Final Round Recap
June 27, 2021 by Anthony Mikos in Recap with 0 comments
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When Paige Pierce saved a par on hole 16 from the drop zone and Catrina Allen was unable to do the same, Pierce found herself with a two stroke advantage with two holes to play.
About 45 minutes later, Allen would be the one hoisting her second world title on the 18th green.
Allen came into the final round with a one stroke lead she first took on Friday at Mulligans. Back at the Fort, she started her championship hunt with a banger of a 50-footer for birdie on the opening hole. A two-putt on hole 3 and a bogey on hole 4, however, to birdies from Pierce on 3 and 5 would give the lead away. The two would bounce the lead back-and-forth through the middle stretch of the course before Pierce took it outright again with a tap-in birdie on hole 15.
After the DZ fireworks of 16, Pierce had the box for the tee shot on hole 17. The sub-500-foot par 4 was playing as one of the three easiest holes to par on the final day but Pierce found an early tree kicking off to the right side of the fairway with a lot of obstacles in her way. Despite a good recovery shot, Pierce found another tree while trying to lay-up for an easy par and settled for a bogey. Allen was also a bit pinched behind a tree from her tee shot, but stretched out and played a chip-up forehand approach into Circle 2 from a knee. She’d finish the hole with an easy par and cut the lead back to one.
With their roles reversed, Allen was first to tee on hole 18 after another back-up, and landed on the less preferred right side of the fairway on the safe side of the water; Pierce was clean as well and also on the right side. Allen was up first for her second shot and, while she has the forehand in the bag, decided to attack the green with a backhand turnover line. Throwing it high and toward the grandstand, Allen’s disc had plenty of distance and came to rest with a minimal fade on the backside of the green, halfway on the line of Circle 1, with a look at birdie.
Needing only a par, Pierce elected to jump-putt a pitch-up into a better position on the fairway to access the basket. Her second approach did not go as well. A fluffed putter shot sailed left and OB, as Pierce was potentially and unintentionally razzed by a small child in the gallery. It left her with a C2 look to save bogey. Her attempt hit the top band of the basket, and Pierce hit the ground in anguish realizing she had lost what would have been a sixth world championship, the most in Open Women’s history.
Allen did not even need to attempt her birdie, and as she laid up for a title-winning par, the tears started coming.
For the event, Allen led the field in strokes gained from tee-to-green, 29.94; fairway hits, 83%; and finding both C1 and C2 in regulation, 39% and 79%. Allen is the ninth Open Women’s player to become a multi-time world champion.
