shared second, just one stroke adrift, with Sweden’s Pernilla Lindberg and South Korean Ji Eun-Hee tied for fourth a shot further back. It appeared Thompson would take the title, needing only a two-foot tap-in par putt at 18 to reach the clubhouse on what proved to be the winning score. But the world number four missed, the ball lipping off the right edge, as she settled for the Race to the Globe season bonus prize.
“I guess it was just adrenaline with missing that putt because I didn’t look at a leaderboard all day,” Thompson said.
Ariya, meanwhile, joined the leaders on the penultimate green, then topped her feat with only the fourth birdie of the day at the last for the title. It was the 2016 British Open champion’s seventh career LPGA title and her second of the year after the Manulife Classic in June.
LPGA Tour Championship scores (par-72, USA unless noted):
273 - Ariya Jutanugarn (THA) 68-71-67-67, 274 - Lexi Thompson 71-67-69-67, Jessica Korda 69-68-70-67, 275 - Ji Eun-Hee (KOR) 69-70-69-67, Pernilla Lindberg (SWE) 69-67-71-68, 276 - Park Sung-Hyun (KOR) 67-65-75-69, Michelle Wie 72-68-66-70, 277 - Nelly Korda 70-66-73-68, Kim In-Kyung (KOR) 70-67-71-69, Kim Kaufman 70-72-64-71, 278 - Kim Sei Young (KOR) 68-69-75-66, Jenny Shin (KOR) 73-67-68-70, Charley Hull (ENG) 70-70-68-70, Suzann Pettersen (NOR) 67-70-69-72, Stacy Lewis 72-68-67-71, 279 - Lydia Ko (NZL) 67-71-72-69, Jang Ha-Na (KOR) 71-66-73-69, Ko Jin-Young (KOR) 71-69-68-71, Pornanong Phatlum (THA) 70-68-70-71, Amy Yang (KOR) 70-73-65-71, 281 - Feng Shanshan (CHN) 70-73-67-71, Cydney Clanton 73-68-68-72, Anna Nordqvist (SWE) 70-69-70-72, Austin Ernst 71-67-69-70-74, 282 - Katherine Kirk (AUS) 74-72-67-69, Lee Jeong-Eun (KOR) 73-70-69-70, Azahara Munoz (ESP) 67-72-72-71, Brooke Henderson (CAN) 70-70-70-72, Marina Alex 68-71-71-72.