Roll out the red carpet and welcome a new star onto the LPGA Tour.
After an extraordinary 64 at Aviara on Sunday, the low round of the day, 19-year-old Atthaya Thitikul posted a 16-under-par total and waited an hour to see whether she might have more golf left. Despite dropping temperatures and a chill coming off the Pacific, the Thai rookie, who began the day six shots back, never went to the range, instead hitting a couple of chips, a dozen or so putts and wandering in and out of the media center to see the action on television.
When Nanna Koerstz Madsen, who had been leaking oil all day, finally blew a gasket, Thitikul found herself in a playoff, which she won on the second hole as both players made a mess of things, but Thitikul’s bogey was good enough.
Despite the sloppy finish, it has been an extraordinary run for the teenager who is being likened to a young Lydia Ko. Thitikul has already won four times on the Ladies European Tour, twice last year as an 18-year-old and once at the age of 14, making her the youngest winner of a professional event on any tour. Last year, she came within one missed birdie putt on the final hole of perhaps winning on the LPGA Tour as a non-member. That came at the Honda LPGA Thailand when Thitikul barely missed a putt that would have put her in a playoff with Ariya Jutanugarn.
Before her breakthrough victory, Thitikul has finished T45, T11, T4 and T8 this season. It’s hard to call that rise anything other than meteoric.
But she had help in Carlsbad, California. Koerstz Madsen, who was attempting to join an elite club of LPGA Tour players to follow up their maiden victory with another win, failed to take advantage of at least three good breaks down the stretch. Tied for the lead at 16 under, the Dane, who broke through in Thailand three weeks ago, almost hit it in the water on the drivable par-4 16th but then failed to get up and down for birdie from a good lie in a great spot.
One hole later, Koerstz Madsen made birdie after two good breaks, the first when her pulled tee shot ended up on a cart path and she got relief, and the second when her approach seemed to defy gravity and bounced toward the hole, leaving her 5 feet, which she made to take a one-shot lead.
One more pull on 18 left Koerstz Madsen with 60 feet for birdie. She rolled it up to 5 feet, but with everything on the line, she missed the par effort, sending this one to extra holes.
Thitikul almost holed her approach on the first playoff hole but failed to convert the birdie. The second time around, the teenager three-putted from 45 feet, but it didn’t matter. Koerstz Madsen had gone completely off the rails, pulling another tee shot and then finding the water with her second. A bogey was good enough for Thitikul to win in just her sixth LPGA Tour start.
Meanwhile one streak came to a close with another extended for at least a few more days. Jin Young Ko came into the week having not shot a round higher than 69 since October 18. And she hadn’t been even or over par since the Amundi Evian Championship last July. On Friday, her consecutive-rounds-in-the-60s streak came to an end when Ko, who led the JTBC Classic after the opening round, fired a 1-under par 71. But after that, Ko shot 70 on Saturday and 68 on Sunday, restarting her 60s run at one, and extending the rounds-under-par streak to 34. In the process, she has hit 80 percent of her greens in regulation in her last 12 starts despite playing on three continents in all types of conditions.
“The stats are very impressive,†Stacy Lewis said of Ko. “She’s probably the best ball-striker we’ve seen in a really long time.
“I don’t think people realize how hard it is when you take time off and then come right back into it and keep doing what you’re doing. She’ll take two or three weeks off, and it’s like she never missed a beat. Most people, it takes a round or two to get back in the groove. But she just seems to go right back into it. And it doesn’t matter what style of golf course it is, which goes back to her being a good ball-striker. A good ball-striker can play on any golf course.â€
Steve Eubanks
