Lagging behind was Lydia Ko, the No. 1 player in the world and the favorite coming into the week.
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Park is the first woman to be crowned as the women’s Olympic golf champion since America’s Margaret Abbott won at Paris in 1900.
She has been one of the most dominant golfers of either gender over the past five years until the recent emergence of Ko, a 19-year-old phenom. “They’re going to pop in there, you can’t ignore it”, she said. “That’s what the situation and conditions were like out there”. “I didn’t care about the results, and I just wanted to enjoy the week”.
Piller, who played at UTEP and received her degree in mathematics under the name of Gerina Mendoza, married PGA Tour golfer Martin Piller and the two now live in the Dallas area. Piller’s signature moment was making the winning putt for the United States in the Solheim Cup a year ago in Germany.
Feng’s medal was undoubtedly helpful to promote the development of golf in China.
Golf returned to the Olympics this year after a more than a 100-year absence. Her struggles were with the longer clubs, especially as the wind became fierce. She shot a 2-under 69 in Round 4 to outlast a host of players chasing her.
Park was all smiles after receiving the gold medal which she can add to her collection of seven Major wins. On the par-5 closing hole, Park’s tee shot found a bunker and it took three more shots to reach the green. She has yet to win on the LPGA Tour but has four second place finishes and has 30 top 10 finishes.
“Eventually, I’d like to have a family but there is no plan for retirement at the moment”, said Park.
Instead, she hit one of her best shots with a 7-iron to advance it down the fairway, and then did even better with a hybrid from 199 yards to 4 feet for her 63. She shot 74 and was six shots behind.
Each time a superstar retires from the LPGA, it robs fans of a great player. I gave myself plenty of opportunities, I just didn’t hole any and missed one short putt [when she three-putted the 13th]. She wound up with a 75 and was seven back. “And having a gold medal victor in golf will only validate with an exclamation point what that country has achieved in golf over the past two decades, especially women’s golf”. Ko was stunned to hear the cheering when it dropped in.
“When I had that (bad) hole and it’s not like me to get emotional, but I knew I was out of it”.
“That was just the one place you couldn’t really go … and I went there”.
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The United States had the second-most golfers in the field with three, including two-time major victor Stacy Lewis. She made three straight birdies early, never let anyone closer than three shots the rest of the way and closed with a 5-under 66 for a five-shot victory.
