Colorado native Jennifer Kupcho falls just short of her 3rd LPGA victory in Michigan; she and partner Ally Ewing place 2nd, marking the 5th runner-up of Kupcho’s LPGA career; Gunner Wiebe notches top-10 on DP World Tour
By Gary Baines – 6/30/2024
Jennifer Kupcho was born and raised in Colorado — and she scored her first pro victory at the 2020 Inspirato Colorado Women’s Open — but it’s in Michigan where the impending Colorado Golf Hall of Famer has experienced the best collective showings of her professional career.
Two of Kupcho’s three LPGA victories have come in the Great Lakes State — the 2022 LPGA Meijer Classic in Belmont, and the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational with Lizette Salas in Midland.
And the 27-year-old, who was born in Littleton and raised in Westminster, almost posted her second Dow team title on Sunday, this time with Ally Ewing in an event now known as the Dow Championship, which was televised by NBC. But Atthaya Thitikul birdied the final hole from 10 feet to break a tie and she and Ruoning Yin prevailed by a stroke over Kupcho and Ewing.
Kupcho won three times in 15 weeks in 2022 for her first LPGA victories, but has gone the almost two years since without another win. The Jefferson Academy graduate placed second in a playoff late in the spring of 2023 at the Mizuho Americas Open and was runner-up again on Sunday. Overall for her LPGA Tour career, Kupcho has five second places to go along with her three victories.
At a Dow Championship which features alternate-shot rounds on Thursday and Saturday and better-ball formats on Friday on Sunday, Kupcho and Ewing carded scores of 64-64-67-64 for a 21-under-par total, with the showing worth $179,574 each. Meanwhile, Thitikul and Yin closed with a 62 for the one-stroke victory.
Kupcho and Ewing took a one-stroke lead into Sunday’s final round, but a relatively slow start in the better-ball format (pars over the first five holes) left them playing catch-up for most of the day.
Kupcho made five birdies in the stretch from hole 6 through 14, helping the cause on two occasions. But she struggled down the stretch, stringing together bogeys over the final four holes. Ewing, who posted her fourth consecutive top-5 finish on the LPGA Tour, went birdie-par-par-par from 15 on, but it wasn’t quite enough.
After Thitikul made her birdie in the group ahead on the par-3 18th, Kupcho left her tee shot short of the green and carded a bogey, and Ewing missed her 25-foot birdie attempt, leaving the Americans second on the leaderboard.
“We got off to kind of a slow start, but we hung in there; it wasn’t easy,” Ewing said. “In these tournaments, if you get to hole 18 and have a chance to win the tournament or force a playoff, that’s all you can ask. It was a fun week with Jen. It’s hopefully something we can do again at the Solheim (Cup for team USA).
“We have really similar games. Jen is a great ball-striker, drives it great and putts it great. It was nice to team up with someone whose game you can trust. We’re a really, really, really good alternate-shot team. It just comes down to making a bunch of birdies on best-ball days. We just needed one more to get into a playoff. It was a really fun week with her.”
It marked the third top-10 finish of the year on the LPGA circuit for Kupcho.
For all the scores from the Dow Championship, CLICK HERE.
Kent Denver Grad Gunner Wiebe Places 10th in Italy: There’s something about the week leading up to Independence Day that’s brought out the best in Colorado native Gunner Wiebe on the DP World Tour.
A year ago, the Kent Denver graduate tied for second in the Betfred British Masters, qualifying for his first major championship, the British Open.
Then on Sunday, Wiebe, who grew up in the Aurora area and won the 2010 CGA Match Play title, notched a 10th-place finish in the Italian Open. It was his second top-10 in his year and a half on the DP World Tour.
Wiebe carded scores of 64-69-73-71 for a 7-under-par total, which left the 35-year-old three strokes behind champion Marcel Siem.
The performance was worth 45,142 euros for Wiebe, who started with a double bogey on Sunday but played his final 17 holes in a bogey-free 2 under.
For all the scores from the Italian Open, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer/Photographer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com