Women’s world no.1 Nelly Korda cruised to her fourth consecutive win on the LPGA Tour after beating Ireland’s Leona Maguire 4&3 in the finals of the T-Mobile Match Play at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas.
With the win, Korda became the first golfer to win four LPGA Tour events in a row since 2008 and just the fourth golfer to do so in the last 40 years.
After winning the second hole to go 1up against Maguire, Korda birdied the fifth to jump start a stretch of winning three holes with birdies to go 4up on the match. With a birdie on 12, she extended her advantage to five with six to play.
Maguire kept the match alive by winning the next two holes with birdies, just her second and third birdies all day, but Korda only needed a par putt at the par-four 15th to win the match and secure her 12th career LPGA Tour victory.
Korda said: “Going down the stretch, there is a different type of adrenaline. But I feel like with match play you have that from the first hole, so it was a great day playing against Leona. Always such a great competitor. But happy to get my fourth.”
HONOUR IN DEFEAT
For Maguire there was no disgrace in losing to the world no.1 and the hottest player in women’s professional golf. She earned the top seed in the match-play bracket by going six under through 54 holes of stroke play. She then defeated Thailand’s Moriya Jutanugarn 4&3 and South Korea’s Sei Young Kim 3&2 in Saturday’s quarter-finals and semi-finals, respectively.
“Obviously right now it’s pretty disappointing to finish the way I finished, but it almost felt like two separate tournaments this week, the stroke play event and the match play event,” Maguire said. “To lead the stroke play around this golf course by three at the end of the three days was something I can take a lot of positives from and be very proud of.
“Nelly is the best player in the world for a reason. She brought her ‘A’ game today and mine wasn’t good enough. Fair play to her for winning again this week.”
Korda was the No 6 seed after shooting one under over her three rounds of stroke play. She then defeated Angel Yin 3&2 in the quarters and bested South Korea’s Narin An 4&3 in the semis.