ÉVIAN-LES-BAINS, FRANCE | The French expect fireworks every July 14. It is Bastille Day. A day to celebrate national identity.
What no one quite expected was that Japan’s Ayaka Furue would light the fireworks early on Sunday to win the Amundi Evian Championship in spectacular style.
A tournament, and a final-round back nine, that had largely failed to ignite burst into colourful life on the 14th green at the Evian Resort Golf Club to produce the most thrilling finish of the 2023 women’s major-championship season so far.
To that point, American Lauren Coughlin and the 54-hole leader, Australia’s Stephanie Kyriacou, had sneaked clear of their playing competitor Furue. Although the golf had been good, it was only of the neat and tidy kind that played most of the field out of the equation without ever wowing the tanned Alpine galleries.
Furue trailed Coughlin by three and Kyriacou by two, and she was 50 feet from the hole on the par-3 14th when she changed the entire complexion of the day.
She drained that birdie putt, added another from similar distance at the par-5 15th, knocked her tee shot at the par-3 16th to 6 feet and polished that off that par-breaker as well.
“I might have missed out on the Paris Olympics, but I have won in France and that makes me very happy.”
Ayaka Furue
It was a blistering hat trick of blows that left Coughlin dazed. She could make no headway at the par-5 15th and 18th and added two bogeys between. Her challenge was spent.
Kyriacou was more resilient. She matched Furue’s birdie at 15 and hit her tee shot at 16 inside the Japanese player’s ball before following her into the cup to take a one-shot lead up 17. But her tee shot there found thick rough, from which she could only hack out and then duffed her first chip on the way to a bogey.
While all this was happening, Thailand’s Patty Tavatanakit had holed from 18-feet for a closing eagle-3 to post a brilliant and bogey-free 8-under 63. She had joined Furue and Kyriacou on 17-under, but they had the 18th to play.
Kyriacou missed the fairway from the tee yet still set up a birdie opportunity which she would make.
It did not matter, however, because Furue had left the best till last. Her approach to the final green barely cleared the water hazard short of the putting surface before skipping to 15 feet, and she holed the putt to complete the final five holes in a dazzling 5-under for a 6-under 65.
Her winning total of 19-under 265 (including three rounds of 65) left her one clear of Kyriacou, two ahead of Tavatanakit and four in front of Coughlin. Furue earned $1.2 million from the $8 million purse.
Asked how she had maintained her momentum after that first long-range birdie conversion, she revealed that she had recently discovered the Star Wars franchise and the phrase “may the force be with you” had popped into her head as she walked toward the 15th green.
Her caddie of three years, Scotsman Michael Scott, agreed that the two blows on either side of her intonation of those words had entirely transformed her aspirations, and he was proud of the way in which his employer had “taken the chance to prove what a finisher she is.”
“Playing the 14th hole, we’re probably starting to think maybe it’s not our day,” he said. “But anything can happen coming down the stretch in a major championship. Today proved that. Great things can happen, and they happened today.”
Furue had been devastated to miss out on the Japanese Olympic team, slipping out of the automatic spots in the final event of the qualifying period, last month’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
“But the great thing with golf,” Scott said, “is that there’s always another week, another tournament. Ayaka has put herself in contention so many times, you’d like to think eventually it goes your way, and it did.”
This was not the first time that the 24-year-old Furue has thrived at Evian. She finished fourth in 2021 and was the first-round leader in 2022 en route to an eventual tie for 19th. She is also an eight-time winner on the Japan LPGA Tour.
But since claiming a first LPGA victory in the 2022 Scottish Open, she had 10 times finished in the top four without adding to her trophy haul, and she was aware of a reputation for not closing.
“I just kept trusting myself,” she said through an interpreter. “And in this tournament, on this course, I felt I could win because I love it here. I might have missed out on the Paris Olympics, but I have won in France and that makes me very happy.”
The impact of the victory in her country could be profound. The Japanese media here in Évian relate that the 2019 AIG Women’s Open triumph of Hinako Shibuno drew considerably greater crowds on her return to Tokyo airport, and significantly more media exposure, than the Masters victory of Hideki Matsuyama did two years later.
While conceding that the effects of COVID-19, plus the contrast between the personalities of the vivacious Shibuno and taciturn Matsuyama, might have influenced these reactions, they also stress that the Japanese LPGA is a more significant tour than the men’s equivalent.
The popular Furue may be due a thrilling arrival next week as this is a giddy time for her nation.
Four Japanese golfers have now won a women’s major. The first was Chako Higuchi in the LPGA Championship, forerunner to today’s Women’s PGA, but the last three have come in quick time: Shibuno five years ago, Yuka Saso last month in the U.S. Women’s Open (her first victory in that championship came in 2021 when she represented her native Philippines) and now Furue.
Miyū Yamashita was second in last month’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Shibuno finished runner-up behind Saso in the U.S. Women’s Open, Matsuyama won this year’s Genesis Invitational, and Ryo Hisatsune, Rikuya Hoshino, Keita Nakajima and Yuto Katsuragawa have all won on the DP World Tour since September.
To pinch the words of the band Alphaville, golf is big in Japan.
Two hours before the exhilarating finale, the curtain came down on American Angela Stanford’s major-championship career. The 46-year-old Texan was playing in her 103rd major and with a 5-under total of 279 she came a shot and a place shy of collecting a 36th top-25 finish.
Evian was the scene of her one major triumph, in 2018, and the affection for her was evident in the presentation of flowers from the tournament organisers, the cries of “Bravo!” from the 18th-green galleries, and the eagerness of Sunday playing competitor Brooke Henderson to take a selfie with Stanford after signing their cards.
From the 2002 Women’s PGA to this year’s Chevron Championship, Stanford played 98 consecutive majors. “To have been as competitive as she has been for so long,” said Henderson, “that’s just amazing.” Stanford will be retiring from full-time LPGA duties at the end of 2024.
Matt Cooper