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Ashleigh Buhai has held on to become the first back-to-back women’s Australian Open champion in more than a decade, fighting off a late challenge from Minjee Lee.
Key points:
Buhai won despite shooting a three-over-par 75 in the final roundLee finished a stroke behind Buhai in second placeJoaquin Niemann won the men’s tournament via a play-off
The South African denied Australian Lee an elusive national championship with a tension-filled one-stroke triumph over the popular pre-tournament favourite.
Buhai closed with a nervy three-over-par 75 at The Australian in Sydney to finish with a nine-under 280 total and successfully defend the title she won last year at the Victoria Golf Club in Melbourne.
Meanwhile, Chilean Joaquin Niemann defeated Japan’s Rikuya Hoshino in a play-off in an extraordinary finale to the men’s tournament.
Buhai, 34, is the first player to win successive Opens since 2011.
But despite being as many as four shots in front down the stretch, Buhai’s victory was anything but comfortable.
Incredibly, she could not find a single birdie all round, while the vanquished runner-up Lee rolled in eight.
Trailing by four shots with five holes to play, Lee cut Buhai’s lead to just one heading up the last after the 2022 British Open champion found the water on the 17th.
However, a precious par on the 18th hole was enough for Buhai as Lee was unable to fashion a ninth birdie in an otherwise valiant three-under round of 69.
After starting the day seven strokes behind, Lee knew she needed to conjure something special.
She delivered, sinking six birdies in the first 10 holes.
Some wretched bad luck on the 11th hole, when her ball ensconced itself deep in the upslope of a bunker, could have cruelled two-time major winner Lee’s momentum.
But the world number five brushed off the bogey and swiftly posted a bounce-back birdie on the 12th hole.
Lee’s hopes again appeared to evaporate when she double-bogeyed the par-four 13th after leaving her approach short, then watched her chip shot spin back off the green.
But Buhai offered her a lifeline with successive bogeys of her own on 13 and 14 — her first blemishes since Friday — and Lee replied with the eighth birdie to reduce the deficit to two shots once again.
Alas for Lee, Buhai calmly two-putted from 12 feet on the last to close out the championship.
Niemann reigns supreme
Niemann cashed in with an eagle at the second extra hole after a trio of big-name local hopes let the title slip during a wild final round.
Starting the day four shots behind, Niemann — who plies his trade on the LIV Golf breakaway league after defecting from the PGA Tour — stormed home with a final-round 5-under 66.
Hoshino closed with a 70 to make the play-off at 14-under but finished runner-up for the second week in a row, having last week finished three shots behind emerging Australian superstar Min Woo Loo at the Australian PGA Championship.
Lee will be ruing not saluting again after he entered the final round as co-leader with Hoshino.
And former world number Adam Scott and fellow US PGA Tour star Lucas Herbert also had one hand on the Stonehaven Cup at stages during the final round.
While Lee relinquished his lead early, Scott and Herbert had turns at looking likely winners down the stretch, only to falter in incredible fashion.
In the space of seven depressing minutes for Australian golf fans, both posted triple-bogey sevens to see their hopes vanish.
From 14-under and outright leader with three holes to play, Scott — who started his round on the 10th — drove out of bounds on the par-four seventh.
After making the long walk back to the tee, he could not make par with his second ball and suddenly tumbled to 11-under.
Moments later, Herbert, also at 14-under, found the trees on the ninth hole and recorded his triple-bogey.
He never recovered as Niemann and Hoshino both eventually forced a play-off on the same score the two crestfallen Australians had reached barely two hours earlier.
AAP
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