Not only Grace under fire, but also Grace full of firepower.
Australia’s Grace Kim claimed the Amundi Evian Championship with a stunning three-card trick when nothing else would do.
In Sunday’s final round at France’s Evian Resort Golf Club, she made an eagle-3 at the par-5 18th hole to force extra holes with Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikul. She then chipped in over water for a birdie when the same hole was replayed for a first time. And she clinched her first major championship triumph with another eagle when 18 was played for a third time.
To play the same hole three times in a row in 5-under par (despite a penalty stroke) under any circumstances is extraordinary, but to accomplish such a feat in order to win a major championship is an outrageous example of daring and execution.
“It’s never done until the end,” Kim said afterwards, her words rather more prosaic than her golf.
No matter, her caddie, Drew Ernst, had a few words to describe her astonishing finale when the final putt dropped. “It was a bit of an inappropriate comment that I won’t repeat,” she said. “But it was along the lines of ballsy.”
“I’ve had a lot of doubts this year. It snowballed very quickly. I was losing motivation and had some hard conversations with my team. I had to wake up a little bit.”
Grace Kim
The conclusion deserves more detail.
Kim arrived at the final hole of regulation two shots behind the clubhouse leader Thitikul, who missed a short birdie putt on 18 that could have sealed matters. Kim found the fairway and then launched a 4-hybrid over the pond and towards the flag. It landed just feet from the hole, ran towards the back of the green, caught the sloping backstop, and returned towards its target leaving her a tap-in for eagle to tie Thitikul’s 14-under 270 total.
On the first extra hole Kim again went for the green in two but this time plopped her ball into the pond front-right of the putting surface. She faced a pitch across the same water feature from the penalty area and she holed it for birdie, prompting the glamorous French galleries to roar their approval.
Thitikul, to her immense credit, then drained a 10-foot birdie putt to extend the playoff but she could do nothing in the face of Kim’s second eagle. It was another fairway found, another 4-hybrid to the heart of the green, but this time it needed a sure touch on the green and she had it, holing out from 20 feet.
Twelve months ago Kim had stood alongside Minjee Lee and Hannah Green ready to celebrate with their fellow Aussie Stephanie Kyriacou if she won the Evian title. She came up short but Kim was quick to congratulate and console her compatriot.
Lee and Green were once again in attendance, but this time they got to open the champagne. The former, of course, won last month’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. It is the first time in either the men’s or women’s game that two different Australians have won a major in the same year.
“I couldn’t breathe,” the champion said of her final putt. “I couldn’t really see. I was like, ‘Is it dead straight?’ My caddie said, ‘Yeah.’ Glad it went in the hole.”
The winner of the Lotte Championship in just the third start of her LPGA rookie year in 2023, the 24-year-old from Sydney had struggled for much of the last 12 months and arrived in France with just one top-10 finish this season.
“I’ve had a lot of doubts this year,” she admitted. “It snowballed very quickly. I was losing motivation and had some hard conversations with my team. I had to wake up a little bit.
“So to be sitting here next to this trophy is definitely surreal. I also caught a cold early this week as well, so I was kind of knowing that I wasn’t 100 percent. But, again, even if I’m 80 percent, I’ll give my 100 percent of that 80 percent.”
Had she ever visualized winning a major, she was asked.
“No,” she said with a smile and then added: “I mean, I think I won a lot more events in my mind than in real life, but I think you need that visualization and that imagery in your mind to back yourself and,” a quick glance at the trophy “get this right here.”
Thitikul will rue her birdie putt on the 18th hole in regulation. It was a mere 10 feet but she lagged it in order to set a new clubhouse target.
It was her fourth top-10 finish in the Evian Championship and ninth in all the majors, but the world No. 2’s quest to win one goes on. “Overall, I’m proud of myself,” Thitikul insisted. “I can overcome [the quest] and hopefully have many chances in the future.”
The English amateur star Lottie Woad will also relive the final green. Fresh off her stunning six-shot victory in the previous week’s Irish Open on the Ladies European Tour, she thrilled the Sunday galleries with an audacious bid for the title.
The 20-year-old made the turn in a mere 30 strokes and was 7-under for her round through 13 holes and on top of the leaderboard. Like Thitikul she had a makeable 10-foot birdie putt of her own on 18 yet it slipped by the hole. “I’m going to be thinking about it for a while,” Woad admitted after completing a final-round 64 and falling one short of extra holes on 13-under for the week.
She did, however, claim a significant consolation. In sharing third with Minjee Lee she claimed a 20th point in the LPGA’s Elite Amateur Pathway, which earns her a card that she might defer to finish college at Florida State University.
“Relieved right now because it was kind of wearing on me for a bit,” she admitted of the quest to seal her tour card. “Just going to use next week at home with family and coaches to discuss the options and then I’ll decide after that.”
Matt Cooper