The Andalusians Azahara Muñoz and Miguel Angel Jimenez have signed a great sporting weekend finishing second and third in both tournaments of the Ladies European Tour and the Champions Tour. The player from Malaga has finished second in the Ladies Scottish Open, where she had very serious options to win the title until the last moment.
Muñoz even participated in a playoff with the Americans Stacey Lewis and Cheyenne Knight and the Danish Emily Kristine Pedersen, with whom she finished tied at 279 strokes after a tachycardic last day. Stacey Lewis’s successful putt, which she holed from 5 meters on the first hole, ended the dream of her other three opponents, including Azahara Muñoz.
The golfer from Marbella was leading this important event at the conclusion of the third day after exhibiting a praiseworthy forcefulness and effectiveness in her game from the first moment.
Tremendously solid, Muñoz put up a fight with rounds of 68, 69 and 69, 7 under par at that moment that only the Americans Stacey Lewis and Jennifer Song were able to partially reproduce until then, in their case with 6 and 5 under par, respectively, although other prestigious players such as Lydia Ko or Cheyenne Knight, with -4, were also waiting for a final round that was presumed to be exciting.
The last day, however, was an ordeal for Muñoz during the first holes, where she did not find the formula to reproduce the successes of the previous days. A bogey on the first hole and, even worse, a double bogey on the 6th and another stumble on the 9th led Azahara Muñoz to sixth place.
However, just in those moments, Azahara Muñoz brought out her characteristic grit that makes her one of the great references of Spanish women’s golf, scoring two birdies on her card during the second round that allowed her to opt for the win in a playoff that dominated Stacey Lewis with a sensational 5-meter putt that won her the title.
Muñoz was the shining counterpoint to the rest of the Spaniards who started this important competition-Luna Sobrón, María Hernández, Carmen Alonso, Noemí Jiménez, Silvia Bañón and Nuria Iturrios-, who failed to make the cut at the end of the second day.
.
Incombustible Jiménez
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the attention was also focused, on the men’s side, on the exciting performance of the incombustible Jiménez in Ohio, where the player from Malaga once again showed the eternal quality of his game, with rounds of 68, 74, 69 and 69 that led him to a very meritorious third place, reaffirming himself as one of the best players in the senior category.
Ranked fifth with 18 holes to go in a tournament that he began leading after the first day, Jiménez also put up a good fight in the last round of the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship, one of the most important events of the Champions Tour. Three strokes separated him from the provisional leader, the American Jerry Kelly, who finally won with the same margin with respect to the Spanish golfer. In between, with one stroke less than Miguel Ángel Jiménez, was the American Scott Parel.
Leave a Reply