By Keely Levins
The week didn’t start out how anyone on the LPGA would’ve liked in Texas, but it ended with a major champion holding another trophy, reigning U.S. Women’s Open winner Sung Hyun Park victorious in a tournament that will go down in history for all the downtime players had to fill.

High winds and rain suspended play at the Volunteers of America LPGA Texas Classic early during Thursday’s first round. And the delays kept coming. Soon, it became Friday’s first round, and the tournament was shortened to 54 holes. When the weather and forecast didn’t improve on Friday, the tournament was shortened again, this time to 36 holes, with the first round now also spilling into Saturday.

Old American Golf Club, hosting the event for the first time, took on so much water that the LPGA decided to play lift, clean and place in the fairways. Every player in the field play both rounds, but only those finishing in 70th and ties earned prize money.

Seemingly anyone could have won this past week, the unintended consequence of truncated tournaments like that. But the champ turned out to be a player who has already proven herself on tour, Park grabbing her third career win with a 65-66 showing, one stroke lower than Lindy Duncan.

Both of Park’s previous wins came in 2017, along with numerous other accolades. The 24-year-old from South Korea won rookie of the year as well as co-player of the year honours. She reached No. 1 in the world, won the Women’s Open at Trump National and had 11 top-10 finishes.

Yet for a player who seemed to transition to the LPGA from Korea with ease, Park had trouble continuing the momentum into 2018. In the seven events Park played leading into Texas, she had missed two cuts and finished inside the top-10 just once.

After a first-round 65, Park was a co-leader with Jenny Shin, who won this event in 2016 when it was played at Las Colinas C.C. Park’s 65 included a 31 on the back nine. Her final round was more of the consistent, dominant play that the tour had been used to from her in 2017. She shot 66 in the final round, chipping in for birdie on the 18th hole. Though Park is never one to show much emotion on the course, she punctuated that chip-in with a fist pump and a rare, big smile.

“The beginning of the season was not good,” said Park after the round, through a translator. “It was super frustrating for me. And even though I don’t know if I’m going to win this yet, my confidence level has really skyrocketed, and I think in the future it’s really going to help me do well.”

There were still plenty of players on-course when Park finished, so she had to wait for her win to be official. No one was able to catch her. Duncan was closest, birdieing her last three holes to finish at 10 under, one shot short of Park. Though it wasn’t the playoff-forcing moment the Duke University graduate hoped for, it is the best finish of her career.

The post Wind, rain and a former LPGA Rookie of the Year dominate in Texas appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington

As Sunday’s second (and final) round played out at the rain-plagued Volunteers of America LPGA Texas Classic, Denmark’s Nicole Broch Larsen likely was still upset about what happened late Saturday night. However, she did not have to fret that the penalty stroke for her rules violation cost her the chance of claiming her first LPGA title.

Playing the par-5 fourth hole at the Old American Golf Club on Colony, Texas, the 13th of her second round and the second-to-last she would play on Saturday, Broch Larsen thought she saw her ball move. The 23-year-old discussed the situation with an on-course rules official, who ruled that Broch Larsen hadn’t caused the ball to move. So she played on and made what she thought was a birdie 4. However, an LPGA official assigned to watch the broadcast of the event contacted the on-site Rules Committee with “added information” from seeing video footage.

After the Rules Committee reviewed the video and had further discussions with Broch Larsen, it was determined that it was more likely than not that she did cause the ball to move, and so she received a one-stroke penalty after all under Rule 18-2. She did not, however, receive a penalty for playing her ball from the wrong place because she was following the directions of the on-site officials.

(Video was permitted to help overturn the original ruling in this instance despite last year’s decision, “The Lexi Rule,” which says that a player’s reasonable judgment will be accepted even if a video shows it to be inaccurate. That was because “The Lexi Rule” was meant to apply when the issue involved in determining a point of relief or the replacement of a lifted ball, or in instances where it reveals things that could not reasonably be seen with the naked eye. It was determined that was not the case here.)

Taking a par instead of birdie, Broch Larsen fell to six under par for the tournament when play was suspended for darkness, leaving her tied with four other players for first as they waited to finish the second round. Broch Larsen then played her remaining four holes on Sunday in one over and finished her 36 holes at five-under 137. At the same time, India’s Aditi Ashok wrapped up a second-round 66 that left her at seven-under 135. Meaning, Broch Larsen didn’t have to wait the rest of the day as the remaining players in the 144-player field closed out their second rounds to see if she might be in a playoff (or worse yet be one stroke out of a playoff, caused by the penalty).

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