THAI PLAYER MAKES BRASIL CUP HER FIRST LPGA WIN

HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup 2012
Itanhanga Golf Club
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

LEADING FINAL TOTALS

Pornanong Phatlum -13
Amy Hung -9
Paula Creamer -8

Thailand native Pornanong Phatlum held on to her first-round lead and captured her first career LPGA Tour victory at the HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup 2012.

Phatlum fired a 6-under 67 on the course at Itanhanga Golf Club in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to finish at 13-under-par and take a four-shot victory over Taiwan native Amy Hung.

Phatlum entered the final round of the unofficial event tied for the lead with Karine Icher at 7-under-par. She got off to a hot start on Sunday with five birdies on the front nine en route to running away with the tournament. Phatlum becomes the fourth different champion of the HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup following Mariajo Uribe in 2011, Meaghan Francella’s win in 2010 and Catriona Matthew in 2009.
“I’m so excited today,” Phatlum said after her victory. “I play really well today and I played my own game. I’m just very happy.”

Phatlum had a little help this week as her brother, Pornpong, was caddying for her. Pornpong is also a professional golfer who has played on various Tours in Asia. Phatlum said that having him on her bag this week was definitely an advantage.
“We just have fun today and my caddy, my brother, he helped me to concentrate,” Phatlum said. “He helped me to focus on my game and kept me in the round.”

Going low: The low round of the two-day event belonged to Taiwan native Amy Hung, who fired an 8-under 65 on Sunday to finish at 9-under-par and move up into second place. Hung tallied nine birdies and one bogey in her round after beginning the day at 1-under-par.

Hung said that she recently made some changes to her clubs, particularly to her long irons and her woods. Hung battled some back pain last year and she wanted to do something that might alleviate some of that. Based on her results this week, Hung is pretty happy with the switch.
“I had done some club change, experimenting with new clubs,” Hung said. “So it was kind of up and down the last few weeks. I didn’t have a lot of time to do that in the offseason, which that is something you should do in the offseason. But I was too busy playing tournaments.
"I probably found something I like this week and I’ll stick with it the rest of the season and hopefully keep shooting low scores like this."

Road to a return: This week marked the first step in what Angela Park knows will be a long process in her return to the LPGA Tour. The 2007 Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year stepped away from the game at the end of the 2010 season citing mental and physical exhaustion.

But after a year-and-a-half break, Park started working on her golf game about three months ago and decided that she wanted to try to play professionally again. It’s been an up-and-down process for her so far yet this week reminded her why she decided to get back into golf.
“I don’t know if anyone can relate to it but I feel like I’m playing golf all over again,” Park said. “It’s completely new. I’m more aware of what I’m doing out there. Before it was kind of just automatic and I learned so much in these last two days than in the last four years playing golf. It was just a great two days, it was a great week. I have so many people supporting me, which I was really surprised because golf is not even known here. It was a big blessing.”
Park finished the two-day event with a 7-over-par score but the real key for her was taking the first step in what she’s deeming a two-year process.
Right now Park plans to go back home to California to work more on her game with her focus on Q School at the end of the year and regaining her LPGA Tour status.
“The funny thing is that I actually played better than when I quit,” Park said of her play this week. “When I quit I was playing pretty bad because I didn’t want to play. But that gave me hope that I can actually get better. It can’t get worse. So I mean I feel confident. I feel I can improve, there is so much room for improvement that it’s almost like you can’t not improve. That’s exactly why I gave myself two years. This year, who knows what is going to happen and then next year we’ll see how it goes.”
Of Note…The low Brazilian for the event was Angela Park, who finished at 7-over-par for the two-day event. The other two Brazilians in the field, Victoria Alimonda and Luciana Bemvenuti, finished 29th and 30th respectively in the field…Defending champion Mariajo Uribe finished 24th at 2-over-par after shooting 75 in Sunday’s final round.

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