ROGERS - World No. 1 Inbee Park will be heading to New York later this week attempting to win her third consecutive major championship of 2013 after coming from behind Sunday to win the LPGA Northwest Arkansas Championship in a playoff over fellow South Korean So Yeon Ryu.
Park, who started the final round two strokes behind four players, including fifth-ranked Ryu and second-ranked Stacy Lewis, shot a 4-under 67 on Sunday, then capped her fifth tournament victory of the year when her 4-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole swirled around the cup before dropping.
“I’ve won a lot of times this year, but I still feel the pressure coming into the final round every time and definitely feel a lot of pressure in the playoff,” Park said. “I think that’s just going to happen no matter how many times I win, but it gets more exciting, that’s for sure.”
Park won the Kraft Nabisco Championship in April, the Wegmans LPGA Championship earlier this month and will tee off Thursday in Southhampton, N.Y., in the U.S. Women’s Open.
“It’s very good to have this kind of momentum going forward, that’s for sure,” Park said. “I just had a great two weeks and hopefully one more is left out there.”
Playing three groups behind the final pairing of Lewis and Spain’s Beatrice Recari, Park made three consecutive birdies on the front nine Sunday and finally got to the top of the leaderboard with a birdie on No. 18. She was joined two groups later by Ryu who made birdie on 18 after a clutch shot from deep rough beside the bleachers that left her having to make an 8-foot birdie putt to force the playoff.
Park found the fairway with her drive on the 18th to start the playoff, while Ryu found the rough, forcing a layup with her second shot and a wedge over the back of the green with her third. Park’s second was in the rough in front of the green, but her chip spun within 4 feet to set up her winning birdie putt just before Ryu’s birdie chip barely missed the hole.
“There were a lot of leaders at 10 under and coming from behind takes a lot of pressure off of me,” Park, 24, said. “That takes pressure off of everybody when they finish before everybody and just try to post a number and see what happens. I prefer to play a couple groups in front.”
The birdies at 18 by Park and Ryu put them at 12 under and finally broke a logjam at the top that included first round leader Mika Miyazato of Japan, Lewis (Arkansas Razorbacks), I.K. Kim of South Korea and 16-year old amateur Lydia Ko of New Zealand.
Miyazato finished alone in third at 11 under but could not advance any closer after making her final birdie at the par-3 15th.
Lewis, the world No. 2, slipped to 8 under after a double bogey on the par-5 7th when she hit a bad drive then found further trouble in a green side bunker. Birdies on 10 and 18 took away some of that sting, but consecutive missed birdie putts from the 11th to the 14th and a bogey on 15, when she went into the bunker on the par-3 15th, never allowed the former No. 1 to get lower than 10 under on her way to an even-par 71 and a tie for fourth with Kim and Ko.
“You can make birdies on this course,” Lewis said. “I had some good opportunities on 11 and 12 that really not making those kind of hurt me.
“I knew it was going to be tough because there was obviously four people tied for the lead, so it was going to be a shootout, probably was going to end in a playoff, which it did.”
Ryu, who is a regular practice-round partner with Park, had the lead midway through the round, but four-putted the par-4 13th to slip back to 10 under. She birdied 17 before going for the green in two on 18 and pulling out birdie from the rough.
“If you miss a really short putt, it’s really hard to trust yourself, especially if you are going to have to putt the same length as what I missed,” said Ryu, the world’s No. 5 player on her struggles at 13. “It’s really, really tough, but I didn’t look back. I just focused on 17 birdie putt and 18 birdie putt.
Kim birdied 7 and 8 to get to 11 under before bogeys on 11 and 17 derailed her title hopes. She would finish with a 69 and in a tie for fourth.
New Zealand’s Ko, the top amateur in the world, made birdie on the 13th to get to 10 under, but that’s as far as she would advance.
“I had a bogey-free round again, which was pretty good,” Ko, 16, said. “I made two bogeys overall in this tournament, and that’s I think the least amount of bogeys I’ve had so far.”
World No. 3 Suzann Petersen of Norway crept up the leaderboard all day, but could never break through the logjam in front of her. She shot a 4-under 67 to finish 9 under in a tie for seventh with Paula Creamer and second-round leaders Recari and Chie Arimura of Japan.
Stacy Prammanasudh (Conway) shot an even-par 70 and finished in a tie for 46th at 1 under.
Karen Stupples (Arkansas State) fell back with a 6-over 77 on Sunday, leaving her at 4 over and in a tie for 66th.
She’s a winner
South Korea’s Inbee Park won her fifth tournament of the 2013 season Sunday at the Wal-Mart Northwest Arkansas Championship in Rogers. She has been the No. 1 player in the world rankings since April. Park has won both majors this year, the Kraft Nabisco Championship in April and the LPGA Championship earlier this month.
DATE TOURNAMENT Feb. 21-24 Honda LPGA Thailand
EARNINGS $225,000 April 4-7 Kraft Nabisco Championship EARNINGS $300,000 April 25-28 North Texas LPGA Shootout EARNINGS $195,000 June 6-9 Wegmans LPGA Champ. EARNINGS $337,500 Friday-Sun. Wal-Mart NW Ark. Champ. EARNINGS $300,000 SOURCE LPGA.com
Leaderboard
WAL-MART NW ARKANSAS
CHAMPIONSHIP
At Pinnacle Country Club, Rogers Purse: $2 million Par 71, 6,344 yards Final round a-denotes amateur; x-won in playoff
x-Inbee Park ..............69-65-67—201 So Yeon Ryu .............66-66-69—201 Mika Miyazato ...........65-70-67—202 a-Lydia Ko .................69-66-68—203 I.K. Kim .....................70-64-69—203 Stacy Lewis ...............67-65-71—203 Suzann Pettersen ......67-70-67—204 Paula Creamer ...........68-68-68—204 Chie Arimura .............67-65-72—204 Beatriz Recari ............67-65-72—204
ARKANSANS
Stacy Prammanasudh 69-72-71—212 Karen Stupples ..........69-71-77—217
Sports, Pages 13 on 06/24/2013