Tag: Walmart NW Arkansas Championship

Trying to keep her card, American Sarah Burnham posts career-best round at LPGA NW Arkansas Championship

Burnham sits a single stroke behind leaders A Lim Kim, Katherine Kirk and Eun-Hee Ji.

Sarah Burnham knows the clock is ticking. The former Michigan State star sits 132nd in the Race to the CME Globe points standings and needs to climb quickly to avoid dusting off her Q-school syllabus at season’s end.

If Friday’s opening round of the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship is any indication, though, Burnham isn’t going down without a fight.

The two-time Big Ten Player of the Year put together the best round of her LPGA career just when she needed it most, finishing with a 64 at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas. With two rounds to play, she sits a single stroke behind A Lim Kim, Katherine Kirk and Eun-Hee Ji.

Knowing there are just a handful of tournaments remaining on the LPGA 2021 schedule, and with missed cuts in her last three events, Burnham’s parents made the trip to see their daughter — the first time they’d done so since seeing her post a previous best 66 at the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club.

“I kind of want to make sure their time is worthwhile out here. Because they don’t come a lot, but when they do I want them to enjoy themselves and I don’t want to play bad necessarily,” Burnham told LPGA.com. “But you can’t always control that. Maybe they are my lucky charm.”

There’s plenty of work to be done, however.

Kim got hot down the stretch on Friday, going even through the first six holes, but then posting five straight birdies. She also closed with an eagle.

Meanwhile, Kirk did it with a hot front, posting four birdies on the opening seven holes.

Others who opened with impressive rounds include Nasa Hataoka (65), Pajaree Anannarukarn (66), Ariya Jutanugarn (66). Americans Jennifer Kupcho and Stacy Lewis each opened with rounds of 67, as did local favorite Brooke Matthews, an amateur from Arkansas.

For Burnham, though, she can’t worry about the field and instead needs to focus on her own game.

“I think everything happens for a reason,” said Burnham. “It does weigh on me a little bit, but whether I have to go back to Q-School or not, just see how these next four weeks go.”

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Austin Ernst ends LPGA victory drought by holding off Anna Nordqvist in Arkansas

Austin Ernst has not won on the LPGA since 2014, but she broke that streak Sunday at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship.

Austin Ernst has not won on the LPGA since 2014. But in breaking that streak Sunday evening at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, Ernst had to derail the ending of another such streak.

Ernst fired a closing 8-under 63 at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas. With a two-putt birdie on the par-5 closing hole, she effectively closed out Anna Nordqvist, who had taken the lead with a second-round 62 and was looking for her first LPGA win since 2017.

“It was long,” Ernst told Golf Channel of the break between her first LPGA victory and this, her second. “A lot longer than I thought it’d be.”

To be exact, it was 143 starts long.

Scores: Walmart NW Arkansas Championship

Ernst was one of many players who tried to take something positive out of the break in competition forced by a global pandemic. She worked hard on the putting green, even changing from a blade-style putter to a mallet.

“I just grinded on my putter and my wedges and driving the ball,” she said. “I think what’s held me back in the past was I didn’t hit quite as many fairways and I didn’t make as many putts.”

Ernst’s sole victory was at the 2014 Portland Classic, but another highlight of the 28-year-old’s career was her appearance in the 2017 Solheim Cup, where she compiled a 2-2-0 record. Interestingly, she played alongside Angela Stanford, an assistant captain for the 2021 Solheim Cup, in the final round at Arkansas.

The significance of that didn’t even cross Ernst’s mind, she said afterward. Still, she put on an impressive showing.

After starting the day in third, Ernst threw out 10 birdies on Sunday to combat two bogeys. Her final-round 63 followed up previous rounds of 65 and got her to 20 under, one better than Nordqvist.

For her part, Nordqvist hadn’t made a bogey all week until she reached the back nine on Sunday. She lost ground with bogeys at Nos. 12 and 14, but birdied No. 16 to have a chance coming up the final par 5. She needed a birdie there, but when she settled for par and a final-round 69, she found herself one shot short.

Stanford and Nelly Korda finished at 16 under, close behind on what became an exciting Sunday. Jenny Shin and Sei Young Kim tied for fifth another shot back.

There was another race going on in the final round at Arkansas, too. Two spots in the 2020 U.S. Women’s Open were on the line for players inside the top 10 who weren’t already in the field.

Shin claimed one of those, and the other went to Katherine Kirk, who secured a T-7 finish with a gutsy two-putt par on the 18th green. Kirk, of Australia, will play her 16th Women’s Open. It will be the 11th appearance for Shin, who finished T-10 in 2014.

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Anna Nordqvist builds three-shot cushion at Walmart NW Arkansas Championship

No one could quite match Anna Nordqvist in the second round of the Wal-Mart NW Arkansas Championship on Saturday.

No one could quite match Anna Nordqvist in the second round of the Wal-Mart NW Arkansas Championship on Saturday. Nordqvist hasn’t made a bogey yet at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas. An opening 64 followed by a stunning 9-under 62 on Saturday left her out of reach.

In fact, no one could get closer than three shots. That’s the margin Nordqvist will take into the final round of the Arkansas LPGA event.

Nordqvist kept giving herself opportunities and she kept capitalizing on them.

“I would say like it’s just nice to see hard work pay off, and also see a lot of, you know – I feel like I’ve been off for a little bit last couple years, but it’s just nice to have some sort of consistency back,” she said. “Yeah, not every week it’s not going to pay off, but I been trying to keep my head up and just keep going, keep working at it. Certainly when it does pay off, it’s a great feeling.”

The last of Nordqvist’s eight career LPGA victories came in 2017. She won the Bank of Hope Founders Cup and the Evian Championship, an LPGA major, that year.

It has been a bumpy road back to this level of confidence in her game, but Arkansas is a place that feels familiar.

“There is something about Arkansas,” she said. “Always liked this place. Probably one of the few places in the U.S. I could really see myself being because I like the atmosphere here.”

The closest player on Nordqvist’s heels on Saturday evening was Sei Young Kim, who won the CME Group Tour Championship in November. Kim had a second-round 64 to reach 13 under.

Nelly Korda, Jenny Shin and Austin Ernst were all tied for third at 12 under.

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New mom Jackie Stoelting among leaders at Walmart NW Arkansas Championship

Jackie Stoelting is among three players tied for the lead after the first round of the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship in Rogers, Arkansas.

Jackie Stoelting last teed it up on the LPGA in June 2019 at the Meijer LPGA Classic. That was before she became a mother. Stoelting and her husband Travis welcomed son Baren into the world last September.

Now, Stoelting is going after her first LPGA title as a mom. She’s among three players tied for the lead after the first round of the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas. She, Esther Lee and Anna Nordqvist all fired rounds of 7-under 64 to open the event on Friday.

Stoelting went bogey-free, and closed out her day with a back-nine 30.

“It’s been 14 months I think since my last round out here, so didn’t really have many expectations, but also have an extremely different perspective on life now that I’m a mom,” Stoelting said. “So I just was out here really trying to have fun and take it one shot at a time.”

Normally, without a distraction like her daughter, Stoelting might return to her room and scroll scores all night. Now she has a much better way to spend her time.

But for COVID, and the additional challenges of traveling with a baby in the middle of a pandemic, Stoelting might have returned sooner. In the build-up to her return to competition, Stoelting’s own mom would often come over to babysit while she hit the golf course.

“I actually played in the Florida Open three weeks ago as a test event just to see if even I was OK mentally, physically being away from my son while I played,” Stoelting said. “I finished third there, so I was like, all right. Literally the next day I signed up for Arkansas.”

As for Nordqvist, who is coming off a T-32 at the AIG Women’s British Open, didn’t have a single bogey on her card either. Lee’s only misstep came at the par-4 10th hole.

It’s a packed leaderboard in Rogers, with six players right on the leading trio’s heels at 6 under. That group includes Stephanie Meadow, who was among the last players to come off the course. She brought in a round of 6-under 65 that included an eagle on the par-5 18th.

Along with Meadow, Austin Ernst, Mina Harigae, Katherine Kirk and Maria Fernanda Torres are also at 6 under.

Stacy Lewis, who earned her first victory as a mom earlier this month at the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open, was part of a group tied for 10th at 5 under.

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Brittany Lincicome tickles baby Emery before making the turn in Arkansas

Lincicome got a quick mommy moment in with her now one-year-old daughter Emery at Pinnacle Country Club, just north of Fayetteville.

Brittany Lincicome got a little extra inspiration at the turn during Friday’s opening round of the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, presented by P&G.

After an even 36 on the front, Lincicome got a quick mommy moment in with her now one-year-old daughter Emery at Pinnacle Country Club, just north of Fayetteville.

She stopped and tickled Emery, who was waiting between holes with caretakers. The move worked as Lincicome went out and finished with a 1-under par 35 on the back nine. A trio is in the lead at 7 under.

For those who don’t recall, Lincicome gave birth to Emery Reign Gouws on July 8, 2019 in Rockford, Illinois, exactly eight weeks before she was due. She weighed 4 pounds, 11 ounces.

“When she came out, she looked perfect and she was screaming,” said Lincicome of the birth. Emery was only on oxygen for one day.

The coronavirus break gave Lincicome, who will celebrate her 35th birthday next month, the gift of added time with her first-born.

To save money, and perhaps kill time, Lincicome and her sister-in-law, Bianka, started making baby food at home, everything from pears to squash.

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