Winning golf tournaments is hard. On Sunday at the Indy Women in Tech Championship Driven by Group 1001 you could feel the agony of Lizette Salas as strongly as the ecstasy of Sung Hyun Park. In a duel that showed exactly how cruel competitive golf can be, Park birdied the first playoff hole to pick up her third LPGA win of 2018, fifth in less than two years and reclaimed the No. 1 spot in the Rolex Rankings. It was a brilliant display of skill and resiliency by both players.
Beginning the final round at Brickyard Crossing Golf Course in Indianapolis, Ind., with a two-stroke lead, Salas saw that margin disappear when she got a horribly bad break – actually two – on the tenth hole. First, her dead-on wedge shot hit the flagstick and kicked off the green. Then her ball settled down in the deep rough off the fringe and it took her three to get down, dropping her into a tie with Park
But Salas made birdies on Nos. 11 and 13 to reclaim the lead. When she stepped to the 17th tee it was with a one-stroke lead. But she missed the fairway – only her fourth errant drive of the week – and then missed a 7-foot par putt to once again fall into a tie with Park. Needing a birdie on No. 18 to win, Salas again drove into the rough. She hit a brilliant wedge shot from 90 yards to 4 feet but missed what would have been the winning birdied putt.
Park also had her chances to win in regulation, missing a 10-foot birdie try on No. 17 and then from 8 feet on No. 18. But when Salas missed her 20-foot birdie try in the playoff Park didn’t not let this chance get away. She rolled in her birdie from 10 feet to take the title and once again make it to No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings.
Park pressured Salas with a bogey-free 68 on Sunday to finish tied with her at 23-under-par 265 after Lizette closed with a 70. They were two strokes ahead of Amy Yang, who admirably took a longer penalty drop than she may have needed on No. 7 and made a double bogey that cost her a chance to win. Jin Young Ko was at 268 with Danielle Kang and Angel Yin at 269.
Park and Salas are perfect examples of the diversity of the LPGA. Sung Hyun came to America as a star on both the Korea and Japan LPGA tours and burst on the scene with her victory at the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open on her way to matching the feat of Nancy Lopez by winning both the Rolex Rookie of the Year Award and sharing the Player of the Year honor with So Yeon Ryu.
And if Park represents the globalization of the LPGA, Salas is a true American success story. The daughter of blue-collar Mexican immigrants she defied cultural stereotypes to become a professional golfer and on Sunday she showed the grit of her hardscrabble background. Her only LPGA win was four years ago at the Kingsmill Championship. This time she couldn’t hold on.
At the 2015 Solheim Cup at Colorado Golf Club, I was standing behind the 18th green when Salas finished her halved singles match with Suzann Pettersen. "You can't imagine what a big deal this is for us, two Mexican immigrants, to see our daughter play for the United States," her mother, Martha, said to me. "We are so proud of how well she represents us, our new country and our homeland."
Salas, 29, has now gone 105 events since that Kingsmill victory. She grew up in Azusa, Calif., one of three children of Ramon and Martha Salas. Ramon, a mechanic at Azusa Greens Golf Club near Los Angeles bartered his work skills to get lessons for Lizette. When she turned pro after four years as an All-America at the University of Southern California, Lizette joined the Epson Tour and Ramon went with her, driving her from event to event in his red pick-up truck.
On Sunday, Park and Salas – you could say a have and a have-not – both played their hearts out and, in the end, it was a tournament won by Park after she took advantage of opportunities given her by Salas. But it was also a tournament that proved that sometimes there is more than one winner.
Martha Salas was not there when Lizette won at Kingsmill, but she was able to comfort her daughter on Sunday at the Brickyard. Park, always the stoic, once again reached the top of the mountain. The best player in women’s golf won and an incredible story came in second. That’s a pretty compelling finish.
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