Jutanugarn primed for a major win
The newest kid on the LPGA tour’s block might just turn out to be the best one in the neighborhood.
Ariya Jutanugarn, 20, owned May by winning all three of the tour’s events, showing the world what her peers knew was coming. With power, precision and soft hands on and around the greens, Jutanugarn won the Yokohama LPGA Classic, then the Kingsmill and finally the inaugural Volvik Championship, where she didn’t hit her driver once but managed to get around by hitting her 3wood 270 yards.
After taking last week off, the No. 10-ranked player in the world is one of the favorites to win the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
“She’s Laura Davies with a putter. She’s Michelle Wie without a swing thought. She’s Lydia Ko with length,” Golf Channel ana- lyst Jerry Foltz said. “She’s unbeatable when she’s on or even close to being on.”
“There honestly hasn’t been a player like her in my generation,” added Christina Kim, 32, who finished second in the Volvik.
Jutanugarn has long been on the radar, qualifying for the 2007 Honda LPGA Thailand at 11. She was a top-ranked junior and was starting to make noise on the LPGA tour before injuring her right shoulder in 2013 after tumbling down a hill while chasing her sister at the Wegmans LPGA Championship. She had surgery to repair a torn labrum but was slow to recover. Last year she missed 10 consecutive cuts.
A turning point came in April in the ANA Inspiration, the tour’s first major. She led after 69 holes but finished with three bogeys to lose by two. Instead of being crushed, she was inspired.
“I didn’t know how to control (myself ) when I got really nervous,” she said. “I got a lot more confident after ANA, because I feel like I’m good enough to win, so after that is just getting more and more confident.”
She’s overflowing with confidence. She is the first player from Thailand to win on the LPGA tour, and she’s the first to win her three initial career victories in consecutive appearances. Now she’s eyeing her first major title. And she is within reach of the record of five consecutive wins in tournaments played held by World Golf Hall of Fame members Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstam.
“She’s going to be unstoppable,” Kim said. “It’s such an exciting time for the LPGA and for the game of golf. I could be her mother, you know, she’s so young, but she’s just such a remarkable young woman.”