Carlota Ciganda has become this Sunday of October in the fourth Spanish player who has won in the American Women’s Tour (LPGA), and has done it in a big way, in South Korea, a country from which many of the new stars of women’s golf worldwide are emerging. In the LPGA KEB Hana Bank LPGA Championship, the player from Navarre has achieved what she has been looking for so long.
With 18 holes to go, Carlota Ciganda was fourth with -8, five strokes behind American Alison Lee. Her rounds of 69, 60 and 69 strokes allowed her to dream big, although the difficulties were maximum, since the local fans, who once again turned to the tournament, demanded a victory from theirs.
In the final round, the Spaniard signed a good round of 70 strokes (-2) that combined with the 75 of a pressured Alison Lee led both to the maximum equality in the leaderboard. -10 on the board for the two best players of the week. The fearsome Shanshan Feng (-8), among other world figures, was out of the playoff.
On this fourth day, Carlota Ciganda’s extraordinary first round could have served her victory on a platter without the need for extra holes: six birdies in the first ten holes gave her a lead that partly vanished with a double-bogey and two bogeys in the last five holes.
But it was written that we would have to fight to get such a precious booty. The hole chosen for the play off was the 18th, a par 5 to which Carlota Ciganda cut a stroke playing perfectly from tee to green. Alison Lee signed the par of the hole and was a direct witness of a new historic moment for Spanish golf.
Carlota Ciganda is, despite her youth, a legend of Spanish golf. Her track record includes Spanish Championships in all categories -from junior to professional- as well as a victory in the LETAS Tour, three in the Ladies European Tour, and a great contribution in the victory of the European team in the Solheim Cup 2013.
In this brief biography we must add her presence in the last Olympic Games, in which she participated in the company of her partner in the National Teams and friend Azahara Muñoz.
Her career in the United States had been asking for such a success for a long time, although the arrival of huge young talents, in many cases from Asia, made this task complicated. Earlier this year she had finished second at the Meijer LPGA Classic, where she was beaten in a playoff by South Korea’s Sei Young Kim.
With this victory, Carlota Ciganda has become the fourth Spaniard to win in the LPGA after Marta Figueras-Dotti, Beatriz Recari and Azahara Muñoz herself.
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