South African star Ashleigh Buhai, who rose to prominence last year with her major victory at the AIG Women’s Open, earned her second LPGA Tour win on Sunday at the ShopRite LPGA Classic Presented by Acer with a third-round 65, her second in a row.
Throughout the week, Buhai was draining birdies left and right, ultimately making 19 birdies in 54-holes (35%), the most in the field.
On Championship Sunday, she made four birdies in her first five holes to overtake first- and second-round leader Dani Holmqvist and runner-up Hyo Joo Kim by hole 6. Buhai added one more on 8 before making her only mistake of the day with a bogey on 11.
Tied with Kim at that point, Buhai made birdie on 13 while Kim made bogey on 12. Walking up the par-5 No. 18 with just a one stroke lead, Buhai landed her second shot just off the green and rolled her short chip just 4 feet past the hole. Feeling the pressure, she stepped off her putt but easily drained the 4-footer once she calmed her nerves.
“I kind of looked up at the leaderboard after my second shot and I saw Hyo Joo had birdied (on 17), so I said to myself, well, got to get up and down to give myself a chance to win it outright and would make her have to eagle and put some pressure on her,” Buhai said. “I just kind of stuck to my processes and steps that we have worked on… tried to focus more on the moment, and that shot and not the result and the outcome, which is something that has got me to this position and something that has paid off…”
With Buhai finishing -14, the pressure indeed moved to Kim with a two-stroke deficit. Knowing she needed to make eagle on 18, Kim sent her chip shot straight at the hole and, garnering a huge gasp from the gallery, nearly made it in. One more roll would have forced a playoff, but instead the ball came to rest just a foot from the pin.
“When I was about to hit my second shot, I knew she had already birdied so I knew there was a two-shot difference,” said Kim, who used her 58-degree to hit the 78-foot shot. “I thought to myself I have to eagle no matter what and can’t hit my approach short no matter what. I really thought it was going in… Since the first round and until the end, I had good results. Of course, disappointing to not win, but hoping to continue this momentum to next week and then in the majors too.”
Hearing the crowd, and the result, from the scoring tent, relief washed over Buhai as she secured her second victory and was showered in champagne by her husband David Buhai, caddie Tanya Paterson and close friend and fellow South African golfer Lee-Anne Pace. It is her first stateside victory and second professional win of 2023 – she won the Investec South African Women’s Open on the LET in March.
“My goal this year was to win in the U.S. I hadn’t won here yet. After the AIG Women’s Open I won in Australia, South Africa, and my goal this year was to get the monkey off my back and finally win here on U.S. soil,“ she said. “So to do it, I’m very proud of myself for ticking it off. I’ve been playing some really solid golf, and knew that if I continued that form, one of these weeks I would be coming in close with a chance to get the job done.”
Rookie Yan Liu earned the solo third position with a third-round 67. It is the best result of her young LPGA Tour career, beating her previous best of T21 which she earned last week at the Mizuho Americas Open. Holmqvist, the 18- and 36-hole leader, couldn’t hold on to earn her first LPGA Tour victory in her 9-year tenure. She shot a final-round 72 to finish T4 alongside 2021 Tour winner Nanna Koerstz Madsen, who shot up from T16 with a -6 on Sunday.
Rounding out the top-10 are six players at T6, including Australian Su Oh, who tied the low round of the week at -7, Thai sensation Atthaya Thitikul, who earned her seventh top-10 in nine official starts, and 2023 rookie Soo Bin Joo, playing in just her third event this season.
