Brooke Henderson wins her second major after six years
Popular Canadian star player 24 year old Brooke Henderson survived a four-putt double bogey on the 6 th hole to win the US$6.5 million Amundi Evian Championship, a Women’s Major, played at the Evian Resort Golf Club in Évian-les-Bains, France. It is the second major title of Henderson’s career and she won it in dramatic fashion, making a 12-foot birdie putt on the final hole to edge out Sophia Schubert, a 26-year- old rookie from Tennessee, USA. Henderson finished at -17, with Schubert at -16 and five other players at -15. At one point in the final round, six players were tied for the lead and 10 players were within one shot. On seemingly every hole, a player had a putt to either tie for the lead or take the lead. It made for a thrilling spectacle.
Here are IGW’s top three takeaways from the tournament:
Brooke Henderson did what Rory McIlroy could not
So Yeon Ryu of South Korea finished T-8th at the major
Henderson had dominated the tournament all week, leading after 18, 36 and 54 holes. She took a two-shot lead over South Korea’s So Yeon Ryu into the final round, and a four-shot advantage over Schubert. But she lost her advantage on the first hole when she made bogey while recent winner of the KPMG LPGA Championship In Gee Chun birdied. Both players then struggled the rest of the front nine. Chun played the remaining four holes in four-over while Henderson took four putts on the par-4 sixth, a display that let everyone else back into the tournament and looked like it would cost Henderson the title.
American Sophia Schubert finished second at 16-under par
A bogey on the 11th dropped Henderson from the lead as rookie Sophia Schubert put on a Cam Smith-like putting display in making birdies on 11, 12 and 15. At that point it looked like the tournament would not only be a repeat of a year ago, when Jeonguen Lee6 let a five-shot lead slip away and lost in a playoff to Minjee Lee, but it was eerily parallel to last week’s men’s British Open, in which the two players in the final group stalled while others went on a birdie run. Like McIlroy, Henderson seemed incapable of getting a putt to drop.
She was able to turn things around just in time though. She kept pace with Schubert by birdieing the 14th and 15th and arrived at the par five 18th knowing a birdie would win her the tournament. A poor drive in the rough forced her to layup before she hit her approach from 107 yards to 12 feet. With a hush around the green, she hit a perfectly paced putt that toppled into the heart of the cup. “I was playing poorly but I was still in it,” she said afterwards. “The saying is that majors are won on the back nine on Sunday so I kept reminding myself of that.” Henderson hit 15 greens on Sunday and took 34 putts, two less than McIlroy in the final round at St Andrews last week, which made all the difference.
Almost another fairy-tale in a women’s major
Sophia Popov with her British Open 2020 trophy at Royal Troon Golf Club
In 2020, German Sophia Popov, then ranked 302nd in the world, won the Women’s British Open by two shots. In 2021, Thai sensation Patty Tavatanakit, a rookie on the LPGA Tour ranked 103rd in the world, cruised to a five-shot win in the ANA Inspiration, in California, another women’s major.
When Sophia Schubert took the lead on the back nine at the Evian Championship, it looked like she would join them as unlikely major champions. Schubert had missed five cuts in 11 starts in her rookie season. She had won the 2017 U.S. Women’s Amateur but had yet to post even a single top-10 finish on the LPGA Tour or a top- 50 finish in the four previous major championships she had played in. Yet there she was making putt after putt in the closing stages of arguably the LPGA’s biggest event, seemingly oblivious to the pressure. Tied with Henderson, she had a birdie putt on the 18 th that would have given her a one-shot lead and forced Henderson to birdie the last to get into a playoff. Agonizingly for Schubert, the ball tiptoed past the left edge of the cup.
Still, she proved she belongs on tour and her second place finish should give her plenty of confidence for the rest of the season.
Women’s pro golf is more relatable than men’s pro golf
There were no driveable par-4s at the Evian; no short-iron second shots into par-5s. The players had to plot their way around a golf course, which tested every facet of their games, from driving to iron play to putting. Yes, length is an advantage in the women’s game just like the men’s, but length isn’t the determining factor it is in the men’s game (yet). That means there was more diversity to the players who were in contention as well. World No 3 Nelly Korda who at one point was tied for the lead, averages 271 yards off the tee, while Lydia Ko, who finished tied for 3rd, averages 254 yards off the tee.
Nelly Korda momentarily shared the lead before finishing T-8th at -13
That not only makes for more interesting golf to watch, but it also makes the game more relatable to the fan at home in comparison to the bomb-and-gouge style most of the PGA Tour pros play these days.
Credits:-
Photo – LET Flickr