Stephanie Meadow & Leona Maguire finished alongside each other as Céline Boutier claimed her first LPGA Tour victory in three years at the Drive On Championship.
Boutier edged England’s Georgia Hall in a playoff after the pair were locked together on -20 following rounds of 68 and 65 respectively.
Boutier forced a playoff after making birdie at the par-5 18th.
Playing the 18th hole again, neither golfer found the green with their second shot of the playoff. Boutier, chipping from nearly the same spot as she did in regulation short and right of the green, pitched to about 4 feet. Meanwhile, Hall hit her second shot into a greenside bunker, blasted beyond the hole and failed to convert her birdie effort. That set the stage for Boutier’s winning birdie putt.
The Frenchwoman felt uncomfortable in the playoff, playing a Solheim Cup teammate in Hall.
“I was honestly not looking forward to it,” Boutier said. “It’s a bittersweet feeling because you obviously want to win, but at the same time I really think she’s an amazing player. … She is a really good friend of mine. So I feel like it’s not always easy, but also I’m a little bit competitive, so I feel like I definitely want to win as well. But it’s not the greatest feeling.
“I was a little bit nervous, but not as much as I expected or I thought I was going to be,” she said. “I feel like I was just really focused. I had a really tough chip from the right with a break from right to left, so I was just trying to get as close as I could. Then the 5- or 6-footer was definitely a little bit of pressure.”
On a week of low scoring, Maguire and Meadow shared 23rd place on thirteen-under-par.
Maguire opened with a brace of birdies before tagging on birdies on 7, 14 and 18 with her only blemish coming on the par-4 6th.
Meadow, making her first start of the season had a wild start making eagle on the par-5 2nd, birdie on three and a bogey on four. The Jordanstown native birdied 14 and 17 to round off her week.
Scoring HERE
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