They’ve won on their tours on the same day this year – Knapp at the Mexico Open, Tavatanakit at the Honda LPGA in Thailand – and have been equally impressive as a team, especially on Sunday’s stretch at Tiburon Golf Club.
Jeeno Thitikul, who won the LPGA Final at Tiburon last month and took home the $4 million ($6.3 million) prize, made an eight-foot birdie putt on the final hole as she and Tom Kim shot a 64 and alone they took second place.
Akshay Bhatia and Jennifer Kupcho spoiled the 18th hole with their lone bogey in the modified Fourballs format to finish third.
Defending champions Jason Day and Lydia Ko shot seven shots off the pace after a five-under final round.
The final hour could have gone to any four teams – the Canadian tandem of Corey Conners and Brooke Henderson scored 62 goals and briefly had the lead, although they were short on points.
Knapp and Tavatanakit, who started with a two-shot lead, fell behind for the first time all day when Bhatia holed an eagle from 30 feet on the par-5 17th.
The format was for each player to hit off the tee, switch balls on their next shot, and then complete the hole. Knapp hit the par-3 16th off the tee and climbed onto the green, and Tavatanakit made a left-to-right shot for a birdie to take the lead.
“I putt well this week,” Tavatanakit said.
“Everything was cool. The chemistry was really good…we just talked about random stuff. A lot of golf stuff.”
Both lost position off the tee on the easy 17th, and Knapp was in the water. Tavatanakit hit his tee shot from the home area just short of the green and into a slight wave. His pitch was three feet away, allowing for a birdie and a one-shot advantage over Bhatia and Kupcho.
Before the 18th over, Bhatia’s approach was woefully short and fell into the water. Kupcho missed her approach to the right and her putt went off the slope about 10 feet away. Bhatia tried to play from the water twice. Kupcho missed his par putt badly.
That gave the UCLA tandem a two-point lead, and a straight par – both missed birdies they didn’t need from about 10 feet – put them at 27-under 189. They each collected $500,000 ($786,500). .
Kim and Thitikul finished second in the birdie-birdie competition.
With Reuters.
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