Henderson looks for repeat win today at CP Women’s Open,
Truly a gift from the golfing gods.
It’ll be Brooke Henderson head to head against the best player on the planet on Sunday as the Canadian tries to back up her historic win at the CP Women’s Open last year with a repeat performance.
Hard to imagine a better scenario for Canada’s national women’s championship, wouldn’t you say?
World No. 1 Jin Young Ko of South Korea goes into the final round with a two-stroke advantage over Henderson, and shares the lead with Nicole Broch Larsen of Denmark. Henderson, after overcoming a stumbling start on Saturday with a sizzling finish, definitely has momentum and home-court advantage at Magna Golf Club.
Given the way the day finished Saturday, with a surging Henderson going 9 under on the final 11 holes in an Arnold Palmer-like charge, you can bet Ko and Broch Larsen are going to have to deal with some crowd noise as well from the sizable galleries that have been building in support of Henderson over the last three days.
“I heard every roar,” Ko smiled, when asked about Henderson’s surge.
“I definitely heard those roars on the back nine,” Broch Larsen said.
The three women will play together Sunday, rather than in pairs, for television purposes, which should make for great theatre. Henderson, who shot 29 on the back nine and 65 on the day, is the long-hitting home favourite. Ko is machinelike with a good putter and a superb short game. Broch Larsen is a Ladies European Tour player looking for her first win in North America.
“(Ko) is No. 1 in the world, so it will be a fun challenge,” Henderson said. “If I play like I did on the back nine today, I think I have a shot.”
It’s the kind of perfect tennis script the Rogers Cup thought it was getting earlier this month when Canada’s Bianca Andreescu took on superstar Serena Williams in the final. That match, however, lasted only four games before Williams retired with an injury and Andreescu became the first
Canadian winner of the tournament in 50 years. The CP Women’s Open would love the same result — a Canadian winner — but with a lot more actual competition for the fans.
“Hopefully I can just repeat what I did today,” Henderson said. “To win this once was incredible. To do it twice would be really awesome.”
After six holes on Saturday, it appeared Henderson had no shot at all. She bogeyed two holes, was confused by the wind conditions and sensed her chances of a repeat was slipping away. She was struggling, eight shots behind the leaders.
As her sister/caddy, Brittany, tried to keep her spirits up, it was a young fan who supplied the necessary boost.
“A little boy gave me a high five as I was walking off the seventh green,” said Henderson, who gave the lad her signed golf glove after the round. “It cheered me up a little bit. So going to the eighth I was just thinking about making two birdies and getting back to even (on the front nine), then see if I could go really low on the back. “Which I did.” It really was something to watch. Suddenly, everything that was going wrong started going right.
In rapid succession, she birdied Nos. 8, 9 and 10. On the 12th, a 513-yard par five, she launched a perfect fairway metal into the green to three feet, then made her ninth eagle of the season.
“That gave me a lot of energy,” she said.
Ko and Broch Larsen were also playing well, forcing Henderson to keep pushing and keep making birdies.
Her putter was magic — she needed only 26 putts on the round — and helped her birdie the 13th, 14th, 16th and 17th holes as well.
“To be honest, my putter has been bailing me out a lot this week,” she said. “I felt like my speed was good. As long as I was seeing the line, they seemed to be falling.”
The leaders were trying to pull away all day. Ko shot 65, while Broch Larsen carded her third consecutive 66. The Dane almost won this event in 2017, leading the tournament after 54 holes before finishing third.
“I’m just going to do my best tomorrow and see if I can win it,” said Broch Larsen, who seemed to play better on Saturday after donning a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. “I definitely woke up a little earlier today, having to play with the lead and with the No. 1 player in the world. There were definitely some more heartbeats playing with (Ko). I mean, I think she hit one bad shot all day.”
Ko, who is bogey-free over the first three days of the tournament, will be the oddsmaker’s favourite on Sunday. She has won two majors this season.
“I don’t want to think about the trophy,” she said. “I will just try to think about my game, and how my body is feeling, how I can play shot by shot.”
It’ll be the power of Henderson versus the precise execution of Ko. Broch Larsen, meanwhile, showed her mettle on Saturday by bogeying the 10th hole to lose the lead she had earned after 36 holes, but then bouncing back with birdies on two of the next four holes.
Henderson has defended titles previously in Hawaii and Portland, Oregon, and will need to use her length advantage off the tee and the noisy support of the gallery to her advantage.
“If I can kind of try to keep this momentum and energy that I had on the last few holes, hopefully hit it a little bit better off the tee, hopefully my putter can bail me out again,” she said. “Hopefully I’ll get off to a faster start on Sunday.”
If not, well, hopefully that little boy will be there again with the necessary high five.