As major Sundays go, few spots produce more edge-of-your-seat drama than the oft-maligned Evian Resort Course. Carved into the hillside above Evian-les-Bains (which directly translates to “Evian the Table”) in France between Lake Geneva and the Alps, the layout has prompted a smattering of players throughout the years to complain about its quirkiness. It’s too short; it’s too severe; it’s too wet; it’s too splotchy; too hot; too cold; too easy; too hard. The most common quip is “it’s unfair,” far and away the most subjective slap possible at a venue. Is Augusta National fair? Is the Old Course? Some players have talked with their feet. Lexi Thompson chooses to skip the Amundi Evian Championship, a major. So does Stacy Lewis.
You can question the layout and condition of the course, and you can object to the posh parties that make this event one of the most elegant fan experiences on the calendar while keeping players up past their bedtimes. But love it or hate it, no place in women’s golf dishes up a better combination of compelling play and spectacular scenery than Evian. In fact, nothing comes close.
Just look at recent history. Angela Stanford, the 2018 champion, charged from five shots back, finished birdie-birdie, and then waited on Amy Olson to make a mess of the final hole before capturing her only major title.
In 2019, Jin Young Ko came from four shots back to win, again with a flurry of birdies on the back nine.
Just last year, Minjee Lee equaled an LPGA major-championship record by coming from seven shots back to win. Lee finished a solid hour before the last group and had to wait to see how Jeongeun Lee6 would finish. Lee6 made a gallant charge, but once it went to a playoff, Minjee won with an easy two-putt birdie.
Even in the bad old days when rain was a certainty and the temperatures could fall anywhere on the spectrum, the final round was almost always like an action movie. The worst year, 2017, when a round was canceled, the leaderboard wiped clean, and the event shortened to 54 holes before it even began, the closing stretch provided drama you couldn’t stop watching. Anna Nordqvist and Brittany Altomare, neither of whom was leading at the start of the final day, went to a playoff in the sleet, which Nordqvist won.
This year might have topped them all. At the beginning of the final round, Brooke Henderson held a two-shot lead over So Yeon Ryu, a three-shot edge over Sophia Schubert, and a four-shot cushion over Nelly Korda, among others.
When the leaders arrived at the first par-5, Korda had tied things up, there already had been two four-putts in the final pairing, and there were 14 players within four shots of the lead. Players such as Sweden’s Linn Grant, winner of the Scandinavian Mixed co-sanctioned by the DP World and Ladies European tours earlier this year and the hottest player in Europe at the moment, finished early with hot rounds. She and Georgia Hall sat in the clubhouse at 13-under par and waited.
Saturday night, as is customary, Franck Riboud, the chairman of Evian and host of this event, threw an embarrassingly opulent gala that ended with a fireworks display that could be seen in Switzerland. But the real fireworks started, as they often do at the fourth major of the year, the next afternoon.
Henderson summed it up: “The saying is that majors are won on the back nine on Sunday.”
“It was a long day and I put myself in a position I didn't really want to be in, starting off kind of poorly. But to be able to bounce back on the back nine really means a lot. To get that many birdies [three] the last five holes was really big."
Brooke Henderson
Once everyone made the turn, the field caught fire. When the final twosome hit their tee shots on 11, there was a seven-way tie for the lead: Henderson, Sei Young Kim, Mao Saigo (playing in her first major but with five wins in her first 10 starts on the Japan LPGA Tour), past Evian champion Hyo Joo Kim, Charley Hull, Carlota Ciganda, and the biggest surprise of the week, Schubert, a 26-year-old rookie and former U.S. Women’s Amateur champion who had never finished better than 12th in an LPGA event.
From there it was a shootout to the finish. Schubert impressed everyone with a preternaturally calm demeanor and a putting stroke that harkened back to the languid days of Ben Crenshaw. On greens that even people who love the place describe as “tricky,” Schubert poured in one putt after another from 8 to 20 feet, hitting each at the perfect speed.
The only one she missed proved to be the one she needed most. After laying up on the final hole, Schubert hit a wedge from 100 yards to 10 feet. She hit what looked like a perfect putt that stopped on the high edge. No matter how many times you see it in replay, you still can’t believe it didn’t fall.
That gave Henderson one last shot at victory. Just as she did in her first major win way back in 2016, the pride of Smiths Falls, Ontario, poured in a birdie at the last to win by one.
“It was a long day and I put myself in a position I didn't really want to be in, starting off kind of poorly,” Henderson said. “But to be able to bounce back on the back nine really means a lot. To get that many birdies [three] the last five holes was really big. Obviously, to make that putt on 18 was just a huge relief so I didn't have to play that hole again (in a playoff). Just super excited to have this trophy and to be a second-time major champion.”
Henderson’s first major, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Sahalee, came when she was a teenager. That week, she rallied on the back nine to wrestle Lydia Ko and Ariya Jutanugarn to the ground in an event many people on site compared to the 1975 Masters shootout between Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller.
Nobody would ever compare Evian to Augusta. But as drama goes, this one was just as hard to beat.
Top: Brooke Henderson has reason to smile after a birdie putt on the final hole wins the Amundi Evian Championship..
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