Yoo Hae-ran 3rd Place "Personal Best"... Rose Jang Wins Debut Match

Yoo Hae-ran Achieves 4th Top 10 at Americas Open
Rose Jang Wins in Playoff... Cupcho 2nd
Ji Eun-hee 4th, Ko Jin-young and Lee Min-ji Tied 13th

Rookie Yu Hae-ran broke her personal best record.

On the 4th (local time), Yu Hae-ran added 2 under par in the 4th round of the LPGA Tour Mizuho Americas Open (total prize money $2.75 million) held at Liberty National Golf Club (par 72, 6,656 yards) in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA, finishing 3rd by 1 stroke (8 under par 280). This is her fourth top 10 finish of the season following a tie for 7th at the Drive On Championship in March, a tie for 6th at the JM Eagle LA Championship in April, and 4th place at the Cognizant Founders Cup last month.

Yoo Hae-ran is reading the putting line at the 5th hole of the 4th round of the Mizuho Americas Open. [Jersey City, USA=AFP·Yonhap News]

Starting from a tie for 6th place, 5 strokes behind, Yu Hae-ran made 5 birdies and 3 bogeys. After a birdie on the 3rd hole (par 4), she lost it with a bogey on the 4th hole (par 3), then sparked momentum with consecutive birdies on the 5th and 6th holes and another birdie on the 8th hole (par 5). However, a bogey on the 9th hole halted her momentum, and she lost another stroke on the 13th hole (also par 5), falling behind in the race for the title. Yu Hae-ran recovered with a birdie on the 16th hole (par 4) to improve her position. She missed the fairway and green four times each, and her total putts were 29.

Invited player Rose Zhang (USA) recorded 2 over par, tying with Jennifer Kupcho (USA) at 9 under par 279, but clinched the win with a par on the second hole of the resumed playoff on the 18th hole (par 4). This marks a debut victory on the LPGA Tour, following Beverly Hanson (USA) at the 1951 Eastern Open and Ko Jin-young at the 2018 Australian Women's Open. Rose Zhang was the dominant amateur who held the world No. 1 ranking for 141 weeks. After winning back-to-back NCAA Championships and becoming the Stanford University athlete with the most wins (12), she turned professional last week. The winner's prize money is $412,500 (approximately 540 million KRW).

Rose Zhang exclaimed, "I can't believe it. Something truly amazing happened," adding, "I played with a variety of emotions. I want to improve my golf and be a positive influence on young players." Ji Eun-hee, Ayaka Furue (Japan), and Aditi Ashok (India) tied for 4th place (7 under par 281), Atthaya Thitikul (Thailand) and Danielle Kang (USA) tied for 10th place (5 under par 283), and world No. 1 Ko Jin-young and Minjee Lee (Australia) tied for 13th place (4 under par 284).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.