NAPLES, Fla. — Gino Titicle capped off her finest 12 months but along with her largest accomplishment in ladies’s golf, coming into the LPGA document books with the bottom scoring common within the tour’s 75-year historical past.
As if she had a straightforward Sunday with a four-stroke victory on the CME Group Tour Championship, she remembers it wasn’t all the time so clean.
Two months in the past, he misplaced the Kroger Queen Metropolis Championship with a four-putt end.
“I put ice packs in my eyes as a result of I cried a lot,” she stated.
Then final week, he injured his wrist on the onerous grass at his dwelling in Dallas, leaving him uncertain whether or not he would make it by way of the ultimate 4 rounds of the season at Tiburon Golf Membership, not to mention win. She reduce on her follow classes to assist with that.
“I feel saying initially of the week that I might end 4 rounds of golf right here was greater than I might have requested for already,” she stated. “However standing right here on Sunday with the trophy, it is like greater than I might ever actually, actually hope for.”
Contained in the ropes, she regarded as dominant because the No. 1 participant in ladies’s golf.
Titikul, who entered the ultimate day at Tiburon Golf Membership with a six-shot lead over Nelly Korda, made two birdies early on the again 9 to fend off an early problem from Pajari Anannarkhan and received her second straight CME Group Tour Championship with a 4-under 68.
This implies one other $4 million verify, the biggest in ladies’s golf, pushing her season earnings to $7,578,300. Along with her closing birdie from 10 ft, she narrowly broke Annika Sorenstam’s scoring document — Titikul’s 68.681 and Sorenstam’s 68.697 in 2002.
“I imply, I by no means dreamed of attaining a document like that,” she stated. “And when you can obtain the bottom common rating of your whole profession simply as soon as, that will be actually wonderful.”
What she did not know was how shut it was at one level Sunday.
Anantnarkarn, who was enjoying in a gaggle forward of his fellow Thai, began with 5 birdies in seven holes and narrowed the hole to 2 strokes. He superior to the again 9 with a two-stroke lead.
However Titikul then birdied the tenth and thirteenth, and Anannarkhan dropped a shot on the par-3 twelfth. The lead was again to 5 strokes, and Titicle returned dwelling with a free. She did not take a look at the leaderboard till she bought to the par-5 seventeenth and did not understand her Thai good friend was following her.
Titicle raised his arms as he made the ultimate birdie and ended up lined in foam on the 18th inexperienced. Titikul completed at 26-under 262, becoming a member of Ko Jin-young as the one consecutive winners of the CME Group Tour Championship.
The win additionally assured her the LPGA Participant of the Yr award, however the consequence was already determined as Ladies’s Open winner Miyu Yamashita wanted to win.
Korda, who changed Titicle as No. 1 within the ladies’s golf rankings, grew to become the primary participant since Tiger Woods in 2010 to go from seven wins in a single season to zero the next 12 months.
She began the day going through lengthy odds, six strokes behind, however fell additional behind with one bogey and no birdies on the entrance 9. She holed out for eagle on the eleventh and shot 31 on the again for a 68 and completed third. Korda nonetheless has plans to compete within the blended staff Grant Thornton Invitational and the PNC Championship along with her father subsequent month.
Requested to explain this 12 months, Korda replied, “It has been robust.”
“There have been numerous ups and downs, and I really feel like that has helped me develop quite a bit mentally. And I may also say that I am very grateful for that as a result of success is rarely linear,” she stated.
