Casandra Alexander bounced back from her opening round of 73 (+2) at the 2026 Amundi Evian Championship and now sits in outright fifth place on the leaderboard.
The South African star produced rounds of 66 (-5) and 63 (-8) on day two and three of the fourth Major championship of the year to put herself in contention at Evian Resort Golf Club.
Alexander, who leads the Ladies European Tour (LET) Order of Merit, had nine birdies and one bogey on her scorecard on Saturday to move into fifth place on 11-under-par.
“The first day I was a little bit ‘guidey’ and I think I was trying to be protective of my score and my golf,” she said. “Major championships can do that to you. U.S. Open, you’re not playing as aggressively as you normally would and then I went to KPMG. I think it might have been a little bit of holding back.
“Friday came and I said I’m just going to hit the shots and if I hit them skewed then at least, I’m hitting them there and not guiding them there because I really don’t like playing guiding golf. Obviously, that worked out.
“You only need one or two putts to drop or one or two good shots and then you start trusting that process again. That’s what happened yesterday and today the putter was on fire; I don’t know what I did but I’m going to keep it as in and be very nice to it because everything I looked at had a chance.”
Alexander finished in 20th place here at the Major in 2025 and has also finished in T10 and T20 at the Jabra Ladies Open.
Even though she didn’t like the golf course to start with, she has learned to embrace the challenge of the slopes of Evian.
She explained: “We play Jabra here and I hated this golf course, I couldn’t stand it and I really didn’t want to play here. I said to myself in 2022, I’m going to come and play this course. I’m not going to react to any bounces or bad shots and I’m just going to play it as is. I didn’t play the greatest, but I was very patient and finished like 15th in that event.
“Funny enough a couple of years after I got into Evian and I came with the same patience – obviously it plays slightly different to Jabra – and I think that was a big movement for me was not reacting to bad bounces or bad lies because this place is on the side of a mountain.
“You’re going to get a couple of unlucky shots, but you could also get some lucky ones. My attitude shifted, I really enjoy the golf course and enjoy coming out here. It’s a good golf challenge but a good patience challenge too which is pretty cool.”
Throughout her round of 63 on Saturday, the LET winner had her usual relaxed approach on the golf course, but was able to ‘lock in’ and focus when needed thanks to her caddie Doug.
She added: “It’s not the easiest thing to do. Doug is pretty on top of it, we’ll be joking and just before we get to a shot or look at a number he’ll say switch back on for me. That helps just that reminder to really focus. It does take a lot of work because saying you’re focused and actually being focused are two different things.
“Once we both get serious, it’s easier to get into that situation. It’s definitely helpful, you can’t be switched on the whole round. It’s important to have those little switch offs between shots, so you can really lock in when you do hit the shots.”
Keep up with all the action on our socials – @LETgolf on Instagram and X and Ladies European Tour on Facebook and YouTube – #EvianChamp.
