YUKA Saso couldn’t get her game going for the third straight day yesterday (Sunday in the US), shooting another mediocre 73 to wind up in 48th place at the close of the CME Group Tour Championship at the Tiburon Golf Club in Naples Florida.
The reigning US Women’s Open champion, Saso was never contention as she continued to be hounded by putting woes in a round pockmarked by three bogeys against two birdies over the par-72, 6,556-yard layout. She finished with a four-round tally of 285, netting $16,613 (roughly P842,000), 20 shots behind South Korean Jin Young Ko, who retained her crown by one shot after surviving a down-the-wire duel with Japanese Nasao Hataoka.
Ko fired a flawless 63 for 265 spiked by nine birdies to likewise lift US LPGA Player of the Year Honors and the $1.5 million (P75 million) purse, beating Hataoka, the US Women’s Open runner-up, who shot a 64 that was blemished by a lone bogey on the sixth hole.
Like the previous two rounds, Saso was unable to find her usual accuracy on her approach, hitting just 14 of 18 greens in regulation, on top of an errant putter that resulted in her most number of putts at 31. — Bong Pedralvez
