Lydia Ko completed her Olympic medal collection on Saturday with the most valuable of of them all, a gold medal that puts the 27-year-old Kiwi into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
Ko built a five-shot lead on the back nine at Le Golf National as her closest pursuers all collapsed, and then had to hang on until the very end. Her lead down to one, Ko made a 7-foot birdie putt for a 1-under 71 and a two-shot victory.
Ko won the silver medal in Rio de Janeiro. She won the bronze in Tokyo. The missing one turned out to be more valuable than its weight in gold. The victory pushed her career total to 27 points for the LPGA Hall of Fame, one of the strictest criteria for any shrine.
Esther Henseleit of Germany finished birdie-birdie for a 66 to make Ko work for it. She wound up with the silver. Xiyu Lin of China birdied the final hole for a 69 to win the bronze.
Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., threatened midway through the final round but faded with two bogeys on the back nine and closed with a 1-under-par 71.
The 13-time LPGA Tour winner fired a 67 on Friday to give herself a chance in the final round. She ended up tied for 13th place with a four-round total of 3-under-par 285.
“I gave myself a lot of good opportunities,” said Henderson. “If I had made two or three different putts over the course of the round, the momentum might have been a bit more in my favour, and it might be a different story for me standing here. But, overall, it was a good fight these last two days, and it was nice to be back in the action.
“It feels like I played really terrible, but I still shot one-under [on Saturday]. It was kind of a mixed bag. I hit a lot of great shots, but sometimes they just didn’t turn out as well as I thought they were going to.”
Alena Sharp of Hamilton (73) finished tied for 42nd place at 9-over-par 297.
Henderson started strong Saturday by rolling in a 12-foot birdie putt on the second hole. She chunked an eagle chip and settled for par on the third before getting hot around the turn.
The 26-year-old Canadian needed to keep pressing and hope for a little help elsewhere on the leaderboard.”She sees it as a challenge,” said Canadian women’s team lead Emily Phoenix. “She’s going to go get it and that’s definitely what she did. Gave it a run, put it all out there and was aggressive.”
A cool putter though killed any chance of momentum. Henderson finished in a tie for 13th place.
“Any week on tour, a top-10 or a top-15 result and you’re pretty happy,” Phoenix said. “Here it’s tough. It’s kind of one, two (or) three.”
The 43-year-old Sharp, meanwhile, mentioned earlier in the week that this may be her last Olympic Games.
“I tried to just really enjoy today and take it all in,” she said.
*Credit information to www.cbc.ca Written by Doug Ferguson The Associated Press
*Credit Picture thumbnail Picture by Andrew Redington/Getty Images
