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When Linn Grant secured her LPGA Tour card at the end of 2021, it sounded more like “when” than “if” she would claim her first LPGA Tour title.
But it turns out that the problem was more “if” she could play than anything else.
Despite not being able to compete in US LPGA Tour events due to US COVID vaccination requirements for non-nationals until May, Grant made the most of it. She played in only six international events, earning enough points to keep her card by finishing eighth in the top eight of them.
Grant is also a member of the Ladies European Tour winning an astonishing four times, even dominating the men’s on the co-sanctioned DP World Tour Scandinavia Mixed.
But on Sunday, she scored her first win on the biggest stage in women’s golf.
Grant entered the day with a six-shot lead over last week’s US Open Women’s Champion Alison Corpuz. Grant made a final-round 68 to finish at minus 21 and win the Dana Open by three.
“I’ve imagined this day so many times in so many ways in my mind,” Grant told CBS after the win. “Being here now, I am very speechless, and at the same time, I feel very familiar with the place for some reason.”
Remarkably, the win is already the 9th for the 24-year-old Swede as a pro, collecting wins on the LET, Sunshine Ladies Tour and LET Access all of which she has won since graduating from Arizona State in 2021. She has already added to her LET win total Earlier this year by winning the Jabra Women’s Open in May.
When the US public health emergency expired that same month, she began working her first US LPGA events as a member. She finished third at the Bank of Hope LPGA Match-Play and T20 in the Women’s PGA Championship.
Her achievement came in her fourth start in the United States in 2023.
She built her lead on Saturday by bogeying a 59 in the third round, playing her last five holes par-to shoot a 62.
Corpuz, who had a stunning title of her own at Pebble Beach a week earlier, closed the gap on Grant with four birdies in her final five holes to shoot a 65 to reach 18 under.
“[Starting with the big lead]Grant said, “I could have been a little more relaxed, but I also knew this course was very good.” “So in my mind, I was just thinking somebody was going to shoot the same score I scored yesterday.”
Grant bowled steadily all day, putting four birdies against one bogey to seal a three-run victory. Perhaps her only fatal error was her second flying to the 18th green by mistake while the penultimate group was still putting.