Sometimes it takes a friend by your side, a familiar voice in your ear, a caring hand patting you on the back, someone letting you know that you’re not alone, that you’ve got this, that there are people who believe in you.
For more than two years, Ariya Jutanugarn, once the No. 1 player in the world and as dominant a force as you could find in the women’s game, looked like a lost puppy. She practiced alone at the end of the range, away from other competitors and prying eyes until there were none. There were times when the youngest of the two Jutanugarn sisters on the LPGA couldn’t hit two consecutive pitching wedges on the same line.
Her worst world ranking this year was 87th. She entered the Hanwha LifePlus International Crown ranked No. 83.
By Sunday afternoon, Jutanugarn was the MVP, accepting a gold trophy from the chairman of Korean insurer Hanwha Life in addition to the gold medal and the sterling silver crown on her head for leading her team to a lopsided victory over Australia in the finals of the team match-play event held at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.
It seemed fitting that the final shot of the week was a chip-in by Ariya for par on 15 to close out Minjee Lee and Sarah Kemp, 4 and 3.
The team from Thailand, which included Atthaya Thitikul, who also visited the top spot in the world rankings for a cup of coffee last fall, major winner Patty Tavatanakit and Ariya’s older sister, Moriya Jutanugarn, went 11-1 over the four days. The Jutanugarn sisters, who were paired together for every match, never sniffed a loss. The closest threat came on Sunday morning in the semifinals when the American team of Nelly Korda and Danielle Kang clawed their way back to a tie with two holes to play. But a hole later, Ariya drained a 20-footer for birdie to put Thailand 1 up, which wound up being the margin of victory that put Thailand in the finals.
She had help, of course. The Thais were as dominant as any team in the history of the International Crown. As a team, they won 53 of 201 holes played, and led for more than 54 percent of the time in their matches. The Jutanugarns – in match wins over Japan, Korea, Australia, the United States and Australia again in the finals – trailed for a grand total of eight holes.
A victory couldn’t be more emphatic.
In the finals, Ariya holed winning putts from 5 to 25 feet as if they were tap-ins, and her confident power was back with a vengeance. Many times, she would pound 3-woods 50 yards past the best drives of her opponents.
Afterward, she embraced her sister, the person who has been by her side through all the ups and downs, and who provided the calming voice she needed to pull her back from the brink.
Steve Eubanks