Celine Boutier birdied the final hole to capture her second LPGA Tour title and first on U.S. soil at the ShopRite LPGA Classic in Galloway, N.J.
Boutier, 27, tied her career low with an eight-under 63, at Seaview Golf Club’s Bay Course to vault past two of the game’s brightest lights in Inbee Park and Jin Young Ko.
“It’s unbelievable,” she told Golf Channel’s Kay Cockerill in the aftermath. “I think I’m still not realizing it yet.”
France’s Boutier, who reached World No. 1 as an amateur while playing collegiately at Duke, enjoyed her first LPGA win at the 2019 ISPS Handa Vic Open. On Sunday, she rode a hot putter to six birdies on the front nine to join the trophy hunt.
Park, 33, seeking her 22nd LPGA win, missed a 10-foot birdie putt to force a playoff. She settled for 69 and finished tied for second.
The putt that posted the winning score!
@celineboutier earns her second Tour win at the @ShopRiteLPGA!
pic.twitter.com/DOIEuyViSx
— LPGA (@LPGA) October 3, 2021
Ko, who shot 66-65 in the first two rounds to share the overnight lead with Park, was bidding to become the fifth Korean player in LPGA Tour history with 10 wins, joining Se Ri Pak, Ji-Yai Shin, Sei Young Kim and, of course, Park. But neither of the South Korean stars had their best stuff in the final round.
Boutier’s charge lifted her into a tie at 13 under with the overnight leaders as well as Canadian Brooke Henderson, who played in the same group with Boutier and chipped in for birdie at the eighth en route to a 64. Boutier, a member of the winning European Solheim Cup team, broke the deadlock with a birdie at the par-5 18th and then had to sit and wait.
Her biggest challenge of the day? Finding a TV to watch the final holes play out. She went to wash her hands and found a TV in the locker room.
“I just kind of chilled and watched TV there because I couldn’t find one anywhere else,” she said.
Both Park and Ko failed to make birdie putts from roughly 10 feet to force the playoff and the trophy belonged to Boutier, who shot a 54-hole total of 14-under 199.
“It feels like my first victory in Australia was so long ago,” she said. “It definitely was time for another one.”