Carla Bernat Escuder of Spain delivered a gem of a efficiency with a clutch flop shot to begin the again 9 and a four-foot par putt on the finish for a four-under 68 to win the Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Newbie title.
Bernat Escuder, who grew up in the identical area as Masters champion Sergio Garcia and US Newbie champion Jose Luis Ballester, made up a two-shot deficit towards English defending champion Lottie Woad and held off a late cost by Asterisk Talley at Augusta Nationwide.
“As of right now, I don’t think my brain has processed that I won,” mentioned Bernat Escuder after clinching her one-shot success with a 12-under whole of 204.
She did it with somewhat assist from her Spanish heritage. Garcia’s father, Victor, is certainly one of her coaches and she or he not too long ago leaned on Ballester – they’ve been pals for the reason that age of seven – as a result of she felt her brief sport was missing.
That was severely put to the check as Bernat Escuder started the again 9. She left her strategy proper of the bunker, one of many hardest spots to be, with the golf ball barely above her ft. Bernat Escuder hit a marvellous flop shot to 12 ft and holed the par putt.
“I knew the tournament was going to start on No 10 because I’ve watched all the Masters,” she mentioned, a reference to the well-known phrase that The Masters doesn’t begin till the again 9 on Sunday. “As soon as I hit that second shot, I was like, ‘Oh, I need to get it together and just get this par’. I dug in and I think that was the key.”
Her lead was just one shot at that time – she went out in 33 – and that was about to vary.
Woad was seeking to grow to be the primary back-to-back winner of the Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Newbie. She was tied for the lead with Kiara Romero going into the ultimate group, birdied the primary gap and led by two early on. However it all got here undone on the tenth.
From the golf green, she was aggressive along with her strategy and tugged the shot left and over the inexperienced, right into a bush. Woad needed to take a penalty drop, chipped on and missed the putt, giving her a double-bogey and leaving her three pictures behind.
“I put a good swing on it, it was just the wrong club,” mentioned Woad, who went with a five-iron. “Thought it was meant to be into the wind, and off the downslope it came out a bit too flat, so probably should have just hit one less club. Then got in an unfortunate position, so probably was always going to make six from there.”
She needed to chase, similar to a 12 months in the past when she delivered a memorable back-nine cost. This time, she may solely handle two birdies and closed with a 72 to complete third on 9 below.
“Pretty frustrated,” Woad mentioned.
The cost got here from Talley, the US Girls’s Newbie and US Junior Women runner-up, who started the ultimate spherical by holing out from the primary fairway for eagle.
Coming off a birdie on the sixteenth to get to inside three pictures, Talley hit a exceptional restoration from below the pines left of the seventeenth fairway. The ball stayed below the limbs and rolled up alongside the sting of the bunker, utilizing the entire slope to get to about 18 ft behind the outlet.
As an alternative of scrambling for par, she holed the putt for birdie to present herself an opportunity.
Talley, nonetheless, was too sturdy along with her strategy on the 18th, leaving the ball on the highest tier with the outlet some 40 ft away in its typical Masters Sunday location. She did nicely to two-putt for par and a 68.
Within the group behind was Bernat Escuder, who additionally was within the timber on the seventeenth, put it in a bunker and made bogey. That lower her result in one shot with one gap to play.
The Spaniard discovered the golf green, additionally hit onto the highest tier and navigated a four-foot par putt to complete one forward of Talley and declare success in what already has grow to be as prestigious as any girls’s beginner occasion on the planet.
Bernat Escuder celebrates after holing out for a par on the 18th
When is The Masters dwell on Sky Sports activities?
Sky Sports activities Golf will likely be displaying file hours of dwell protection from the 2025 contest, the place Scottie Scheffler returns as defending champion, together with extra motion over the ultimate two rounds than earlier years.
Wall-to-wall protection from the match begins at 2pm on Thursday, with Featured Group motion and common updates from across the course accessible to take pleasure in on Sky Sports activities Golf till the worldwide broadcast window begins at 8pm.
The identical timings will apply on Friday, whereas a brand new addition to this 12 months’s protection sees a Masters build-up present dwell from 3pm over the weekend forward of full protection beginning at 5pm, protecting all of the motion till after the shut of play.
On Sky+, Sky Q and Sky Glass there will likely be a lot of further motion by way of the crimson button on the Sky Sports activities Golf channel, offering loads of bonus feeds and permitting you to observe gamers’ progress by way of varied elements of Augusta’s well-known format.
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