CANADIAN DOMINATION
Henderson wins by 8 strokes
Smiths Falls, Ont., golfer Brooke Henderson applied skill, discipline and focused confidence to give herself an early birthday present as she claimed her first LPGA Tour title Sunday, becoming only the third player to win such a title before turning 18.
The victory also guaranteed she’d be a regular on the LPGA Tour in 2016.
The 17- year- old — well, to be precise, 17 years, 11 months and six days ( her birthday is Sept. 10) — won the Cambia Portland Classic by eight strokes Sunday. She’d finished Round 3 Saturday with a five- stroke lead but extended it with a 3- underpar 69 at Columbia Edgewater to finish at 21- under 267, the lowest total since the event went from 54 holes to 72 in 2013, and an eightstroke victory over three golfers tied in the runner- up position.
“I felt really good ( on the course),” she said. “I knew my game was in a great spot. It has been all year.
Henderson’s eight- stroke victory is the largest margin of victory on the LPGA Tour since Jiyai Shin won the 2012 Women’s British Open by nine shots. Pornanong Phatlum ( 68), Ha Na Jang ( 70) and Candie Kung ( 70) tied for second.
Defending champion Austin Ernst shot a 68 to tie for fifth at 12 under, while Morgan Pressel, second after three rounds, had a 75 to tie for 10th at 10 under.
Henderson now joins Lydia Ko and Lexi Thompson as the only players to win an LPGA Tour event before their 18th birthdays. She is the first Canadian, regardless of age, to win an LPGA Tour event since Lorie Kane of Charlottetown won the Takefuji Classic in 2001 — when Henderson was a three- yearold toddler.
In closing her winning round on Sunday, Henderson bogeyed the final hole, only her third dropped stroke of the week, and had 24 birdies. She got into the field Monday with a 68, then shot 66- 67- 65 in building her substantial thirdround lead. She joined Laurel Kean as other only Monday qualifiers to win. Kean accomplished the feat in the 2000 Rail Classic.
Henderson never allowed an opening on Sunday. She made two- putt birdies at the par- 5 fifth and seventh to reach 20 under, and holed a 20- foot birdie putt at the par- 4 ninth to take an eight- stroke lead.
She made a three- footer for birdie at the par- 5 12th, then stumbled with a bogey at 13. Henderson made her final birdie at the par- 4 17th, knocking in a 10- foot putt from the fringe.
Henderson hit her drive in a fairway bunker at 18, but with a large lead, pitched out of the sand, hit her approach to 20 feet and two- putted for bogey.
“I was just trying to play my game the whole way through,” Henderson said. “I think the last couple holes I started to think, 3- wood off the tee on 17. I probably wouldn’t have done that on a regular day, but I figured just hit it straight down the fairway and hit it on, and ended up making birdie, which was even better.
“Down 18, again, I probably would have went for that on that bunker shot there, but just chipped out and tried to do the right thing.”
Henderson’s LPGA victory caps a financially rewarding year for her as a professional. The Portland Classic pays out $ 195,000 to the winner. That comes on top of the $ 466,818 she had already picked up through nine LPGA Tour events for a total of $ 661,818.
She has now won on four different tours in 2015 — the LPGA, the Suncoast Women’s Series Tour ( in Florida in January), the Symetra Tour’s Four Winds Invitational in June in Indiana and the Canadian PGA Women’s Championship at Burlington, Ont., in July.
She has also tied for fifth in two of the LPGA Tour’s first four majors of 2015.