Australian Rebecca Artis came from five strokes behind overnight leader Caroline Hedwall to secure her first Ladies European Tour victory at the Helsingborg Open in Sweden.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old from Coonabarabran in New South Wales fired rounds of 69, 71, 71 and 69 to post a winning total of 280, eight-under-par, ending a stroke ahead of Hedwall after a warm and windy week at Vasatorps Golf Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great day out there. I played solid golf all day and to walk away with a win is unbelievable,\u201d said Artis, who had husband Geoff on the bag. \u201cI just had to go out there and play steady early and see if I could make a couple of birdies early on.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if she was surprised to win, especially in such a high quality field against three of the world\u2019s top 25 players, Artis continued: \u201cI\u2019d like to say I\u2019m not surprised. It\u2019s a lot of hard work that goes into winning a golf tournament and I\u2019m absolutely delighted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came here, I said to my husband that I thought it was a great golf course. I\u2019d heard it could get windy around here and I thought if it got windy and I was hitting the ball as well as I had been doing I could definitely give it a chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get wind in Australia, it depends where you are, but I like playing in the wind, I enjoy tough conditions and go out there and grind it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that I had to go out there and make some birdies early on and put some pressure on the leaders. I put myself into contention going into the back nine and knew that if the conditions were like they were the first three days and windy, that anything could happen out there. It\u2019s not an easy golf course when the wind\u2019s up like that, so I just knew that if I could get off to a good start and post some birdies I could be right in it down the stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n
The win capped a tremendous six weeks for Artis, during which time she had earned two top ten finishes, although it could have been three. Only four weeks earlier, she was lying in sixth place going into the final round of the Pilsen Golf Masters when forced to pull out with a back injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy back went on me on the golf course during the second round and I pulled out before the final round because I just didn\u2019t feel fit enough to go out there. I\u2019ve had previous back injuries so I didn\u2019t want to force it. I didn\u2019t want to be in the same position again,\u201d Artis explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had some great weeks out here, great results, and I\u2019ve been playing really well the last three or four tournaments so I felt pretty confident coming in this week with the way my golf was. My coach, Luke Edwin, I brought him over from Australia in Spain and it\u2019s paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Artis earned a \u20ac37,500 first prize cheque and punched her ticket to next week\u2019s Evian Championship in France, the final major of the year.<\/p>\n
Although she began the final round slowly with a bogey on the fifth hole, Artis stormed up the leader board with four birdies in five holes from the seventh. She tied for the lead with Hedwall after 10 holes and moved two clear after 11.<\/p>\n
Hedwall\u2019s challenge stalled with a double bogey on the fifth, followed by bogeys on 10 and 11 and she was unable to recover. After Artis holed a putt of seven feet for birdie on 17, she moved three ahead with a hole to play and although Hedwall also birdied 17, it was too little too late.<\/p>\n
After hitting a fantastic approach shot to just 12 feet below the hole on 18, Artis three-putted, opening the door for Hedwall, but the Swedish Solheim Cup star could only make par, ending in second place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not how I wanted it to end but I\u2019m very happy for Rebecca,\u201d Hedwall said. \u201cShe played awesome today and it just wasn\u2019t meant to be this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously it was my putting. I didn\u2019t make anything. I was playing solid golf tee to green and I made a birdie at the end but that wasn\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two strokes further behind in solo third place, Frenchwoman Valentine Derrey earned her career best finish in three years on the LET, while Order of Merit leader, South African Lee-Anne Pace, was two strokes further back in outright fourth.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s Laura Davies showed some vintage form as she earned a season-best finish of fifth at two-under-par. Davies fired seven birdies and four birdies in a three-under 69 and said: \u201cI played well, putted well, got a bit unlucky on a couple of holes. A couple of three putts from long range but overall played really well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hit a couple of really good drivers into the wind and gave myself a good chance to get within 50, 60 yards of the par fives. I think it was because of how I drove it, but also I putted well. I love the course and the tournament; I think they\u2019ve done a great job. Condition wise it\u2019s magnificent. It\u2019s the best result of the year so I have to be pleased with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swedish 16-year-old Linnea Strom, a member of the recent European PING Junior Solheim Cup Team in Colorado, was the leading amateur in equal 38th place. At the other end of the experience spectrum, Helen Alfredsson announced that this would be her final tournament in Sweden as she is stepping away from her competitive career, although she is still in the field for next week\u2019s Evian Championship, where she has won three times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australian Rebecca Artis came from five strokes behind overnight leader Caroline Hedwall to secure her first Ladies European Tour victory at the Helsingborg Open in Sweden. The 24-year-old from Coonabarabran in New South Wales fired rounds of 69, 71, 71 and 69 to post a winning total of 280, eight-under-par, ending a stroke ahead of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}