A historic scoring storm Sunday at Pinnacle Country Club turned into a two-hole playoff shootout in the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship.
Lucy Li’s 60, the seventh in LPGA history, and Jasmine Suwannapura’s 61 knotted them at 17-under, overcoming five and four-stroke Sunday deficits to take over the top of the leaderboard.
Both bested their previous career-best rounds – Li’s was four lower than her previous best, while Suwannapura’s final round was two better than her best score.
They waited nearly 90 minutes while the rest of the field tried to catch up, although none would get to the par-5 18th needing an eagle or less to tie.
Here’s how Suwannapura won her third career LPGA victory with an eagle on the second playoff hole.
Leaderboard
Win: Jasmine Suwannapura (-17)
2: Lucy Li (-17)
3: Sei Young Kim (-16)
T-4: Mao Saigo (-14)
T-4: Arpichaya Yubol (-14)
RELATED: Here’s the prize money payout for each golfer at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship
What it means
Suwannapura extends a career that was fortunate to continue back in 2015. At only 23, she had emergency surgery to fix a broken back that was fractured during the Pure Silk Championship at Kingsmill’s River Course. All three of her victories have come since the surgery, this week being her first since the 2019 Dow Championship.
She continues the 2024 Thai run on tour, becoming the fifth player from her homeland to win this season. Suwananpura joins Patty Tavatanakit’s Honda LPGA win, Jenno Thitikul’s Dow Championship title, Chanettee Wannasaen’s Dana Open victory and Moriya Jutanugarn’s triumph in the Portland Classic.
Li celebrated her 22nd birthday two days early by shooting the seventh 60 in LPGA history. It’s the second 60 this year, with Linnea Strom carding one to come from last place to win the Shoprite LPGA Classic in June. They join Jessica Korda (2021 Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions), Paula Creamer (2008 Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic), Anna Acker-Macosko (2004 Longs Drugs Challenge), Jung Yeon Lee (2004 Welch’s Fry’s Championship) and Meg Mallon (2003 Welch’s-Fry’s Championship) as the co-owners of the second-best round in the LPGA’s 75-year history. Only Strom, Korda, and Creamer won the tournaments they carded 60. Annika Sorenstam (2001) remains the only player to shoot 59 on the LPGA.
Lucy Li [Alex Slitz]
How it happened
Li started her round slowly, going even par through the first six holes including two three-putt bogeys. Then she started one of the greatest stretches of her career to set the clubhouse lead in Rogers, Ark. She went nine-under over her next nine holes including a pair of eagles, holing out for a 2 on the 431-yard par-4 eighth and eagling the par-5 14th. A birdie on the 15th capped the blitz before a brief scoring reprieve with back-to-back pars the following two holes.
Suwannapura, 31, had a steadier final day which came alive on the back nine. She went seven under on the closing side, tying Li at 15-under with her eighth birdie of her bogey-free round on the 16th. She heard the crowd roar from the right of the cart path on the 488-yard par-5 18th as Li made a 25-footer for her third eagle of the day.
“With two three putts, if you told me on the fourth hole I was going to shoot 60 I would’ve thought you were out of your mind,” Li said.
https://twitter.com/LPGA/status/1840472440356389323
Suwannapura took temporary immovable obstruction relief from a #LikeAGirl sign, then hit a fairway wood to five feet. She poured the putt in for an eagle, carding a 28 on the back nine to post a clean 61.
“I’m already lucky enough to be that close for eagle [on the 18th], and I’m like, well, might as to do it,” Suwannapura joked.
After Suwannapura entered the clubhouse, the next closest chaser, Arpichaya Yubol, was three back on the 14th tee. After the fellow Thai hit her drive into the creek, she bogeyed the easiest hole on the course, putting the clubhouse leaders four clear of the final group.
Almost 90 minutes later, Suwannapura and Li went to the 18th tee and waited for the final group to sign their cards before teeing off. Li had a chance to win on the opening playoff hole as Suwannapura’s uphill 35-foot eagle effort fell a revolution shy of dropping. Her downhill 20-footer for a fourth eagle and victory nestled a foot left of the cup. After tapping in for birdie, they went back to the 18th again.
Both players got around the green in two on the second hole of the playoff, as Li’s lengthy eagle putt from the fringe ended up five feet short. Suwannapura raised her fist as her 15-footer to win tracked to the cup and dropped home. Husband Michael Thomas, who caddied for her this week, yelled to celebrate her first victory in five years.
https://twitter.com/LPGA/status/1840503116224999432
Best of the rest
Amateur Maria Jose Marin, a sophomore at the University of Arkansas, impressed in her LPGA debut with a T-17, going a bogey-free five-under on the back nine Sunday for a 10-under week.
U.S. Solheim Cup captain Stacy Lewis announced during her pre-tournament press conference on Thursday that this would be her final tournament of the year, saying she needed a break after captaining the last two Solheim Cups. The former Arkansas Razorback closed with a 68 to finish T-44 in her 18th consecutive appearance in the event, starting when she unofficially won in 2007 when the tournament was shortened to 18 holes because of rain.
Quotable
“It’s been a long time, and there is a time that I think I probably not going to win again, but today everything just fall in the right place right time. And we did it with my husband is even more special,” Suwannapura said.
