Golfer of Vietnamese origin wins LPGA Tour

Lilia Vu was crowned champion thanks to the last round of her breakthrough performance at Siam par72, Chonburi, while the most anticipated native candidate Natthakritta Vongtaveelap suddenly dropped.

The whole match, Vu hit 64 strokes, no bogey and Vongtaveelap hit 71 strokes.

Entering from hole 1, Vongtaveelap kept the top of the table at -20 while Vu -14. Vu was ahead of the 31st SEA Games women's singles gold medalist, and on the 12th hole, she scored the seventh birdie to take the lead with a -21 point. And Vongtaveelap went up to -21 at the beginning of the round but immediately went down to -20 and sometimes down to -18. Thanks to the birdie on the 12th hole, she came back one stick behind Vu.

For the remaining six holes, Vu and his opponent both added a birdie. Vu finished first with a score of -21, when he kept par 18. This hole, Vongtaveelap had a birdie opportunity to catch up with Vu when he put the ball 3.3 meters from the hole. However, Vongtaveelap couldn't get the job done in one stroke. If she can finish from there, she drags Vu into the extra hole to determine the final title.

"After round 3, my father said that I just need to play one more match well to win. I memorized my father's words and tried to find birdies in each hole in the last leg," Vu said at the award ceremony. Since the beginning of the year, Vu has finished third on the LPGA Tour three times.

Honda LPGA Thailand has been on the LPGA Tour schedule since 2006. This year, the bonus fund reached 1.7 million USD, of which Vu received 255,000 USD, and Vongtaveelap received 157,780 USD.

With the results of the last period, Vu was crowned on the LPGA Tour for the first time after four years of professional competition, of which two years of "plowing" on the second-place Epson Tour system did not get the card to first place, from 2022. .

Vongtaveelap 20 years old, currently belongs to the rookie LPGA Tour. She turned pro in November 2022. When participating in the SEA Games 31 golf course as an amateur in May 2022, Natthakritta set a -14 victory after three rounds leading at Dam Vac par72 in Vinh Phuc, double the first place in the SEA Games 30 women's individual content. in the Philippines.