Lewis Fights Tragedy To Win Kraft Nabisco Championship

Stacy Lewis fired a final round 69 to win the Kraft Nabisco Championship, beating defending champion Yani Tseng by three strokes in the first LPGA major of the year. 

The 25-year-old Lewis finished the four rounds at 13 under par. 

It’s the first LPGA win for the former NCAA champion, who had this personal high dimmed by the death of her paternal grandfather on Wednesday. 

Tseng, the third round leader, didn’t have the sharpness she showed in Saturday’s round of 66.  Tseng and Lewis battled back and forth in the day’s final pairing, which made Lewis feel the pressure. 

“I really didn't feel like I had like a good chance of winning honestly until 17,” Lewis said after the round,  “Even after I mean nine, we had two shots going in there and I took the lead.  But I knew, just the way she plays, I know she can make birdies.”  

But the birdies didn’t come. Instead, Tseng struggled with bogeys on 16 and 17 to give Lewis a three shot lead heading to the final hole. 

Tseng said she could feel that her game was off kilter, from the start. 

“I probably was a bit thinking too much,” Tseng said, “Just needed to commit to the shot better and trust myself more, and it was just a tough day out there, you know, being leading. But I tried to not think too much, but with the wind just swirling and the green was firm.  So just trying to be perfect all the time.  Maybe trying too hard, too.” 

2007 KNC winner Morgan Pressel started the day in third place, four shots off the lead.  She had pulled within two shots of Tseng and Lewis, but her game imploded with a 41 on the back nine to sink her championship hopes with a round of 76.  Pressel would finish in a tie for third with Angela Stanford and Karen Futcher at –4. 

For Lewis, her first win isn’t the celebration that it should be. 

Lewis lost her paternal grandfather, Al Lewis, just hours before the start of the first round.  Stacy said that her grandfather was the one who passed his love of golf down through the generations. 

While other players are heading to watch the PGA’s Masters tournament, or preparing for a short break in the LGPA schedule, Lewis is flying back to Texas to be with family. 

“I mean he lived via my golf,” Lewis said of her grandfather, “He loved watching it on TV.  He recorded it every week so he could keep watching it over and over again.  But him and my grandma they both got to see me play the whole round today and they were out there with me for sure.”