TARLAC – Korean Euna Koh battled back from five shots down, blew a two-stroke lead late in regulation but birdied the first playoff hole to upend Pauline del Rosario and snare the ICTSI Luisita Ladies Challenge in sweltering condition at the Luisita Golf and Country Club here yesterday.
Koh, 18, bucked the heat, hunger and Del Rosario’s fightback with a superb pitching wedge shot from 120 yards that landed four feet off the cup in their sudden death on No. 18 and calmly drilled in the putt after the Filipina ace flubbed her birdie bid from eight feet.
“I was shaking because I’m hungry but I was happy to have pulled it off,” said the 18-year-old shotmaker from Gwangju and a mainstay at Riviera in Silang, Cavite who ended a string of poor finishes in the ICTSI Ladies Philippine Tour with a R250,000 victory.
She overhauled Del Rosario’s huge five-shot lead in a flight ahead with a remarkable 35 at the front but needed to toughen up in the last two holes after failing to clinch it in regulation with a bogey on No. 16 for a 72.
