The magnificent Aloha course, one of designer Javier Arana’s masterpieces in Marbella, once again was the setting for a pulsating finale to the Andalucian Costa del Sol Spanish Women’s Open. This time the duel at the summit did not –unfortunately for Spanish fans – involve local favourite Azahara Muñoz, who finished fourth, and Anne van Damme. On this occasion, the Dutch defending champion battled against Denmark’s Nanna Koerstz Madsen – with the former securing her  fifth Ladies European Tour title.  

Van Dam was three strokes behind Madsen after the third round and the Dane was still one ahead coming to the 18th tee. However, as the winds strengthened, Madsen hit an aggressive drive into the lake left of the fairway and three-putted for a catastrophic double bogey.

Van Dam split the fairway and played a solid shot up to the green, eventually sinking a less than one-metre putt for par. It was her second LET win of the 2019 season, following victory at the ActewAGL Canberra Classic.

“I did not expect that,” said Van Dam, 24, who earned her third trophy in Spain, following her Estrella Damm Mediterranean Ladies Open and Andalucía Costa del Sol Open de España titles in 2018.

“That’s golf. It was a crazy day. If you would have told me at the beginning of the day that two-under was enough to win, I would have said, okay, I’ll take it! It was a different day with harder conditions, a little bit of wind and it got really cold towards the end.

“Nanna is a good friend of mine and I would have loved to have beaten her in a play-off; that would have been a better feeling for me, but that’s golf. She took more of a risk hitting a driver off the tee and I’ve been hitting an iron off the tee there all week.”

Van Dam shot 13-under at La Quinta Golf and Country Club to win the title 12 months ago, by three shots. This year, a final round of two-under 70 in breezy conditions was enough to seal the victory once again, with a 13-under total of 275.

Madsen was joint second with Aditi Ashok on 12-under and was clearly disappointed. She had taken a two-stroke lead into the back-nine after holing her second shot for eagle on the ninth hole. Although she double-bogeyed the short 13th to drop into a share of the lead with Van Dam, she had birdied the 16th to regain the advantage.

Madsen said afterwards, “I lost today; Anne didn’t really win. I played terrible and had three double-bogeys which cost me everything. On one hole, I had a wrong distance, then I pulled one and then on the last one I played aggressively and had said that I would play driver, no matter what.”

Azahara Muñoz, who won the title in 2016 (Aloha) and 2017 (Guadalmina), tied for fourth place with Olivia Cowan and Julia Engstrom, while Cheyenne Woods (Tiger’s niece), Christina Kim and Marianne Skarpnord shared seventh.

FINAL RESULTS

1.- Anne Van Dam (Hol), 275 (68+69+68+70)

2.- Aditi Ashok (Ind), 276 (70+67+69+70)

+.- Nanna Koertz Madsen (Den), 276 (71+66+65+74)

4.- Azahara Muñoz (Sp), 279 (71+70+67+71)

10.- Nuria Iturrios (Sp), 282 (70+74+70+68)

AROUND THE GREEN

• Anne van Damme did not carry a driver in her bag for the whole tournament. The longest hitter on both the LET and US LPGA Tours in 2019, she said later ,”I’m not sure we’re going to keep that going, because I love to hit driver, but it was a different week and you didn’t need a driver much this week. I just stuck to my plan, even though it was hard to only hit three-wood sometimes.”

• The third day produced some spectacular scoring. Apart from Nanna Madsen’s seven-under 65, with five consecutive birdies between the 12th and 16th, special mention also for Swedish Julia Engstrom’s eight-under 64, with six birdies on the back nine, four of them at the end of her round.

• Christina Kim once again demonstrated her extraordinary ability to produce a golfing master class by scoring an ace on the 17th at the stunning Aloha Golf course. The American had birdied the two previous holes and, as if that were not enough, carded one more on the 18th: that is, five-under for her final four holes.