With her victory at the Evian Championship, Haeran Ryu has now won two consecutive majors.
Philippe Millereau, KMSP
In the third round of the 2026 Evian Championship, Korea’s Haeran Ryu couldn’t miss when she took aim at the hole with putter in hand.
She made nine birdies and one eagle-2 to card 11-under-par 60 – the lowest 18-hole total in major championship history – good enough to turn a three-stroke halfway deficit into a three-stroke 54-hole lead over Japan’s Aki Iwai, with Canada’s Brooke Henderson and another Japanese golfer, Mao Saigo, another four strokes in arrears.
Twenty-four hours later, playing the 72nd hole, Ryu’s once red-hot flatstick was resolutely ice cold.
Her final round had included 16 pars and one bogey.
As the field went low she had dropped from 19-under for the week to 18-under.
She had been caught by Iwai – and Henderson was only one stroke behind.
What should have been a Sunday stroll to victory was threatening to become a Sunday stumble towards defeat.
Standing over a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th hole at Evian Resort Golf Club, the 25-year-old knew she had no option but to hole it because Iwai had her own birdie putt from closer to the hole and Henderson was inside them both looking at an eagle putt.
Ryu blocked out the noise in her head and drained the putt.
“Any time you shoot 7-under and chase down a leader you take confidence. It was a pretty cool day despite the result.”
Brooke Henderson
Iwai missed her own try, but Henderson was up to the task of completing a sixth eagle of the week (and third of the day) to send the tournament into extra holes.
In the playoff Henderson blinked, able only to make par on the 18th, which Ryu bettered with a two-putt birdie to triumph.
“My putting was so bad today,” the champion admitted afterwards. “I was praying, ‘Please God, please let the ball go in the hole’ on every hole.”
But when it mattered the most she had summoned up the resilience to revive memories of Saturday’s record-breaking golf.
There has never been any doubt that Ryu is an elite ball striker, as both old numbers and new metrics prove.
But while Korda has claimed four major championship victories, including the first two played this year, Ryu reached mid-June this year with nothing to show from her first 20 starts in the tournaments that define a golfer’s career.
The problem was her putter, which didn’t need to be elite, but it needed to be average at the very least to make the most of her long-game skills.
Haeran Ryu celebrates victory wrapped in the South Korean flag.
OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
The first signs of improvement came in mid-May when she finished second in the Kroger Queen City Championship, aided by a best putting week for 12 months.
Minor back surgery followed and she was entitled to think all aspects of her game would suffer on return, but if anything she has resumed tour duty as a more complete package than ever.
If victory in last month’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship was impressive, backing it up with success in France rubber stamps her elevation to elite status.
Moreover, that she lost her putting touch in the final round, and then rediscovered it when needing it most, might paradoxically benefit her in the long run as she chases more major success.
But first she is relishing the sheer joy of the last month.
“It’s like a fake cartoon,” she said. “It feels very unreal and I’m very, very happy.”
Henderson was superb on Sunday. The 2022 Evian champion’s hunting down of the leader included an eagle-3 at the par-5 seventh and a hole-in-one at the par-3 eighth.
“It was a lot of fun out there and I’m very proud of my charge.” she said afterwards. “Any time you shoot 7-under and chase down a leader you take confidence. It was a pretty cool day despite the result.”
Iwai, who had grabbed the first-round lead with a 62, was left in tears after pulling up short to finish alone in third. Saigo, her Japanese compatriot Miyu Yamashita and Korea’s Jin Hee Im shared fourth.
Matt Cooper
