Michelle Wie has not lived up to the massive expectations placed on her as a teenager, at least in part because of injuries, but she has not stopped battling.
Wie, the 28-year-old Stanford graduate from Hawaii, sank a 36-foot birdie putt from the fringe to cap a 7-under-par 65 and captured the HSBC Women’s World Championship by one stroke over Jessica Korda, Danielle Kang, Brooke Henderson of Canada and Jenny Shin of South Korea on the Tanjong Course at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore.
“It was crazy,” said Wie, who claimed her fifth LPGA Tour victory and the first since the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst No. 2. “I don’t know what’s going on right now. I’m so proud of me, my caddie and my entire team. HSBC always has a world-class event. This means a lot to me.
“Winning is everything. I mean, there is no better feeling than when you think you sink that winning putt. It’s a high, for sure. You go out there, and it’s this feeling that gets you going. It’s this feeling that makes you practice. It’s that winning putt that makes you practice for hours and hours and hours, and even the hard times, it gets you going back. You know that good feeling is on the other side.”
Wie, who made only one bogey over her last 44 holes, carded a winning score of 17-under 271, but had to wait until Kang and Korda finished before she knew the title was hers.
Defending champion Kang, from Westlake Village and Pepperdine, missed a 20-foot birdie putt on the final hole to close with a 70, and the 19-year-old Korda missed hers from eight feet for a 71 to fall short of her first LPGA Tour victory.
“I had a bunch of putts that were really close and a lot of them lipped and burned edges,” said Korda, whose sister Jessica claimed her fifth victory on the circuit last week in the Honda LPGA Thailand. “It definitely hurts, but that’s golf.
“There’s going to be another tournament. There’s going to be another feeling like this. Just have to keep going forward.”
Shin held a one-stroke lead until making a bogey on the 18th hole to close with a 65, while Henderson birdied four of the first eight holes and closed with another birdie to shoot 67.
Jin Young Ko of South Korea, who won the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open last month, posted a 67 to finish two shots back in a tie for sixth with Minjee Lee of Australia, who totaled 68, while Angela Stanford recorded a 63 that included an eagle on the fifth hole to wind up four down in a tie for eighth with 15-year-old Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand, who had a bogey-free 66.
Lydia Ko of New Zealand shot 67 to finish five back in a tie for 10th with Jessica Korda (70) and three South Koreans—Sei Young Kim (62), Amy Yang (64) and Jeong Eun Lee (67).
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