After 63 holes of the CP Women’s Open, this one looked like a coronation, another celebration for a Rolex First-Time winner. Paula Reto, a 32-year-old South African journeywoman with the kind of up-and-down career that made her virtually unknown to all but the most ardent LPGA Tour fans, made some putting adjustments coming into Ottawa Hunt & Golf Club. The confidence from those changes made Reto look more like a player with six wins than one who only had six top-10s in a nine-year career.
Reto began her Sunday in the final threesome, one shot behind a pair of rookies, Hye-Jin Choi and Narin An. But the South African, playing in her 157th career LPGA Tour start, reeled off five birdies in her first nine holes to open up a four-shot lead at the turn. She did it as she had all week, rolling in putts from everywhere, which was a stark turnaround from earlier in the year.
Reto came into the week ranked 87th in putts per greens in regulation on the LPGA Tour. There were a couple of weeks in which she averaged more than two putts per green. Last week in Canada, she averaged 27 putts per round and hit 55 of 72 greens. It looked even better than that. Reto rolled in 6- to 8-footers as if they were tap-ins and hit a good number of 30- to 40-footers that died on the edge. She made one bomb on Sunday – a curling 45-footer for birdie at the par-3 eighth – but other than that, she played for the center of most greens on the back nine, rolling her long birdie efforts within easy two-putt range.
On 18, anyone who watched could see the nerves. Reto, too, flared her second shot to the right. But a deft pitch left her with 18 feet for birdie, a putt she rolled down to a foot-and-a-half.
It should have been an easy cruise to victory, but it wasn’t. Nelly Korda – who, two weeks ago, came from 10 shots back to win the Aramco Team Series – Sotogrande on the Ladies European Tour – charged from five behind at the turn on Sunday. Korda sent a jolt through the teeming Canadian galleries when, after a birdie at 11, she holed a 9-iron on the par-4 12th for eagle to close the gap to three shots.
It narrowed to two when Reto caught a bad break at 14. Her tee shot bounced hard and left and trickled inside the line of a penalty area, which led to an awkward stance, a layup, and her first bogey of the day.
Korda then had the harshest lip-out of the year, one that will become a social-media meme in no time and would prove pivotal in the end. On the par-3 13th, right after the hole-out eagle, Korda’s 15-footer appeared to be going the perfect speed before it caught the high edge of the hole and went more than all the way around, about 390 degrees.
She had other chances, including at the par-5 18th where Korda flared a 5-wood into the right greenside bunker and failed to get up and down. But the lip-out on 13 was the one that stuck in everyone’s mind, especially since, with a win, Korda would have jumped back into the No. 1 spot in the Rolex Rankings.
The miss left the door open for Reto, who continued to make putt after putt, including a crucial 5-footer for par on 16 and a great up-and-down from the rough left of the 17th green.
The girl who didn’t pick up a golf club until she was 15 years old after injuring her knee playing field hockey didn’t realize it at the time, but that short putt, only her 26th of the day, which she quickly rolled into the center of the hole, would prove life-changing.
Steve Eubanks