LPGA rookie Ingrid Lindblad holds off Akie Iwai for first professional title at LA Championship
Tarzana — In 2004, Swedish golf icon Annika Sorenstam won her 50th LPGA tournament at El Caballero Country Club. On Sunday, EL Cab was the site of another milestone win for a Swedish golfer, as LPGA rookie Ingrid Lindblad held off a late-round charge from another rookie Akie Iwai to win the JM Eagle LA Championship for her first LPGA title.
The former LSU standout fired a final round 4-under 68 to finish at 21 under, earning her a one-shot victory over Imai, who bogeyed the final hole to finish at 20-under 268. Lauren Coughlin, who started the day tied with Lindblad and Iwai, finished in a three-way tie for third with Germany’s Esther Henseleit and Miyu Yamashita at 19-under 269.
Lindblad’s first professional win comes in just her third LPGA start, and her winning score of 267 set a new 72-hole tournament scoring record at the JM Eagle LA Championship, besting Brooke Henderson’s 268 shot at Wilshire Country Club in 2021. She earned $562,500 for the win.
Having a chance to win at the same venue as Sweden’s greatest golfer is something that Lindblad was thrilled to have happen.
“It means a lot to win at El Cab like Annika did,” Lindblad said. “What she’s done and did out on Tour was pretty incredible. Following in her footsteps is pretty big.”
After signing her scorecard and taking a quick bathroom break after a very long round, tournament officials told Lindblad that Iwai had a 10-foot par putt on the 18th hole and asked her if she wanted to watch what was going on.
“I was thinking if we’re going to go to a playoff I was like, okay,” Lindblad said. “Like in Match Play, you expect your opponent to make the chip, make the putt. You can’t be like oh, she’s going to miss it and I’m going to win the hole or match. Then, when she missed it, I was like, wow I won.”
Showing no sign of any final round jitters, Lindblad opened her final round by hitting three perfect shots, leaving her a 12-foot putt for birdie, which she rolled in, giving her the outright lead for the first time on Sunday.
But two holes later, when she made a three-putt bogey on the third hole, Lindblad admitted for a moment she wondered if that was going to be the way things went for her the rest of the day. That thought quickly disappeared when she birdied the next two holes, putting her back in a tie for the lead and once again in control of her emotions.
From that point on, the 25-year-old rookie appeared calm and collected. She birdied two of her final three holes to finish her front nine, and when she birdied the par-5, 11th hole, Lindblad saw a scoreboard showing she was three shots up on the field.
“I feel like I was just out there trying to take one hole at a time,” Lindblad said. “I was just telling myself, just keep hitting good golf shots. Just staying in the moment and – I mean, show no emotion, but sometimes it’s hard to show no emotion.”
After just missing a birdie putt on 12, Lindblad yanked her tee shot on the par-4, 13th hole, but miraculously her ball hit a tree and bounced into the middle of the fairway, preventing what might have been a chance to make a bogey or worse.
Throughout the course of the final round, Lindblad said she and her caddie decided the best course strategy for getting the result from the round they wanted was to stay aggressive and not worry about trying to protect her lead.
“I think it would just hurt me if we were trying to get too defensive,” Lindblad said. “We stuck to the same game plan as we had the first three days, and turns out it worked out really well. I kept hitting the ball good all day, so it wasn’t really any point where I was like, oh, you know what, we’re going to go very defensive into this pin. I feel like I play better golf when I have to hit it to like a certain area. So I was in the rough left on 5, and I was like, well, the only place you can hit this is past the pin and let it come back. That’s exactly what I did; made it easy. Like a two- or three-footer for birdie.”
While Lindblad remained aggressive throughout the back nine, her putter went cold, finishing her round with seven straight pars. The lack of scoring on Lindblad’s part gave her Iwai and the other players chasing a chance to track her down.
Iwai did just that on the par-5 16th hole. After hitting her tee shot right and into the rough, it appeared she had little chance to put her second shot on the green. While her caddie advised her to chip out and then hit her third shot at the green, Iwai felt if she was going to chase Lindblad down, she needed to get aggressive.
The talented rookie hit a low cut shot that avoided a tree sitting in front of her ball and then rolled on to the edge of the green, leaving her a long but tricky putt for eagle. Iwai calmly rolled the putt across the green where it came to rest just inches from dropping for an eagle and the outright lead. She tapped in for birdie, leaving her tied for the lead with two holes left.
On both 17 and 18, her approach shots bounced well beyond the pin, preventing her from having any real chance at making a birdie on either hole that could have given her the lead.
“I have a lot of adrenaline,” Iwai said. “I aimed for the hole from approach, but it go long. It’s okay. But that was a tough putt, but I really wanted to make it, but I missed it. It is okay.”
Iwai played well throughout the tournament, and while she came up a little short on Sunday, she served notice that she has the ability to win and likely sooner rather than later in her career.
Asked what she would take from this week’s success, she responded, “confidence.”
“It was fun,” Iwai said. “Normally, when I get nervous, my shots go right but I noticed that did not happen this week. It was a good experience for me.”
While she also came up a bit short this week, Lauren Coughlin also said she gained more confidence in herself and her game.
After finally breaking through for her first LPGA victory last season, Coughlin has been a consistent contender over the previous 12 months. She finished second two weeks ago at the Match Play championships and followed that with this week’s third-place finish.
Unlike the first three rounds, where Coughlin managed to make a lot of birdie putts, it was a different story on Sunday. With a lot of pins located near the front of greens and the course playing a little harder and faster, getting approach shots to stay below the hole was difficult in the final round. As a result, Coughlin said she had a lot of very fast, downhill putts from above pins, reducing how aggressive she could be with those putts.
“I felt like I played really solid today,” Coughlin said. “I hit some really good shots but just couldn’t get the putts to go in today. But overall, I played really, really good golf all week.
Coughlin made two late birdies on 15 and 16 to give herself a chance on the final two holes to catch Lindblad but she came up short.
“I gave myself a chance, which is all you can really hope for,” Coughlin said. “It sucks not getting it done. I feel like I played really, really good golf all week, and I can hopefully take that momentum from the last couple weeks into next week, which is our first major of the year, The Chevron. That’s one of my next goals. Won twice now, so next one is to win a major. Hopefully, I can give myself a shot next week as well.”
Even before her big win on Sunday, Lindblad had told people she felt winning at some point was a realistic goal. So, with that goal realized, what is next for the Swede?
“I said winning wasn’t such a crazy goal, I said that two or three times maybe to media,” Lindblad said. “So here we are, so I might need to put up some more goals.”