In the end, 72 holes wasn’t enough at The Chevron Championship. But Lilia Vu needed just one extra to win a major for the first time in her career.
Vu, who made it six first-time major champions in a row at the Chevron, rolled in a birdie on the first playoff hole to top Angel Yin and win her maiden major title.
This was the third playoff in the last four tournaments on the LPGA Tour.
After rallying from six back for her first LPGA Tour title in February, Vu birdied Nos. 17 and 18 Sunday to claw her way from four shots back to finish at 10 under. Yin made two ill-timed bogeys on Nos. 16 and 17 before rolling in an impressive birdie on the closing hole to force a playoff with the 25-year-old Vu.
Both golfers found the fairway in the first playoff hole (No. 18, again) but Yin, who was first to go, knocked her approach in the water short of the green.
Vu then stepped up and hit her approach past the green and chipped to about 15 feet before calming rolling in the birdie for the win.
And then the big question was – would she leap in the pond?
Lilia takes the leap! 💦
The 2x Tour winner is now a major champion 🏆 pic.twitter.com/cx90BehK50
— LPGA (@LPGA) April 23, 2023
After 51 years at Mission Hills resort in Rancho Mirage, Calif., the Chevron Championship moved to The Woodlands, Texas this year. Since 1988 the winner of the championship would jump into Poppies Pond. The new water hazard near the green of the par-5 18th wasn’t nearly as clean (apparently they had to install a net to keep out alligators) but the jump wasn’t any less special for Vu, who had recently thought about quitting golf to go to law school instead. She returned to golf with a bang, however, winning three times on the Epson Tour in 2021 to earn LPGA Tour status.
Vu has had a spectacular season to this point, with two wins and no finish worse than a tie for 14th.
Two of the three Canadians made the cut with Maddie Szeryk notching a tie for 18th in her debut major championship as a professional.
Szeryk, who staged an impressive comeback after a triple-bogey six on the par-3 3rd to shoot an even-par 72 on Sunday, finished at 2 under for the week. She qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open as an amateur but, after finishing tied for 7th in her season opener last month earned her way into the Chevron to make her first start as a pro at a major.
And by the time Sunday night rolled around, she had a darn impressive result.
“I’m just so excited to have had such a strong finish,” said Szeryk. “The first major of the year… first major as a pro… and I’m just so happy to have really fought to the end.”
Golf Town Athlete Brooke Henderson, meanwhile, notched her 28th career top-25 finish at a major after finishing tied for 23rd. Brooke was firmly in the mix after 36 holes – she returned at first light on Saturday morning after a hefty rain delay on Friday to make a birdie on her final hole of her second round to get into the top 10 – but had a few tough holes over the weekend and ended up at even-par for the week.
“Obviously not the weekend I was looking for but it played really tough today so I just tried to battle it out today as best I could,” said Brooke. “I feel like I was kind of gritty out there because things weren’t really going my way, which is good.
“Just try to take some positives. I got up-and-down a lot today which is good. I hit not very many greens which I’m not used to doing so… we’ll clean up a few things the next few days and hopefully play well (next week).”
As far as the rest of the field, Nelly Korda finished third at 9 under, just one-shot back of the playoff after a lengthy eagle putt dropped on her 72nd hole. Atthaya Thitikul, last year’s Rookie of the Year, was amongst a group of five golfers who finished tied for fourth at 8 under.
The LPGA Tour’s schedule continues next week at the JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro.
The next major of the season is the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in late June.