Muirhead’s Purple Patch Continues With 11th RAK Ladies Open Victory
(Ras al-Khaimah, UAE) – Alison Murihead claimed a 4 shot victory in the 11th RAK Ladies Open carding a one under 71. The EGF Order of Merit qualifier saw a broad spectrum of age and experience as all competitors battled for the same thing, to be crowned RAK Ladies Champion.
Alison has now won the last 4 Ladies Order of Merit events in the region putting herself well in contention for the overall season prize. She has also gone one better in an event in which she took the runners-up prize in 2016. Alison carded nines of 35 and 36 including 4 birdies and 3 bogies to finish 4 clear of Natali Gupta.
Natali produced an extremely consistent round with only one major blip on her card, an unfortunate double bogey on the long par 3 15th. It was however enough to see her take the top prize in the net division on a one under par 71, the only player to break par (net) on the day.
Kin Chiang claimed second place in the gross division with a score of 76. After a rocky start dropping 3 shots on the opening 2 par 5’s, Kim steadied the ship on the back nine dropping just one shot for an inward nine of 37.
The runner- up for the net division came down to a 3-way card play-off between Jamie Camero, Deborah Chang, and Hyeonji Kang, as all 3 posted an identical score of 73. Hyeonji had the best back nine score of 34 whilst Deborah had to settle for third after a back nine score of 36.
The third and final gross prize went to Kate Bibby, the 2015 Ladies Net Champion, after a round of 79 saw her beat last year’s Ladies Gross Champion, Anastasia Bakal, after a card play-off.
Tournament Winners
Gross
1st Place
Alison Muirhead – 71
2nd Place
Kim Chiang – 76
3rd Place
Kate Bibby – 79
Net
1st Place
Natali Gupta – 71
2nd Place
Hyeonji Kang – 73
