Anne Van Dam from the Netherlands won the Andaluc\u00eda Costa del Sol Open de Espa\u00f1a for the second straight year on Sunday, collecting her fifth Ladies European Tour title at Aloha Golf Club in Marbella.<\/p>\n
Van Dam was three strokes behind Nanna Koerstz Madsen after the third round and the Dane was still one ahead coming to the 18th tee. However, as the winds strengthened, Madsen hit an aggressive drive into the lake left of the fairway and then three-putted, running up a double bogey.<\/p>\n
Van Dam used her 4-iron to split the fairway, before playing up to the green and eventually rolling in a two-foot putt for par to seal the victory, her second of the 2019 season, following her earlier win at the ActewAGL Canberra Classic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not expect that,\u201d said Van Dam, 24, who earned her third trophy in Spain, following her Estrella Damm Mediterranean Ladies Open and Andaluc\u00eda Costa del Sol Open de Espa\u00f1a titles in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s golf. It was a crazy day. If you would have told me at the beginning of the day that two under was enough to win, I would have said, okay, I\u2019ll take it! It was a different day with harder conditions, a little bit of wind and it got really cold towards the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cNanna is a good friend of mine and I would have loved to have beaten her in a play-off; that would have been a better feeling for me, but that\u2019s golf. She took more of a risk hitting a driver off the tee and I\u2019ve been hitting an iron off the tee there all week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Dam, the longest hitter on both the LET and LPGA Tours in 2019, took her driver out of her golf bag for the tournament, but admitted that she is keen to be reunited with it: \u201cI\u2019m not sure we\u2019re going to keep that going, because I love to hit driver, but it was a different week and you didn\u2019t need a driver much this week. I just stuck to my plan, even though it was hard to only hit 3-wood sometimes. It was a game plan we made this week and it paid off. I had a 3-iron and a 4-iron I could use off the tee as well as a 5-wood and a 3-wood, so I had a lot of options from the tee and I think that paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Dam shot 13 under par at La Quinta Golf and Country Club to win the title 12 months ago, winning by three shots. A final round of two under par 70 in breezy conditions was enough to seal the title once again, with a total of 275, 13 under par.<\/p>\n
Madsen wound up tied for second with Aditi Ashok on 12 under and was clearly disappointed.<\/p>\n
She had taken a two stroke lead into the back-nine after holing her second shot for eagle on the ninth hole. Although she double bogeyed the short 13th to drop into a share of the lead with Van Dam, she had birdied the 16th to regain the advantage.<\/p>\n
Madsen said afterwards: \u201cI lost today; Anne didn\u2019t really win. I played terrible and had three double-bogeys which cost me everything. On one hole, I had a wrong distance, then I pulled one and then on the last one, I played aggressively and had said that I would play driver, no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n
Azahara Mu\u00f1oz, who won the title in 2016 and 2017, tied for fourth place with Olivia Cowan and Julia Engstrom, while Cheyenne Woods, Christina Kim and Marianne Skarpnord shared seventh.<\/p>\n
The LET now moves south for the season-ending Magical Kenya Ladies Open, where Skarpnord is set to be crowned as the winner of the order of merit. Rookie professional Esther Henseleit is the only player who could unseat her, should she secure her maiden win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anne Van Dam from the Netherlands won the Andaluc\u00eda Costa del Sol Open de Espa\u00f1a for the second straight year on Sunday, collecting her fifth Ladies European Tour title at Aloha Golf Club in Marbella. Van Dam was three strokes behind Nanna Koerstz Madsen after the third round and the Dane was still one ahead<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[]},"categories":[881],"tags":[506,432,502,498,132,511,503,505,507],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t