South Africa’s Lee-Anne Pace held her nerve to force a playoff and then win it at the Cape Town Ladies Open on Thursday.
Pace, already a prolific winner on home soil, added the Cape Town Ladies Open to her resume after a birdie at the 54th hole at Royal Cape Golf Club helped her join France’s Anne-Lise Caudal at eight under par.
It was topsy-turvy kind of day with overnight leader Ivanna Samu tumbling out of contention. The 19-year-old finishing with a 79, one better than Kiran Mathuru. The Englishwoman was expected to be a strong contender after her blistering 67 just 24 hours prior.
Sweden’s Anna Sventrup was another contender to fall by the wayside as she matched Mathuru’s 78 leaving Pace and Caudal to battle it out.
Pace recovered from a slow start – bogeys at 2 and 3 cancelled out her opening par – with four birdies on the bounce from the fifth to rocket to the top of the leaderboard but then gave the field a chance with a bogey on the ninth. The Paarl-born star dropped another at the 10th but moved clear once more with birdies at the 11th and 12th before another drop at the 13th.
Four straight pars followed allowing Caudal into the contest as the Frenchwoman eagled 11 and made further gains at the 13th and 14th holes. She moved to the top with a birdie at the par 5 16th but left the door ajar for Pace to match her tally after bogeying the last.
And that was all the invitation Pace needed.
Pace produced the goods with a splendid drive down 18 leaving her less than 100 meters into the green. Her approach wasn’t as close as she would’ve liked but the 36-year-old calmly rolled in her birdie to move onto extra holes.
Again, she delivered with her 10 foot birdie putt being the knockout punch on this occasion.
