This post summarizes the final round of my APBA Golf replay of the 2022 Women’s PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club (Metro D.C.), par 72. Previous posts described the replay setup based on conditions for the actual tournament and the results for rounds 1, 2, and 3. The entire replay is being conducted using Game Caddie 6.1.
Actual Event
The wind picked up slightly in round 4, which was played in mostly clear conditions with the day’s high temperature at 86º F. Despite the good weather, scores increased by 1.7 strokes from an average score of 73.6 in round 3 to 75.3 in round 4.
Of the 71 qualifiers, only Nasa Hataoka (69), Lilia Vu (70), Minjee Lee (70) and Hyo-Joo Kim (71) broke par. For most of the qualifiers, finishing well in the tournament was a matter of not giving up too many strokes to par in the final round.
In-gee Chun (75) took home the trophy, finishing the tournament one stroke better than Minjee Lee (70) and Lexi Thompson (73). Atthaya Thitikul (72) took sole possession of fourth place by shooting par for the day.
Though over par for the day, Hye-jin Choi (76), Hannah Green (75), and Sei-young Kim (76) held onto to a tie for fifth place, while under par rounds by Nasa Hataoka (69) and Hyo-Joo Kim (70) allowed these two competitors to move up to join them at T5. Only Lilia Vu (70) would break par among the six other players tied for tenth place.
The top of the actual round 4 leaderboard is provided below.
Replay Event
For round 4, the pin was located at position 5, the prevailing wind was Moderate, and the course conditions Normal (no change to FW or Green roll). As in the previous rounds, all 42 APBA-carded golfers who played in the actual tournament were automatic qualifiers for the round 4 replay.
The average score for the replay competitors’ final round was 73.3 strokes, which was 2 strokes better than the actual players’ average score of 75.3 strokes. Unlike the situation where many of the actual leaderboard players struggled in the final round, most of the players at the top of the replay leaderboard either held their position or advanced somewhat against par.
The hole distances for the pin 5 location are shown below.
Nelly Korda began the round in front at 8-under par. She was followed by Lilia Vu (-6), Nasa Hataoka (-4), and Brooke Henderson (-3).
With three birdies on the back nine and two more on the front, Korda (68) closed with a solid final round and held off Brooke Henderson to win the tournament by three strokes. Korda hit every fairway, missed only two greens, and avoided 3-putting in the final round. With the lowest score on the day, Henderson (66) finished alone in second place.
Lilia Vu (74) stumbled out of the gate by 3-putting the first hole for a bogey and then bogeyed the fourth hole. Thereafter, Vu ran off three consecutive birdies (on holes 6, 7, & 8) to right the ship and went Out at 1-under par. Unfortunately, Vu found the water off the tee on the difficult (205-yard par 3) hole number 10 and made double bogey. She was 3-over par on the back nine and 2-over for the day. Vu, who had started the day in second place, dropped into a tie for fifth place with Lydia Ko (69), who had moved up from T9 after round 3.
Nasa Hataoka (71) finished strong with five birdies on the back nine, but she also found the water on hole 10. That double bogey and three other bogeys left her in a tie for third place with Andrea Lee (68).
Henderson kept pressure on Korda throughout the round. She started the day by eagling hole number 1 and finished with three birdies on the final four holes, including the difficult number 18. Henderson moved up from fourth place to finish in second. Her rollercoaster ride on the back nine featured six birdies, three bogeys and no pars, and is shown below.
As a side note, for hole number 18, the pin was placed 20 yards to the left of the centerline at the back edge of the green in a location surrounded on 3 sides by water. Few players had much success on 18. Only Eun-Hee Ji and Henderson birdied the hole this round, while seven other players double bogeyed it. For this round and the tournament, no hole produced more double and triple bogeys than number 18.
With Henderson in the clubhouse and Korda leading by 3 strokes, Nelly took the safer path home by teeing off with a 2-iron. This allowed her to use the optional APBA Master Game rule for long iron tee shots on par 4’s and 5’s, which changes roll results of 14, 34, or 54 into the player’s Average W. (Technically, this option is for Amateur play, but I use it routinely.) Korda’s second shot reached the front middle of the green with another 2-iron (for which the rule does not apply). From there, she 2-putted to finish out.
The top of the final leaderboard for the replay is shown below.
How the actual, final tournament’s top-three leaders finished the replay tournament follows: In-gee Chun (72) moved down in rank from T5 to T7; Lexi Thompson (71) continued her move up in rank from T21 to T18; and Minjee Lee (72) moved up from T21 to 20th place. Of the three, only In-gee Chun of the actual leading final competitors was under par for the tournament in the replay.
Highlights for the final round include:
- Lexi Thompson (hole #14), Brooke Henderson (hole #1), and Gabby Lopez (hole #11) eagled
- Nelly Korda hit every fairway (Avg. = 9.7)
- Hannah Green hit every green in regulation (Avg. = 12.5)
- Nelly Korda led the field in longest average driving distance at 267 yards (Avg. = 249)
- Lydia Ko had longest drive at 355 yards (hole #18 aided by a tail wind)
- Megan Khang sank the longest putt for this round from 54 feet (hole #15)
- Brooke Henderson had the fewest putts at 27 (Avg. = 31.5)
- Ally Ewing and Paula Reto took the most putts at 36
- Jodi Shadoff 4-putted (hole #7) – her second 4-putt of the tournament
- Jennifer Kupcho, at 124 ft., recorded the longest total distance of putts made (Avg. = 82.2)
A deeper analysis of the entire replay tournament will be provided in a subsequent post. One stat worth mentioning here is that the final scoring average for both actual qualifiers and for replay contestants was 73.2 strokes per round. Pretty impressive from the standpoint of realism!
Complete statistical results for the round 4 replay (and earlier rounds) can be viewed by clicking the upper righthand corner on the PDF document below.