admin Florida – Kim Sei-young cashes in with $1.5 million putt at Tour Championship with the richest prize in women’s golf history riding on the outcome.
Kim won for the 10th time in her LPGA career, joining Pak Se-ri (25), Inbee Park (19) and Jiyai Shin (11) as South Korean players with at least 10 victories.
With a 25-footer for birdie that broke sharply to the right and into the cup for a 2-under 70 Kim made the putt of her life, a one-shot victory over hard-charging Charley Hull and a $1.5 million payoff.
Kim said, “It means a lot to me just knowing that I won the biggest purse in women’s golf history.” This was her third victory of the year , she added, “That itself is an incredible honor.”
Hull birdied five of her last seven holes with six shots behind going to the back nine at Tiburon Golf Club. Her birdie on the 18th gave her a 66 and a share of the lead.
This was right after Danielle Kang made a long eagle putt on the par-5 17th and came inches short of a closing birdie to tie.
Kim was really nervous while walking through hole 18 and she said, “I was like: ‘OK, not a big deal. Try to play like a practice round,’ thinking that would make me comfortable. Even then, I was really nervous.”
Kim thought it was Nelly Korda, who started one shot behind and fell back with a pair of costly drives to the left and from the top of a crown at the back of the green, Kim figured a two-putt would be enough.
The crowd cheered and only later, she said, did she realize what it meant.
“After I made it, I saw the leaderboard,” she said. “I didn’t know that Charley finished at 17 (under). What if I didn’t make it? We would have gone to a playoff and that wouldn’t have been good for me. So, wow!”
Instead of a $500,000 first-place check and a $1 million bonus to a season points race, CME Globe wanted to award $1.5 million in official money to any of the 60 players who qualified for the season finale which is $500,000 more than the previous record prize, $1 million at the U.S. Women’s Open. Kim finished at 18-under 270 and was No. 2 on the LPGA money list behind Jin Young-ko, who tied for 11th and still had no complaints about her season. Kim won LPGA Player of the Year and the Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average apart from the money title. Kim has won fourth times this year, including two majors.
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