Latest news with #Sagstrom
USA Today
17-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Madelene Sagstrom opens with 65 at LA Championship after closing with first tournament ace
Madelene Sagstrom opens with 65 at LA Championship after closing with first tournament ace Madelene Sagstrom ended the first round of the JM Eagle LA Championship with her first – ever – tournament ace. The recent winner of the T-Mobile Match Play in Las Vegas opened the LA Championship with a 7-under 65. The hole-in-one occurred on the par-3 ninth from 120 yards. "It got really cold our last three holes so I was – I have the shot that I play, we call it a 2-2-2, and it's like a little lower wind shot," said Sagstrom. "I'm like, you know, I don't think I can reach with my pitching wedge right now. Let's hit a little 2-2-2-9. It was perfect. I hit it really well. It would've been good anyway, but I was like, nope, it went in, and I was like, oh, did that just happen?" And the celebration? "I wish I was that athletic but I'm not," she said. "Well, I think I threw my hands up in the air and I was very excited. No, I don't know. It's weird because I actually got to see it. That's the best part. You get to see it go in." While her driver isn't as dialed in as she'd like, Sagstrom said momentum on the greens has carried over from Vegas. She's also trying to carry on a "match play mentality" of letting go of bad shots and moving on quickly. Sagstrom trails former AIG Women's British Open champion Ashleigh Buhai, who shot 63, by two strokes and sits tied with three-time major winner In Gee Chun. World No. 1 Nelly Korda trails by four. Amateur Asterisk Talley, 16, opened with a 69 at El Caballero Country Club, where she was a finalist at the U.S. Girls' Junior last summer.
Washington Post
07-04-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Sagstrom beats Coughlin 1-up in T-Mobile Match Play to end 5-year drought on LPGA Tour
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The five-year wait to end her LPGA Tour victory drought appeared to be a matter of time when Madelene Sagstrom went 4-up just six holes into the final of the T-Mobile Match Play. Then it nearly got away from her, and Sagstrom even briefly fell behind at one point. She righted herself, however, as Lauren Coughlin struggled down the stretch, for a 1-up victory Sunday at a Shadow Creek course that proved a difficult challenge for both players. Sagstrom took the lead for good with a par at the par-5 16th hole. Coughlin made a double bogey on the hole. Perhaps it was a fitting when the world's top-ranked players fell one after another at the picturesque but demanding course that someone ranked 67th claimed the $300,000 winner's share. The Swede's other win came in 2020 at the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio. 'I thought last week, 'Am I ever going to play good golf again?'' Sagstrom said. 'As professional golfers, it's (a) very rewarding job when it goes well, but extremely difficult when it's tough and I've questioned myself a lot in my career. Am I good enough to play against these girls? Am I going to be one of the best players in the world? I've always had the ambition to be, but then I never know really.' The final match reached the 18th green for the first time the 5-year-old event. In a battle of 32-year-olds, Sagstrom had a four-hole lead after just six holes when Coughlin bogeyed No. 2 and she rolled off three consecutive birdies beginning at No. 4. But then the match changed, with a suddenly shaky Sagstrom missing off the tee and failing to navigate the lightning-quick greens that took even well-struck approach shots into the rough. 'It's a wonderful golf course, but it will test your whole game,' Sagstrom said. 'Unless we play match play here, I can see this being a U.S. Open course. It's such a good golf course that challenges you from putting, strategy, from everything. What surprises me the most is this oasis of a golf course that just sits here. It's like you come in here and you're in a little different world.' Couglin claimed five of the next six holes to take the lead. Though she did her part with a pair of birdies, Coughlin also didn't have to do anything spectacular as Sagstrom carded three bogeys and two doubles over that stretch. Then Coughlin bogeyed the par-3 13th, and Sagstrom made par to pull back even, which is where the match stood until the 16th. Both players failed to stay out of the rough, with Coughlin even twice chipping from about the same spot after the ball rolled back on her. Coughlin finally conceded the hole after her 30-foot putt went well past and the double bogey put Sagstrom back in the lead. 'That's the challenge of this golf course and why it's both fun and extremely difficult at the same time,' Coughlin said. 'You can hit some really cool shots off some banks and stuff, but also if you get on the wrong side of those, it's really, really tough. It's hard to judge, like when is the ball starting to go far? And then when is it not going far anymore?' Coughlin, ranked 17th, has been a tough out all tournament. She played in at least 18 holes in every match, a total of 127 compared to 72 for a traditional stroke-play tournament. Coughlin was 3-down in her previous two matches before rallying to win, including a 1-up victory over Ariya Jutanugarn in the semifinals Sunday morning. 'I don't think I ran out of gas at all,' Coughlin said. 'I feel like the adrenaline kept me through all day, all day yesterday. Felt worse yesterday afternoon than I did today, actually. I just kind of lost it there a little bit at the end. Just didn't get any putts to go. Other than that, I feel like I played really, really good golf today.' Sagstrom has been pushed to the limits as well. She survived a 19-hole round-of-16 match against Carlota Ciganda on Saturday and then had to wait more than two hours as Celine Boutier and Ashleigh Buhai went at it over 28 holes. Then it became another marathon of a match as Sagstrom and Boutier were tied through 17 as darkness set in. The match was suspended, and Sagstrom finished up early Sunday morning with a 19th-hole quarterfinals victory. Sagstrom then took out 12th-ranked Angel Yin 4 and 2 in the semifinals. Coughlin was seeking her first victory since the Scottish Open in August. The Charlottesville, Virginia, resident has two career victories, both last year. ___ AP golf:
USA Today
07-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Check out the prize money payouts at the LPGA's T Mobile Match Play in Las Vegas
Check out the prize money payouts at the LPGA's T Mobile Match Play in Las Vegas Madelene Sagstrom ended a five-year victory drought in the Nevada desert. Sagstrom outlasted Lauren Coughlin in the final of the 2025 T Mobile Match Play at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas, her first win since the 2020 Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio. For her efforts over the five days of this tournament, Sagstrom earned the $300,000 first-place prize out of the $2 million total purse. Lauren Coughlin made nearly $200,000 for her second-place finish, her best this year. It's her second top 10 and her fourth top 20 in 2025. Prize money payouts for the 2025 T Mobile Match Play
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Sagstrom digs deep to win LPGA Match Play
Sweden's Madelene Sagstrom overcame a mid-round slump to win the LPGA Match Play in Las Vegas (David Becker) Sweden's Madelene Sagstrom overcame a mid-round slump to score a 1-up victory over the USA's Lauren Coughlin and win the LPGA Match Play tournament in Las Vegas on Sunday. The 32-year-old world number 67 dug deep with a gritty display at the Shadow Creek Golf Course to clinch only the second LPGA title of her career. Advertisement Sagstrom had looked to be poised to claim an emphatic victory early in Sunday's final, quickly racing into to a 4-up lead after the opening six holes. But her smooth early form disintegrated over the next four holes, and a disastrous performance on the 11th, when she twice mis-hit attempted chips onto the green, allowed Coughlin to make it all square. Coughlin, the 13th seed who had edged Thailand's Ariya Jutanugarn in the semi-finals, then sneaked into a 1-up lead on the 12th when Sagstrom's par-putt lipped out. Sagstrom though hit back on the par-three 13th when Coughlin could only make a bogey to put it back to all-square. Advertisement The next two holes were squared before Sagstrom won what would turn out to be the decisive hole on the 16th, when Coughlin made a double-bogey seven. A superb chip helped Sagstrom save par on the 17th, and Coughlin missed a birdie putt that would have tied it again before the two players parred the 18th. Sagstrom, who had beaten Angel Yin in Sunday's semi-finals, blamed tiredness on her mid-round wobble. "I'm exhausted and I bet Lauren is exhausted," she said after her win. "I'm so tired and I think it really kind of hit my swing there in the middle. "I said to (caddie) Shane (Codd), I can do this. I just need to find some sort of feeling to hit some good golf shots again. "I just kind of dug deep and was like, oh, well, hopefully it's not too many holes left. It's just amazing." rcw/sev
USA Today
07-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Madelene Sagstrom rallies to beat Lauren Coughlin in LPGA's T Mobile Match Play
Madelene Sagstrom rallies to beat Lauren Coughlin in LPGA's T Mobile Match Play The LPGA's lone match-play event came down to the No. 13 seed (Lauren Coughlin) vs. the No. 46 seed (Madelens Sagstrom) in Las Vegas. The tournament's star power was dimmed Friday when eight of the top 10 seeds failed to escape group play. The top two of those 10 who did advance – Jenno Thitikul (2) and Angel Yin (10) – then ended up facing each other in quarterfinal matchup Saturday, with Yin winning 4 and 2. Sunday started with the semifinals, pitting Ariya Jutanugarn (32) against Coughlin and Yin taking on Sagstrom. Jutanugarn on Friday eliminated world No. 1 and tournament top seed Nelly Korda, handing Korda her first match play loss. Coughlin beat Jutanugarn 1 up and Sagstrom went on to beat Yin 4 and 2, setting up the Sunday afternoon final at Shadow Creek Golf Club. Sagstrom took control early in the match with birdies on three straight holes – Nos. 4, 5 and 6 – to go 4 up. But Coughlin hung tough with birdies on Nos. 8 and 9. A Sagstrom double-bogey on the 11th knotted things up and Coughlin took her first lead of the match on the 12th hole with a par to Sagstrom's bogey. Sagstrom then won the 13th to tie it and the 16th to go back to a 1-up lead. She held serve from there and won the match and the $300,000 first-place prize. "I'm exhausted and I bet Lauren is exhausted," she said. "I worked so hard. All of us work so hard. I really struggled quite a lot, especially with my driver end of last year, and I worked so hard with Callaway and my coach, Hans." She then referenced bouncing back from a disappointing week outside Phoenix a week ago at the Ford Championship. "It's just such a nice feeling. I played pretty well last week and didn't make the cut, but it's just like it's hard because everyone works hard because it's tough out here," she said. "It's just fantastic feeling and it's just knowing that all the hard work really did pay off." Coughlin was asked what she would take away from the week as runner-up. "That I can play 72 holes in two days, which I didn't know I could do that," she said. "But, no, again, I think it's just who I am as a player, is a grinder, and I fought all the way to the end." The LPGA has a week off before the JM Eagle Championship in Los Angeles. Then it's the first women's major of the year, the Chevron Championship, April 24-27 at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas, outside Houston.
