“How eager I was to win in the United States.” That’s how the conversation begins with Carlota Ciganda, the Navarrese who won her third tournament on the LPGA Tour on Sunday and spoke to Ten Golf this Tuesday from Frisco, Texas, the venue for this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Indeed, Carlota had two victories on the American circuit, but both were in South Korea and Mexico. She won the Meijer Classic in Michigan.
“Relief, joy, and pride.” With these three words, the Spanish champion defines her victory at the Blythefield Country Club. Relief because she wanted to get rid of the thorn of winning on US soil and because, after all, it had been nine years since she last lifted a trophy on the LPGA. Joy because she feels that the changes she has made this year in her team are working. On one side, the incorporation of Joseba del Carmen in the mental aspect and on the other, Casey Johnson, the caddie she started working with and with whom she has had a quick connection. And the pride comes from the patience she has had, the perseverance, the unwavering faith in her abilities, and having achieved it, in some way, on her terms, being herself.
Obviously, there is also a lot of pride in the way she won, with three birdies in the last four holes, at the crucial moment and coming from behind. “I didn’t want to know anything about the scores throughout the round. I wanted to focus solely on the process, on shot by shot, on my routines, on truly doing things well, committed, as I wanted. After all that, we would see where we ended up,” she explains. Carlota didn’t ask her caddie until the tee of the 16th hole, right after pulling off a great birdie on the 15th. “Casey told me: you’re tied for second, one shot behind the leader… and the leader is that one right there. Understood, I said.” That was Hye Jin Choi, her playing partner in the final round.
The key hole was the 17th, a par 4 that had caused many problems for the players throughout the week. It was very important to nail the drive. Carlota hit first and placed it in the middle of the fairway. There, she put a lot of pressure on Choi. The Korean sent it to the rough. She had no shot because of the trees. All she could do was get it back to the fairway. “I knew it was the moment to apply pressure. I had 110 metres to the flag and hit a great shot. I left it close,” the Spaniard recalls. That’s pressure. Don’t think that Choi, an extraordinary player, highly praised by Carlota, was too intimidated. She hit a great shot and left it two metres away, but missed the putt. A complete turnaround. She went from being one behind to one ahead.
The 18th hole is a par 5 that can be reached in two. Carlota played it by the book and hit the green with a 7-iron. “On the first putt, I overhit it a bit and left myself a one and a half metre return. I had to make it to win. At that moment, I was fully aware of what was at stake. The putt was on the left edge. Sometimes, with those kinds of putts, I push it directly to the right and miss, so I told myself: Carlota, keep your head still. I kept it still, and it went in,” she explains.
Ciganda admits that her greatest satisfaction is having managed to go 72 holes without directly thinking about winning. “I think other times I’ve put too much pressure on myself, obsessed with the idea of winning above all else, and that’s not good, it hasn’t helped me. It has been my best tournament ever from an emotional standpoint, and that has a lot to do with the work I’m doing with Joseba. If he’s been with Jon, who is a number one, surely he can help me too, I thought when I contacted him. Mentally, I wasn’t comfortable, and he has helped me a lot,” she states.
Another fundamental part has been her new caddie. With this, Carlota doesn’t want to belittle the previous ones; on the contrary, she is eternally grateful to them because she learned a lot from them. Everything in its time. But with Casey, she has found a better feeling on the course. She feels more comfortable. “We’ve had a very good connection. I feel more like myself on the course, I’m more aware of what’s happening,” she assures.
Another factor that has helped, albeit unconsciously, is the new generation of great young Spanish golfers coming up from the amateur ranks. The so-called ‘fighters’. The victories of Carla Bernat in the ANWA, Paula Martín in the British Amateur, and Julia López‘s lead in the final round of the US Open have been an incentive, a positive motivation. “It’s impressive and admirable everything they are doing. In a way, it’s a way to get motivated, to think how great, how strong they are coming, but the one here now is me, and I’m not going to pass the baton just like that. We can share it, but it’s still too early to give it away. It’s an incentive to be better, and partly because of that, I have to thank them,” she explains. It’s a way of asserting herself and saying, with respect, that she’s still here and eager to make an impact.
If the PGA of America’s Major wasn’t being played this week, Carlota would be at Alcaidesa in the tournament organised by the Pau Gasol Foundation against childhood obesity alongside Rafa Nadal. She was invited. “I would have loved to go. It’s a dream for me to be alongside Rafa or Gasol, two idols,” she notes. By the way, she picks up the challenge Pau threw at her in an interview with Ten Golf, where he said he had a game pending with Carlota. “How nice. The truth is, I’ve spoken with him recently. I love how he explains things, how he sees sport and competition, how he understands the mental part of the game. The game is on. We just need to find dates…” she says.
By the way, it won’t be easy to maintain this new version of Carlota this week in a Major and after winning. That’s the big challenge: to continue with the routines, the process, shot by shot, and leave the result aside. Not to think or obsess about winning, but about what’s ahead. This week she will speak twice with Joseba, although she already points out that the preparation hasn’t been ideal. “I could only play nine holes on Monday, today I can’t play the course because there’s a ProAm, and I wasn’t included (???), and tomorrow we’ll see if I play 9 or 18 because it’s very hot. I like to prepare the course a bit better, play it more, but it is what it is, and I have to adapt. It’s a course for big hitters. You have to be very good from tee to green, and from what I’ve seen, the greens are tricky.” Let’s remember that it’s played on a nine-hole course designed by the PGA of America, which has moved its headquarters and offices to this spectacular complex in Frisco.
