Azahara Muñoz (-8) has delivered her second-best performance of the season in Hawaii. She finished the LOTTE Championship last night with a scorecard of 69 strokes, once again without bogeys, to finish in fifteenth position. This way, she climbs from 122nd to 110th in the Race to CME Globe, covering more than half the distance she needed before the start of this tournament to save her card. She has one more tournament left to break into the top 100. It will be played next week in Florida. A year ago, she finished second in that event. The hope of avoiding the Final Stage of Q-School remains intact.
Azahara has completed the last 36 holes at the Hoakalei Country Club without bogeys, a display of endurance, good golf, and the ability to recover when needed, once again highlighting the extraordinary grit of the Spaniard. At 36 years old, she continues to fiercely defend her place on the LPGA Tour. She was the fourth-best player of the tournament over the weekend. Today, she wasn’t as sharp from tee to green as on Saturday, but she managed to make all four recoveries on the four greens she missed. Additionally, she made three great birdies on holes 3, 5, and 10.
Now she has one last stop on the regular calendar to try to make another leap in the American circuit ranking and break into the top one hundred, which are the ones that secure full playing rights. This is the The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican, a tournament where she finished second last year, only behind Lilia Vu. Good feelings.
Beyond Azahara, the victory in Hawaiian lands went to the Korean A Lim Kim (-18). The 2020 US Open champion thus achieves her second victory on the LPGA Tour after delivering a final scorecard of 68 strokes. She won by two strokes over Russian Nataliya Guseva (-16). Both thus secure their presence in the grand final of the Race to CME Globe, which will be held in Florida in two weeks with the top 60 of the circuit. The truth is that Guseva pushed throughout the day. In the first nine holes, she managed to share the lead, but she never managed to get ahead.
Two consecutive birdies by Kim on holes 10 and 11 gave her a good margin of three strokes to face the last seven holes, although Guseva did not give up. That promised Cocker Spaniel from her mother in case of victory surely helped her keep pushing. A birdie on the 13th by Nataliya brought her back to within one stroke, but from there, she couldn’t gain any more ground, and Kim took the victory with a final birdie on the 18th.
In third position finished Auston Kim, who is on the brink of the top 60 of the Race, and fourth was Japanese Nasa Hataoka. Both delivered the best scorecard of the final day: 67 strokes. Additionally, it seems it was the last round for Angela Stanford on the LPGA Tour with full playing rights. The winner of seven tournaments on the American circuit and a Major (Evian Championship 2018) does not enter the last regular tournament of the year in Florida and has decided to end her career. She bids farewell in style, holing out from off the green last Thursday to make an eagle on the 18th hole and make the cut.
