Anna Nordqvist had no thoughts of winning when she teed off for the final round Sunday at the Evian Championship.
It wasn’t until she made a run for the ages on the back nine that she saw a second major in the making.
“Winning didn’t really cross my mind,” Nordqvist said after surviving horrendous conditions in a playoff with little-known Brittany Altomar from the United States.
Nordqvist, who has been hampered all season by a bout with mononucleosis, started the day five shots behind 36-hole leader Moriya Jutanugarn. To make matters worse for the tall Swede, she suffered a pair of bogeys over her first five holes at the Evian Resort Golf Club. Then came a birdie at six, an eagle at the par five seventh and suddenly she found some motivation.
On the back nine, she made a magical run that started with a birdie at 12. She got another at 14 then an eagle at the par five 15th. Another birdie at 16 got her to 10-under and a share of the lead. By the time she got to the difficult 18th, she had the lead by herself. But a drive in the rough cost her. A hazard fronting the green on the 441-yard hole forced her to layup and she would make bogey to post nine-under.
By the time the field finished, weather was deteriorating and Altomar, a Massachusetts native, made a huge bogey-saving putt at the 18th to tie Nordqvist and force a playoff.
That’s when conditions turned horrible. Cold rain turned to sleet, water began to puddle on the 18th green, the wind was blowing 30 miles per hour into Nordqvist and Altomare, a former University of Virginia star. “I knew it was playing like a par five,” Nordqvist later said. Indeed it did. Both drove in the right rough, hit layups, both missed the green with their third shots and waited while grounds crews squeegeed the water off the green. Altomare hit a miserable pitch for her fourth and would make double-bogey. She watched as Nordqvist got her pitch within four feet and calmly holed the winning bogey putt.
“Really speechless,” Nordqvist said as she hoisted the trophy for her second career major. “Eighteen was playing so hard, I hit a six-iron from 135 yards for my third shot and normally that a 165-yard club. It got really tough out there.”
“Crazy,” was how Altomare described the conditions after her best-ever finish on the LPGA Tour. “There’s no other word to describe it.”
