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Despite the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the Ladies European Tour event in South Africa went on as scheduled last week.
Rookie Alice Hewson, last year's European Ladies' Amateur champion and a former Clemson University golfer, won the Investec South African Women’s Open on Sunday. The 22-year-old Englishwoman finished with a 72-hole total of 5-under-par 211, surpassing 54-hole leader Olivia Cowan and a crowd near the top of the leaderboard to win the title by a stroke.
“I couldn’t have hoped for a better start,” said Hewson (above), who turned professional in September and finished fifth at the LET Q-School in January. “It feels absolutely incredible and it really is a dream come true. Growing up as a kid, all I could ever dream of was playing on the Ladies European Tour and to come and win my first event, the feeling is indescribable.
“This has definitely happened a lot quicker than I thought it would. I was hoping to get off to a nice steady start, but this is definitely a good thing.”
After the start of last week's event at Westlake Golf Club in Cape Town, the LET announced the postponement of the inaugural Aramco Saudi Ladies International scheduled for this week due to the coronavirus. It was to have been the first professional golf tournament for women in Saudi Arabia. The tour's next scheduled tournament is the Jabra Ladies Open, May 7-9 at Evian Resort Golf Club in France.
As for the European Tour, a hiatus is planned until April 30, when the schedule calls for a return to play in Sotogrande, Spain, at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters.
The tour has postponed the Magical Kenya Open in Nairobi, the Hero Indian Open in New Delhi, the Maybank Championship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the Volvo China Open in Shenzhen, all of which had been scheduled to be played in the next six weeks.
In addition, two more tournaments on the European Tour schedule – the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, which was to be played March 25-29 in Austin, Texas, and the D+D Real Czech Masters in Prague, set to be played Aug. 20-23 – have been cancelled.
TOURNAMENT RESULTS | LET RACE TO COSTA DEL SOL
Staff and Wire Reports