Nikki Campbell blazes through to finish second at the Ladies Masters
As if the scorching heat at the Royal Pines Resort wasn’t enough yesterday, Nikki Campbell was all “fire burning on the golf course”. The Canberra golfer shot an eight-under par 64 and finished at an equal second at the Australian Ladies Masters.
Campbell, although she played nothing short of a brilliant game, couldn’t quite manage to overtake the scoreboard leader Yani Tseng. Tseng, the current world number one, was in it to win it and beat both Campbell and the American Stacy Lewis four shots ahead
at 24-under.
What is remarkable about Campbell’s performance is that she entered the tournament finale stuck at the seventh spot. However, the golfer set to work immediately and was determined not to go down without a fight. A good approach and her excellent wedge work
came to her aid as the player kept on climbing the scoreboard.
''My goal this morning was to shoot eight-under so it was nice to achieve that but looking at the scoreboard now it was about four short I needed 12-under,” the player told reporters. However, despite not coming out the victor, Campbell is plenty pleased
with herself over her performance.
She revealed to reporters that she felt great to have finally been able to give a good performance at the Masters. Two years ago the player had been in contention at the event before she went into a free-fall down the scoreboard with a six-over third round.
The player who favours the Japan Tour said that she finally felt like she wasn’t trying too hard when in contention. “I've wanted to [play well] too much so when I've been in contention on a Saturday I probably get a bit tight. I didn't have high expectations
this week and just went out and played.”
According to reports, Campbell will now be missing the New Zealand Open to play for the Daikin Orchid Ladies on the Japan LPGA in two weeks time. The golfer's reasoning behind this move is her personal belief that she plays the best golf she can in three-week
spells.
But before she gets ready to “swing it” on the Japan LPGA, she will be making a stop in Thailand to shoot an ad for a golf club manufacturer for the Japanese market. Campbell told reporters that the commercials are usually kept short and occasionally she
is given a couple of lines. In case she has a lot of lines she performs them in English and then Japanese subtitles are put in.
Tseng was finally crowned as the world’s number one player after she won the Ladies Masters title and the $500,000 reward money that comes with it, and thus successfully completed her Australian clean sweep. Tseng has become the fastest player to win three
major tournaments after the LPGA gave her the rookie of the year title in 2008. She is the first Taiwanese player since T.C. Chen to have the title of the top player in the world.
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