Canadian Open - Final Round

I picked Cristie Kerr to win this tournament, so I’m pretty happy about the final result. But for Angela Stanford it had to be a long, sleepless Sunday night full of Kerr-demons. With Kerr in the clubhouse at -12, Stanford bogeyed the last two holes to lose the Canadian Women’s Open title. When Stanford came up short at the Franklin American Mortgage in May, it was Kerr who snatched victory away with a 65 that day as well.

After shooting 74 on Saturday, I had counted Cristie out of this thing. She was eight shots back! Through six holes Sunday she was -1 on the day and -6 overall, but then she birdied five of the next six to get to -11. At this point Stanford was still at -13 coming off a birdie at 9, so she was in control of things. Kerr managed one more birdie at 16 and finished up one shot behind while Stanford still had three holes to play. At 17, Stanford missed a six-footer to fall into a tie – the first time all week she had not been alone in first. Then at 18 her tee shot went through the fairway into a bunker. She landed her second on the huge green about 50 feet away. Needing a two-putt to force a playoff, Angela left her first one 10 feet short and couldn’t convert the par.

Kerr’s 65 was the best round of the day by three strokes over third-place finisher Pat Hurst and Se Ri Pak. Meena Lee and Jee Young Lee entered the day with the best chance to chase down Stanford but they both carded 74s to finish fourth and fifth. I’ll give my Big Surprise award this week to Laura Diaz, who got her third Top 10 of the year by shooting 69 on Sunday. She might be all the way back from having a baby during the off-season.

Obviously Angela Stanford has the game to win on the LPGA Tour. I hope she can recover from this second big disappointment to contend again. The next time she’s near the top of the leaderboard, I guarantee she’ll know exactly where Cristie Kerr is.