Ladies European Tour (LET) - Phatlum claims third Hero Women’s Indian Open title

   

Thailand’s Pornanong Phatlum gave herself an early 23^rd birthday present by becoming the first woman to win the Hero Women’s Indian Open three times.
Phatlum, who turns 23 on December 4, gave a dominant final round display at DLF Golf and Country Club in Gurgaon on Sunday.
She shot rounds of 72, 65 and 66 for a winning total of 203, 13 under par, winning by four strokes from the defending champion Caroline Hedwall.
“I’m so happy now. It’s like a big tournament; I won and in two days it will be my birthday so it’s going to be a big present for me,” said Phatlum, who previously won the event on the same golf course in 2008 and 2009, when it was sanctioned by the Ladies Asian Golf Tour and Women’s Golf Association of India. It became tri-sanctioned with the Ladies European Tour in 2010 and this was Phatlum’s first win on the LET.
“I love winning at this golf course and I like to play here very much,” continued the diminutive world No.93, who stands 5’3” tall.  “I think my approach shots and putting were the best part of my game. I have a lot of pressure today but I told myself to relax.”
The colourfully dressed Phatlum may be softly spoken and shy when speaking English, but she let her golf do the talking on a warm and sunny final day near New Delhi.
Having started the final round tied for the lead with Australian Bree Arthur on seven under par, she took control of the championship with an outward nine of five under 31 in the final round, to gain a three stroke lead over Hedwall, to whom she had finished second 12 months earlier.
It turned out to be an exciting final round duel and both players birdied the first hole. Hedwall then caught Phatlum with a birdie on the fifth.
At the par-five sixth, Phatlum made a 15-footer for eagle while Hedwall could only respond with a birdie after finding the bunker right, short of the green.
Phatlum then sank birdie putts from three and 12 feet at the seventh and eighth respectively to move three shots clear of the field by the turn.
There was a two shot swing at the 15^th, which Phatlum bogeyed and Hedwall birdied, reducing the margin to just one stroke.
However, after hitting her bright pink ball into the rough left of the fairway on 17, Phatlum expertly played a half shot out of the trees using a 9-iron to within three feet of the hole and rolled in the putt to move two strokes ahead.
Both players split the fairway with their drives on the par-five 18^th, but it was effectively all over when Hedwall hit her second shot into the lake short of the green.
“The funny thing is that I should reach. I had 156 metres to the pin but it was in a divot and I can’t really do much about that,” Hedwall, 23, explained. “The divot was placed there but it still wasn’t a good lie. I said to my mom, ‘I have adrenaline so this is the club that I have to hit. If I hit 4-iron I might end up in the bunker,’ so I just had to go with it and I did and I hit a good shot, but I obviously lost a lot of length hitting from there. It went in the water and that happens.

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 Ladies European Tour (LET) - Phatlum claims third Hero Women’s Indian Open title