Brooke Henderson Wins McKayson New Zealand Women's Open By 5 Shots

Ontario’s Brooke Henderson who turned 20 on September 10 has continued to showcase her skills on the golf course during the McKayson New Zealand Women's Open. The 20 year old who turned professional back in 2014 won her second LPGA title of this season and her fifth LPGA title overall.

Conditions in were very difficult for all of the players due to strong winds, heavy rain and lightning flashes.

The competition was suspended late Sunday evening due to unsafe weather and players were required to return on Monday morning and Henderson proved to be unstoppable finishing with a 3 under 69 and winning by 5 strokes. Her only competition came from China’s Jing Yan but Henderson had no difficulties in holding her off and taking the top spot.

Henderson’s first LPGA title this season was in June when she won the Meijer LPGA Classic in Michigan. This is also the first time that she has won an LPGA title outside of North America and will give her a lot of confidence of performing well in all parts of the world. She received a cheque of $195,000 along with a special feather cloak that was presented to her by a representative of the indigenous Maori tribe.

LPGA

In a statement, Brooke Henderson said

I'm just so happy to win here. My season has been kind of up and down, steady for the most part. I got a lot of questions early in the year but now to get my second wind is great going into the last five events I'm going to play.

Henderson who has over $3 million in career prize money occupied the 8th spot in the Women’s World Golf Rankings in 2016 but has struggled with the pressure and not been very consistent during the last 12 months when has caused her ranking to drop to the 11th spot. The Canadian golfer said that one of the reasons why she played well in New Zealand was because she felt a lot less pressure at the start of the week and was able to play freely which helped her have a great start.

She had her sister Brittany out with her in New Zealand who served as her caddy and together they did a great job of overcoming the difficult conditions and concentrating on the course. Henderson will want to finish the year on a high and see if she can get back within the top ten world raking by the start of 2018.