Azahara Mu\u00f1oz of Spain came from a stroke behind the all-French trio of Gwladys Nocera, Joanna Klatten and Valentine Derrey to claim her second Ladies European Tour title at the LACOSTE Ladies Open de France.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old from Malaga saved par on the par-four 18th hole, getting up and down from the back of the green, to win by a stroke from Nocera and Derrey, who both had 67s at Chantaco Golf Club. Rounds of 68, 65, 68 and 65 gave Mu\u00f1oz a winning total of 266, 14-under-par.<\/p>\n
This was Mu\u00f1oz\u2019s third career victory after she won the 2009 Madrid Ladies Masters on her professional debut on the LET followed by the 2012 Sybase Match Play Championship on the LPGA. In addition to the first prize of \u20ac37,500, she took home a Richard Mille \u2013 RM 007 watch, worth \u20ac38,500.<\/p>\n
Despite an amazing six weeks since winning The Solheim Cup as part of the record-breaking team in Colorado, an emotional Mu\u00f1oz said: \u201cIt\u2019s been a long year and I\u2019ve been playing really bad and since Solheim it\u2019s got much better and I\u2019m just really happy to have won here. Lacoste is one of my best sponsors so I\u2019m really happy to be here and holding the trophy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the 72 hole tournament, Mu\u00f1oz made her score primarily on the front nine, where she was 11-under-par for the week.<\/p>\n
In the final round, played in warm and sunny conditions, she came straight out of the blocks with five birdies over the opening nine on holes two, four, six, seven and nine, then came back in level par with a birdie on 15 against a bogey on 17, her only blemish on the card.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight from the beginning I started to play really well; I hit it really close so I had a couple of tap-in birdies and in the end, I didn\u2019t make many putts, but it was enough from the front nine so I\u2019m really happy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the front nine, she continued: \u201cIt has so many birdie-able holes. The back nine is kind of tricky and I still haven\u2019t got quite used to it but today I got quite lucky and made five birdies on the front and just one on the back, and that was good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Derrey and Nocera were also strong on the front nine, making five and four birdies respectively. However, Derrey dropped shots on 13 and 14, while Nocera mixed a birdie on 15 with dropped shots on 11 and crucially, the par-3 16th.<\/p>\n
Both players needed a birdie on the final hole to tie and force a play-off, but came up short in front of a large gallery of home supporters. <\/p>\n
Nocera, who was targeting her 12th LET victory, said: \u201cI think I\u2019m more frustrated by yesterday\u2019s round. That three-putt on 18 cost me a lot and with two shots, and four shots ahead of Azahara, it would have been easier to start the day. I think it\u2019s more yesterday I\u2019m a little bit upset about and today we made too many mistakes: club mistakes, strategic mistakes. To me, when you play against a player like Azahara, I knew you cannot make any mistakes. She\u2019s an amazing player. It\u2019s the kind of player that doesn\u2019t make mistakes and if you make some, you lose. That\u2019s the game!<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in contention and you\u2019re here in France and that close to winning and you don\u2019t, it\u2019s a little bit sad, but that\u2019s golf. I\u2019m playing good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite falling short, Derrey was delighted to earn a career best tie for second after finishing third in Helsingborg three weeks ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played well and was five under after nine: played solid golf and didn\u2019t miss a lot. I missed a shot on 13 and had a bogey and on 14 my drive got in the rough so my second shot was a little hard and I made bogey but I\u2019m happy with my week.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Joanna Klatten a stroke further back in fourth and Karine Icher in a share of fifth place with Lee-Anne Pace on 10-under-par, there were four French players within the top six places. The 2012 champion Stacey Keating ended on one-over-par in a tie for 29th place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Azahara Mu\u00f1oz of Spain came from a stroke behind the all-French trio of Gwladys Nocera, Joanna Klatten and Valentine Derrey to claim her second Ladies European Tour title at the LACOSTE Ladies Open de France. The 25-year-old from Malaga saved par on the par-four 18th hole, getting up and down from the back of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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-5553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5553","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=5553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}