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Saso rallies with a solid 63 to clinch second and reclaims qualifying
MANILA, Philippines – It took a misfortune before Yuka Saso could earn another fortune.
The Fil-Japanese rookie came within three strokes of her title crack at the Toto Japan Classic, but even more so she made her point, almost achieving the unthinkable as she rallied from six strokes down to force a tie at 16 under par with an exciting three. -Finished with a birdie to a solid nine under 63 in a drama-filled final round of the Y160 million event in Ibaraki prefecture on Sunday.
But Korea’s Shin Jie steeled herself in a stressful finish three flights behind, relying on her experience and poise to frustrate Saso with her own kind of late-game brilliance to nail the LPGA of the Tour de France’s third major championship. Japan with a close of 66 for their second. victory in just five tournaments on the restructured JLPGA schedule.
Severely threatened by the emerging Saso, the unflappable former Korean No. 1 who boasts of 67 career victories, including 25 at the JLPGA, 21 on the Tour of Korea and 11 on the LPGA Tour, managed to reach par 5 17 to build another two -shot cushion then capped off his exploits with another birdie to 34-32 and a break of three shots on a total of 197 19-under at Taijeiyo Club Minori course.
Most notably, 32-year-old Jie completed a rare championship in a JLPGA major without dropping a shot over 54 holes.
But the margin of victory barely lessened the impact of Saso’s fast-paced action that saw the ICTSI-backed ace fight from six down in set 12 with a 32-out start and then shoot five more birdies over the final eight holes, including last three.
She tied Jie at 16 under par after hole-in from close range on the 18th for a total of 32-31 and 200, but the former dashed her hopes of a third crown with her own brilliant finish of 197.
Although she fell short of her title bid, Saso managed to regain the leadership of Player of the Year from rival Sakura Koiwai with 928.85 points in the last three events in the next three weeks in Chiba, Ehime and Miyazaki Prefectures.
His earnings of 14,637,920 (P6.8 million) also gave him virtually the honors of the list of earnings with Y82,753 (P38.6 million), Y24 million ahead of Koiwai, who remained in the Top 10 with a lead of 33 but missed one. bogey in a rear end with no birdie for a 70. She finished tied for 18th place with 208 worth Y1,846,400 for total gains of Y58,862,542 and 891.46 points in the Mercedes ranking.
Saso also found himself back at the top of the rankings in several categories, including average stroke (69.9), top 10 results (6), number of birdies (137), average number of birdies (11), number of eagles (6), average score par-5 (4.69) and average score of the final round (68.6).
More importantly, his hard work as a runner-up more than heralded his return to form after his game suffered a slump after scoring back-to-back victories last August. He would fight mediocre finishes in his next six tournaments, finishing no higher than tied for eighth at the Desant Tokai Classic last September with the crash leading to a missed cut at last week’s Hisako Higuchi Mitsubishi Electric tournament in Saitama. which ended with an impressive career. of nine consecutive cuts made.
Saso’s top 63 of the tournament also coincided with his final outing to capture his first JLPGA headband at the NEC Karuizawa in mid-August before claiming the Nitori Ladies title the following week.
World No. 5 Nasa Hataoka also shot a 66 to finish tied for third place at 202 with Korea’s Jeon Mi-Jeong (65) and Maiko Wakabayashi (66), while last year’s champion Ai Suzuki also bounced back with a 65 to share sixth place with Lee Min. -Joven (70) and Ayako Kimura (71) at 203.
Saso really continued to grope this week, hitting a 70 on a game of four birdies and two bogeys in Friday’s opener, but he regained his game with a 68 in the second round.
But she fell too far behind to pose a threat, as Jie kept her career ghost-free to stay ahead of Ayako Kimura and stay six strokes ahead of the double gold medalist from the 2018 Asian Games.
Aiming for a solid finish, Saso missed a couple of birdie chances and settled for pairs on the first three holes. But after drilling a birdie at No. 4, he knocked down back-to-back feats of No. 6 and then birdie at ninth par 5 to keep it going.
After missing a 16-foot uphill run at No. 10, Saso dropped a downhill from 14 feet at No. 11 and then nearly buried an edge-to-edge eagle putt at 12 to close at two. de Jie, who missed a birdie putt. within eight feet at No. 10.
He then went broke after stopping the next three holes, birdying the last three to finish with a staggering 24 putts after a 32-28 rule over the first 36 holes and stirring up the hotly contested championship chase.
But Jie had won too many championships to be shaken a bit on such a pressure-filled stage, taking another win and pocketing the Y24 million purse with that decisive eagle-birdie finish.
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