Women’s PGA Championship: Ruoning Yin won the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship by one stroke, giving her her second LPGA Tour victory of the season and her first major championship.
On a rain-delayed final day at Baltusrol Golf Club, the 20-year-old carded a bogey-free 67, with a birdie at the par-five 18th putting her eight under par ahead of former US Women’s Open champion Yuka Saso.
Carlota Ciganda and Anna Nordqvist tied for third place on six under par with Megan Khang, Xiyu Lin, and Northern Ireland’s Stephanie Meadow, as overnight leader Leona Maguire dropped out after a dismal Sunday.
Maguire had a one-shot lead going into the final day, but lost position with three bogeys in a six-hole run beginning with the sixth, finishing with a three-over 74, four shots down in a tie for 11th.
How Yin attained great success
Maguire’s overnight lead was quickly erased when playing partner Jenny Shin birdied the first hole, with the Irishwoman dropping into a tie for second after failing to get up and down from the sand to save par at the sixth.
Ciganda led after 13 holes with an eagle and five birdies, while Lin followed four birdies in the opening seven holes with a stroke at the ninth to reach the turn in 30 and tie for the lead.
After a nearly two-hour weather delay due to the danger of lightning, Maguire and Shin both bogeyed the eighth, while Lin maintained her streaks of pars around the turn to remain clear of the pursuing group.
Yin took a share of the lead for the first time when she birdied the 13th and 14th holes, while Saso made it a three-way tie at the top after three birdies in a four-hole run from the 12th.
Maguire eventually carded her first birdie of the day at the 13th, but quickly bogeyed the next to fall three back, while Saso also bogeyed the 14th to lose her share of the lead.
Lin squandered a birdie chance at the 17th and then found water off the last tee on her way to a bogey, leaving her one behind, while Saso got up and down from a greenside bunker at the last to set the clubhouse goal at seven under.
Yin entered the rough with her tee approach on the par-five 18th and had to lay up before hitting an amazing iron to eight feet and made a curving birdie putt to win her first major.
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