Lauren Coughlin drained the winning putt, clinching a two-shot victory at the 2024 CPKC Women’s Open at Earl Grey Golf Club in Calgary.
Moments later, she drained a bottle of champagne.
“There wasn’t much left in it,” she protested.
Coughlin, who’d been soaked in a cork-popping celebration, earned the right to savour every last drop.
The 31-year-old from Charlottesville, Va., is a first-time winner on the LPGA Tour. This was her 103rd career start. As she sized up the trophy, she listed off a few of her biggest supporters, describing them as “the people who believed in me from the very beginning who kept me going when I wanted to quit.”
“We’ve worked really hard just for this to happen,” said Coughlin, who signed for a four-round tab of 13-under 275. “And it’s better than I think I could have imagined.”
When the leaders arrived Sunday at No. 17, the hockey-themed ‘Rink Hole,’ it was looking like overtime … er, a playoff … may be necessary.
Coughlin, South Korea’s Haeran Ryu and Japan’s Mao Saigo were logjammed at the top of leaderboard, each sitting at 12-under.
And then Coughlin stuffed a six-iron close to a back pin and swished a delicate putt for birdie, while Ryu grimaced as her par attempt sailed wide. With Saigo making a bogey up ahead, Coughlin was suddenly two shots clear with just one hole to play.
“At that point, my adrenaline was pumping,” Coughlin said. “My heart was racing pretty good. Just took as many deep breaths as I could.
“I was just trying to hit the fairway, hit the green, two-putt, get out of there.”
She did exactly that.
Saigo, after setting a tournament scoring record with Saturday’s spin of 61, ultimately finished in solo second at 11-under 277. Ryu and Jenny Shin, also of South Korea, split third at 10-under 278.
Coughlin, who was leading after both the first and second round and was just one stroke off the pace as she teed off Sunday, had talked all week about the importance of staying patient on a 6,856-yard layout that wasn’t yielding a lot of easy birdies.
She had to take her own advice as she waited for her flat-stick to warm up on the last lap around Earl Grey. She credited her caddie Terry McNamara, the longtime looper for the legendary Annika Sorenstam, for helping her to stay positive.
“He just kept being like, ‘They’ll eventually go in, they’ll eventually go in,’ ” Coughlin said. “Eventually it did on No. 17.”
CHIP SHOTS: Brooke Henderson earned the Sandra Post Medal — awarded to the low Canadian at the CPKC Women’s Open — for the seventh time in her career. The superstar from Smiths Falls, Ont., finished in a tie for eighth at 6-under 282 and is next headed to represent her country at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she’ll be chasing a medal of another sort. “I can take a lot of positives from this weekend,” said Henderson, who closed with a 4-under 68. “I feel like my game is in a really good spot. It has been trending for a really long time now and I feel like I’m getting closer every week to winning again” … Alena Sharp, who hails from Hamilton and is also en route to the Paris Olympics, whipped the crowd into a frenzy when she donned a Calgary Flames jersey on the ‘Rink Hole.’ Sharp was T-14 at 4-under … California’s Andrea Lee finished the front nine Sunday in just 28 strokes. Whoa. As she arrived at the turn, her scorecard featured seven birdies and two pars … The CPKC Has Heart program resulted in a record-breaking donation — $3.8 million to the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation and $500,000 to Red Deer Regional Health. The fans in Calgary also set a tournament attendance record, eclipsing the total from 2022 in Ottawa.