Inbee Park of South Korea beat World Number 1 Lydia Ko by two strokes to win the HSBC Women’s Champions at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore.
Inbee Park of South Korea beat World Number 1 Lydia Ko by two strokes to win the HSBC Women’s Champions at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore.
Park led from wire-to-wire and didn’t drop a single shot all through the tournament. The South Korean World Number 2 finished on a four-round total of 15-under-par, two better than New Zealand’s Ko and four better than World Number 3 Stacy Lewis of the USA.
For Park it was a 13th career title. Speaking of her wire-to-wire win, Park said:
“That’s a big accomplishment for me, and I think I’ve done that probably once before only, and to have a pressure every day since Thursday, I think it’s something that I should be really proud of. I mean, I think it’s a lot harder to do wire to wire than coming from behind.”
Ko was looking for three straight victories following her wins in Australia and New Zealand. She played great golf in Singapore but was simply beaten by the better player through the week.
“She played great,” said Ko. “No bogeys around here and on a course where you can hit a good shot and you can get bad luck. She made no bogeys. That’s pretty phenomenal.”
Aside from collecting the winner’s cheque for over $200,000, Park also secured another payment from her dad. Before the tournament she made a bet with him that she would make more birdies than bogeys. The deal was: a birdie was worth $500 to Park while a bogey would cost her $1000. Park Senior lost out to the tune of $7,500.
“I think it ended up rather nicely,” she said.
HSBC Women’s Champions Serapong Course, Sentosa Golf Club, Singapore Mar 5-8, purse: $1,400,000, par: 72
1 Inbee Park (Kor) 66 69 68 70 273 $210,000 2 Lydia Ko (NZ) 68 70 67 70 275 $133,258 3 Stacy Lewis (USA) 69 69 67 72 277 $96,669 T4 Shanshan Feng (Chn) 70 71 68 69 278 $61,406 T4 Azahara Munoz (Esp) 70 67 70 71 278 $61,406 T4 So Yeon Ryu (Kor) 70 69 69 70 278 $61,406 7 Caroline Masson (Ger) 71 68 72 68 279 $41,221 T8 Ilhee Lee (Kor) 72 72 71 65 280 $31,372 T8 Anna Nordqvist (Swe) 69 70 68 73 280 $31,372 T8 Carlota Ciganda (Esp) 69 66 74 71 280 $31,372 T8 Hyo Joo Kim (Kor) 770 74 69 67 270 $31,372
Note: Player score in bold signifies Titleist ball usage
