Lizette Salas has added another title to her resume…
The 33-year-old Latina golfer and Jennifer Kupcho teamed up to win the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational on Saturday, closing with a 9-under 61 in best-ball play for a 5-stroke victory in the LPGA Tour‘s only team event.
The U.S. Solheim Cup partners finished at 26-under 254 at Midland Country Club. They opened Wednesday with a 68 in alternate shot, shot a best-ball 61 on Thursday and took a 4-stroke lead Friday with an alternate-shot 64.
Salas won her second tour title. She had previously won the 2014 Kingsmill Championship.
Kupcho won for the third time this year and in her career. She won the major Chevron Championship in early April in the California desert and the Meijer LPGA Classic last month in Belmont, Michigan. Matilda Castren and Kelly Tan were second after a 62.
Former Arkansas players Stacy Lewis and Maria Fassi shot a 59 to finish third at 20 under.
Cheyenne Knight and Elizabeth Szokol had a 61 to match Tiffany Chan and Haeji Kang at 19 under. Chan and Kang shot a 62.
Annika Sorenstam and Madelene Sagstrom, tied for the first-round lead, closed with a 66 to tie for 28th at 11 under.
The 51-year-old Sorenstam made her second LPGA Tour start of the year and only her third since retiring after the 2008 season. The Hall of Famer missed the cut last month in the U.S. Women’s Open.
The 29-year-old Spanish LPGA golfer has won the inaugural Aon Risk Reward Challenge and the $1 million prize.
The goal of the season-long competition was to illustrate how the world’s best golfers are among the world’s best strategic decision makers. The competition measured the performance of LPGA Tourand PGA Tourgolfers on a series of challenging holes across various tournaments. Players took their best two scores from each hole, with the winners having the best average score to par at the end of the regular season.
Ciganda was 37 under par for 44 challenge holes played, giving her a winning score of -0.841. Ariya Jutanugarn(-0.833) was second, followed by Lee-Anne Pace(-0.731), Brooke Henderson(-0.720) and In-Kyung Kim(-0.714).
For Ciganda, an eight-year player on the LPGA Tour, the end of the season provided her with the most crucial risk-reward situations. Although she was a leading contender from the start of the competition, it wasn’t until the end of the season, at the Buick LPGA Shanghai and the BMW Ladies Championship, where she stretched her lead with eagle-birdie scores on challenge holes.
“I played very consistent the whole year. I love being aggressive. I love taking the risk. I love that,” Ciganda said at the CME Group Tour Championship, the final tournament of the season. “That’s golf for me. That’s par-5 going on two, going for the green. That’s what I love the most.”
In August, PGA golfer Brooks Koepka won the inaugural trophy and the $1 million prize. Both Koepka and Ciganda were awarded equal payments for their accomplishments in the challenge, a rarity between the PGA and LPGA Tours, which differ greatly in prize money.
“It’s an unbelievable prize,” Ciganda said. “It’s really amazing finally to get recognized with the same amount of money. I’m the winner, but women’s golf is the winner today. The LPGA is the winner. We’re all winners.”
In 2019, LPGA players competed for a record $70.2 million in total prize money, up $7.2 million from 2016. This week, at the CME Group Tour Championship, the entire field will compete for the $5 million purse. And, the $1.5 million winner’s check will be the largest single prize in the history of women’s golf. (For context, Brooks Koepka won nearly $2 million after clinching the 2019 PGA Championshipat Bethpage Black. The total purse was $11 million.)
“We couldn’t be more proud of this outcome, and maybe most proud of the equal prize money across the LPGA and PGA Tour,” Andy Weitz, AonChief Marketing Officer, said. “It’s really great to see the level of consistency and high performance across both tours, and to see these players come out ahead at the end was incredibly exciting.”
Ciganda will compete at the final LPGA tournament of the 2019 season, the CME Group Tour Championship. Ciganda is currently ranked No. 14 in Women’s World Golf Rolex Rankings.
The 25-year-old Mexican professional golfer.won her first LPGA Tour event with a 1-over 73 to finish one shot ahead of Ariya Jutanugarn at the Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Club tournament in China.
Lopez had bogeys on the last two holes on Saturday and almost let the title slip away. She finished at 8-under 280.
Playing in a group with Lopez, No. 1-ranked Jutanugarn had a birdie on the final hole to also finish on 73.
Celine Boutier shot a 66 and finished two shots off the lead.
Lopez is the first winner from Mexico since Lorena Ochoa, a driving force for the game in that Latin American country.
“I mean, she’s been my inspiration my entire life,” Lopez said of Ochoa. “That’s why I’m actually a professional golfer.”
Ochoa was the LPGA‘s top-ranked golfer for several years until she retired in 2010. She won 27 LPGA Tour events.
Lopez said she was also thinking of her grandfather, Jose Lopez, who died recently.
“I always told him that I was going to give him my first trophy,” Lopez said. “Sadly I didn’t, but he was with me all week long, and I couldn’t be more lucky, more fortunate to have him still alive in me.”
Jutanugarn played the last two rounds with Lopez and was happy for her — even in defeat.
“She did a great job last two days,” Jutanugarn said, knowing Lopez was “nervous sometimes.”
Lopez turned 25 on Friday and had a hole-in-one in the third round, which turned out to be the difference.
The tournament wrapped up five straight weeks of play for the LPGA in Asia.
Maria Torres has earned her ticket… And, she’s made it into the history books in the process.
The 22-year-old Puerto Rican golfer earned a full tour card for next season at this past week’s the LPGA Tour qualifying tournament in Daytona Beach, Florida.
The final qualifier took place over the course of five days, and the top 20 finishers in the field of 165 players earned full cards.
Torres, an amateur, clinched the final spot by winning a three-hole, aggregate stroke-play playoff.
Torres, a recent graduate of the University of Florida, becomes the first player from Puerto Rico to earn full status on the LPGA.
“It’s so amazing. It’s all still sinking in, like, holy moly, this is crazy! But it’s so exciting,” says Torres in an interview with ESPNw. “I worked so hard, and I’ve been dreaming of this since I was little, and now I’m a professional on the LPGA. It’s just amazing [laughs] and I’m kind of speechless when I talk about it. But I’m excited to go back to Gainesville and see my teammates and then go home and see my family and share this excitement with them.
Torres, who was in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria struck and witnessed the storm’s aftermath before leaving her family behind, had to mentally prepare for qualifying tournament.
“It was really sad, but when I was talking to my parents, they said, ‘You have to leave, and you have focus on Q-school,’” says Torres. “They encouraged me to keep practicing and to stay focused on the end goal. It was still sad to see because you want to help in whatever [way] you can, but this has helped me appreciate what I have, and the support I have, and everything else. I’m not taking this moment for granted at all.”
Torres now hopes her participation in the LPGA Tour will inspire more Puerto Ricans to go after their dreams.
“By teaching kids that if you work hard, anything is possible. It’s not just about golf. I want them to believe in their dreams and go after what they want,” says Torres. “But I would love to see golf become more popular.”
The 35-year-old retired Mexican professional golfer has decided to play in her LPGA Tour event in Mexico, but only as part of a tournament exhibition,
Ochoa will play the Lorena Ochoa Match Play on May 4-7, her first time playing her namesake tournament since 2012.
Ochoa, who was the top-ranked female golfer in the world for 158 consecutive weeks and total weeks, will be playing in Hall of Fame exhibitions during the weekend of the tournament.
Her brother, Alejandro Ochoa, said she did not want to be specific about her participation when speaking to a small group of reporters at Chapultepec Golf Club because the LPGA Tour had not publicized the Hall of Fame matches and his sister didn’t want to speak ahead of any announcement.
The LPGA Tour is expected to reveal details of the exhibition this week.
Ochoa said she has been practicing a few days a week and said she would practice every day in advance of her appearance at the Lorena Ochoa Match Play.
Ochoa retired in 2010 when she was No. 1 in the world. She recently had married and wanted to start a family and work on her foundation. She last competed against LPGA Tour competition at the 2012 Lorena Ochoa Invitational.
Because she had not played 10 full years on the LPGA Tour, she was not eligible for the LPGA Hall of Fame. But after a change in the voting process for the World Golf Hall of Fame — it is now done by a committee instead of a large panel that included golf writers — Ochoa was selected for induction this year.
Ochoa compiled her 27 LPGA Tour victories in a six-year span in which she rose to No. 1 in women’s golf. She also won two majors — the 2007 Women’s British Open the first time it was held at St. Andrews, and the 2008 Kraft Nabisco Championship.
The U.S. Solheim Cup partners finished at 26-under 254 at Midland Country Club. They opened Wednesday with a 68 in alternate shot, shot a best-ball 61 on Thursday and took a 4-stroke lead Friday with an alternate-shot 64.
