Thailand Beats Australia To Win International Crown
Australia produced an impressive performance to reach the Final of the Hanwa Lifeplus International Crown. In the end, the four-person team was unable to outplay Thailand on Sunday afternoon in the final.
Australia began the week ranked seventh out of the eight teams in the match play contest. The quartet from down under included world No. 6 Minjee lee, world No. 14 Hannah Green, world No. 116 Steph Kyriacou and world No. 161 Sarah Kemp.
Staged at TPC Harding Park, San Francisco, the Australian team shared Pool B with Korea (ranked 2), Japan (ranked 3) and Thailand (ranked 6). Australia won 2-0 In the opening round-robin contest against the highly fancied Korean team and then enjoyed success over Japan 1½-½. Although, they went down to Thailand in the last round-robin contest 0-2, Australia made it through to the semi final finishing Pool B in second place.
In Pool A, Sweden and the USA made their way through to the semi final stage. Australia faced off against Sweden in their semi final producing an emphatic 3-0 victory on Sunday morning to advance to the Final. Kyriacou defeated Anna Nordqvist 4&3. Hannah Green, who won last week’s LA Championship, overcame Caroline Hedwall 3&2. Minjee Lee/ Sarah Kemp beat Madelene Sagstrom/ Maja Stark 5&3. Thailand was too strong for the USA in their semi final reaching the final after a 2-1 victory over the number one seed.
Thailand clinched the win over Australia in the final 3-0. Atthaya Thitikul defeated Kyriacou 4&2. Patty Tavantanakit beat Green 4&3. And, Moriya Jutanugarn/ Ariya Jutanugarn teamed up to overcome Lee/ Kemp 4&3. Remarkably, Thailand went 11-1 over all matches for the week and beat the number 1, 2 and 3 seeds en route to victory.
USA overcame Sweden 2-1 to take third place.
The LPGA Tour moves to New Jersey for next week’s Cognizant Founders Cup to be staged at Upper Montclair Country Club. Australia’s Minjee Lee is the defending champion.
Final Scores
Hanwa Lifeplus International Crown
The Final
Thailand defeated Australia 3-0
Third-Place
USA defeated Sweden 2-1
Photo credit: Orlando Ramirez/ Getty Images
