Times wires
Sunday, March 20, 2011
PHOENIX — Seminole's Brittany Lincicome came close. But Karrie Webb came through again.
Webb rallied to win the LPGA Founders Cup for her second straight victory, shooting 6-under 66 Sunday to beat Lincicome (70) and Paula Creamer (66) by a stroke.
Webb won when Lincicome bogeyed the final hole, missing a 10-foot par putt.
"I didn't think I'd be sitting here (Sunday) talking about winning," said Webb, who finished at 12-under 204. "But now that I am, it's such a great honor to win this tournament."
The Hall of Famer, 36, who won three weeks ago in Singapore, earned $200,000 for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and Japan relief efforts in the charity event at Wildfire Golf Club.
Instead of paying the players, the tournament honoring the 13 tour founders donated $1 million to charity — half to the LPGA Foundation and its LPGA-USGA Girls Golf program and half to the top-10 finishers' designated charities.
Webb tied Lincicome at 11 under with a 5-foot birdie putt on the par-3 14th and took the lead with a tap-in birdie on the par-5 15th.
Lincicome, 25, matched Webb at 12 under with a short birdie putt of her own on 15.
Webb made a 3-foot putt for par on the par-4 18th after leaving her approach shot in the fringe in front of the green.
Lincicome ended up in the fringe on the final green, but she ran her chip 10 feet past the hole and missed the putt for her second bogey of the week.
"I did a lot of good things. Just one bad hole," said Lincicome, who played for the First Tee of St. Petersburg, a golf program for young people.
From the driving range, Webb followed the action on No. 18 by watching a TV in a hospitality area, though there was a delay on the broadcast.
"You don't ever want a player to miss a putt," Webb said.
Lincicome didn't know she was tied for the lead.
"I never look at leaderboards," she said. "For some strange reason, I had it in my mind that Cristie Kerr was running away with it."
Webb knew exactly where she stood on the leaderboard.
"I'm a scoreboard watcher," she said. "Even if I'm not on the leaderboard, I like looking at it to see what everyone is shooting."
Kerr (69) finished fourth at 10 under.
Webb has 38 tour victories, including winning the previous Phoenix event in 2009 at Papago and in 1999 at Moon Valley.
"I love coming out to the desert," Webb said.