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Park Inbee wins 6th career LPGA major title

June 14, 2015

Inbee Park, of South Korea, celebrates after winning the KPMG Women’s PGA golf championship at Westchester Country Club in Harrison, N.Y., Sunday, June 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

SEOUL (Yonhap) — South Korean Park Inbee captured her sixth career LPGA major championship in New York on Sunday.

Park cruised to her third straight KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Westchester Country Club in Harrison, New York, with a 19-under 273, five shots ahead of fellow South Korean Kim Sei-young.

Park put together a steady, bogey-free final round of five-under 68 and took home a first-place check of US$525,000. Her last bogey came on the 16th hole during the first round.

Kim had only one par on the front nine, mixing in five birdies with two bogeys and one double bogey, as part of her up-and-down round of two-under 71.

Park became only the third LPGA golfer to win a major tournament for three straight years, after Patty Berg, who won the now-defunct Titleholders Championship from 1937 to 1939, and Annika Sorenstam, who captured the LPGA Championship from 2003 to 2005.

Park had won this championship the past two years when it was called Wegmans LPGA Championship under a different corporate sponsor.

With the victory, her third in 2015, Park will also reclaim the No. 1 spot in the world rankings. Current No. 1 Lydia Ko missed the cut, and Park only needed to finish tied for 29th to dethrone the Kiwi sensation.

Park began the year at No. 1, but Ko overtook her in February. Park is the first LPGA player to claim three victories in 2015.

Now with six LPGA majors, Park has broken a tie with Hall of Famer Pak Se-ri for most majors by a South Korean player.

Park began the final round at 14-under, two strokes ahead of Kim. With the next closest pursuer, Brooke Henderson, at eight-under after three days, the final round had a feel of a match play between the two South Koreans.

Both birdied the second hole, and Kim blinked first with back-to-back bogeys on the third and fourth holes. Park built a four-shot cushion with pars on the same holes.

Kim then went on a run of four consecutive birdies, the last of which put her at 15-under, just one behind Park with one hole left on the front nine.

Yet Kim’s hopes of a comeback were dashed with a double bogey on the very next hole, the par-5 ninth, dropping her to 13-under. Park restored her four-stroke advantage with a birdie on the same hole that lifted her to 17-under.

Park had two more birdies on the back nine, on the 10th and the 18th, to close out a comfortable win. Kim struggled to keep pace and settled for second place.

Lexi Thompson finished alone in third at 12-under after shooting a seven-under 66, the lowest final round score in the field.

Rookie Kim Hyo-joo was the only other South Korean in the top 10 at eight-under, which put her in a three-way tie for ninth. She shot a 71 in the final round.