Who won the Dow Championship? Exploring top 20 leaderboard for LPGA Tour team event
The Dow Championship is one of the most unique tournaments on the LPGA Tour. The tournament is much like the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in that every single person has a partner. It's a duos event, one of the very few in the wide sport of golf.
After four brilliant rounds, only one team (or two golfers) could stand above the rest. Here's how things turned out.
Top 20 leaderboard of the Dow Championship
Here's how things stood after the conclusion of the Dow Championship:
- Win: Ruoning Yin and Atthaya Thitikul, -22
- 2: Ally Ewing and Jennifer Kupcho, -21
- Nichole Broch Estrup and Nanna Koerstz Madsen, -19
- Haeji Kang and In Kyung Kim, -19
- Georgia Hall and Charley Hull, -18
- Auston Kim and Grace Kim, -18
- Nataliya Guseva and Gigi Stoll, -17
- A Lim Kim and Yealimi Noah, -16
- Lakareber Abe and Georgia Oboh, -16
- Brooke M. Henderson and Lexi Thompson, -16
- Brittany Lang and Brittany Lincicome, -16
- Nasa Hataoka and Jin Younh Ko, -16
- Mao Saigo and Yu Jin Sung, -16
- Jaravee Boonchant and Chanettee Wannasae, -16
- Ssua-Chia Cheng and We-Lin Hsu, -16
- Amanda Doherty and Caroline Inglis, -16
- Celine Boutier and Yuka Saso, -15
- Sofia Garcia and Hira Naveed, -15
- Amelia Lewis and Paula Reto, -15
The Dow Championship is played with 72 teams of two women each. They compete in a 72-hole stroke play format with alternating rounds of foursomes (alternating shots) and best ball. It's an opportunity for all the golfers to play something different, and the ones above did particularly well.
Atthaya Thitikul and Ruoning Yin had a tremendous final round. They needed to play well to overcome Ally Ewing and Jennifer Kupcho, and they responded by shooting eight under to lower their overall score to -22.
That was enough to get the win despite some tense moments. Ally Ewing and Jennifer Kupcho, who led after three, were one stroke behind Thitikul and Yin with two holes left but couldn't shave that stroke off to force a playoff.
Even though this is one of the most unique tournaments on tour, it still follows some of the same rules that other events do. There is a cut, and it prevents half of the teams from progressing.
Those teams included:
- Sarah Schmelzel and Albane Valenzuela
- Kristen Gillman and Kaitlyn Papp Budde
- Yu Liu and Ruixin Liu
- Lucy Li and Ryan O'Toole
- Ayaka Furue and Xiyu Lin
- Carlota Ciganda and Linn Grant
- Lauren Coughlin and Bailey Tardy
- Bronte Law and Mel Reid.
The cut was made at six under par, so most teams played quite well. In fact, there were only seven teams above par for the entire tournament.