[Photo: Christian Petersen]
It was back in April that Nelly Korda regained the status of Rolex Women’s World Rankings No.1 when she captured the first major of the season in the Chevron Championship. She overtook Jeeno Thitikul, who happened to miss the cut that week in Houston.
With another major victory, in June’s US Women’s Open at Riviera, Korda clearly established herself at the best player on the LPGA Tour. But that was four months and 11 tournaments ago, and like a football game, it’s been a tale of two halves for the two best women.
While Korda, owning four wins before July, faded a bit as the northern summer wore on, Thitikul shifted into another gear. With one win already in February in her home country of Thailand, the 23-year-old notched her second victory in May’s Mizuho Americans Open and added a third triumph in August’s Standard Portland Classic.
Already on a roll with six consecutive top-10 finishes, including three majors, going into this week’s event on Oahu in Hawaii, Thitikul added a fourth trophy with a hard-fought win in the Lotte Championship at Hoakalei Country Club.
Pressed early and often by a red-hot South Korean Ina Yoon, Thitikul survived a duel in the final group, closing with two consecutive birdies to shoot a four-under-par 68 and win by three strokes with a 21-under total. Grace Kim was the pick of the Australians, closing with a 69 to finish 14-under in a share seventh place.
It was hardly a stroll to the finish, with Thitikul falling into a tie when she made a double-bogey at the 16th while Yoon notched a safe par. On the very next hole came a complete reversal, with Yoon driving into the water to eventually make bogey while Thitikul drained a 30-foot putt to birdie the hardest hole on the course. Thitikul punctuated the triumph by making a short birdie putt on the par-5 finisher.
She was asked on Golf Channel in the immediate aftermath how she came back from the disaster of the double.
“I have no idea,” Thitikul replied with a laugh. “I know 16 was terrible. I felt like I had two holes left and you can definitely bounce back.”
As great as she has been in her five seasons on the LPGA, Thitikul hadn’t notched four victories in a single campaign until now. This victory was the 11th of her LPGA career and the seventh in the past two seasons, giving her three more than Korda, a 19-time champion, in that time.
Four years younger than Korda, Thitikul is already halfway in points to qualifying for the LPGA Hall of Fame. And she’s overcoming some of the greats in another category: bank account. By earning the $US450,000 first-place cheque, she passed Australia’s Karrie Webb to move into fourth all-time on the career moneylist at $US20,210,011. She now trails only Korda, Lydia Ko and Annika Sorenstam.
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She’s on another meaningful chase, too, and that involves her countrywoman Ariya Jutanugarn, who is considered Thailand’s greatest female golfer. Thitikul is now just one short of Jutanugarn’s 12-win total, and she takes tremendous pride in the examples the Thai golfers have set for a younger generation.
“It’s incredible for Thailand,” Thitikul said. “Every minute, every hour that we put in, we put in for the results to be better. Another reason we put in because we want the next generation to see how we perform and how we play.”
Jutanugarn, who is 30 and still a regular on tour, captured five titles in 2016, and with the ‘heater’ she’s on, Thitikul has a realistic chance to match that. There are six events remaining in the LPGA season, the next four being in Asia, and Thitikul is the defending champion in the next event in two weeks, the Buick LPGA Shanghai.
Korda, who has one top-10 finish in her past five starts, didn’t play in Hawaii and won’t travel to Asia. The American is likely to compete in the season’s penultimate event, The Annika, before what could be a nice showdown with Thitikul at the CME Tour Championship. The Thai golfer won that title last year, too.
Korda does have a decided advantage in one very big category: she’s capatured four majors and Thitikul is still waiting for her first.
