Yan Liu (61 71 74) won the Four Winds Invitational, the Epson Tour tournament which took place on the course of the South Bend Country Club (par 72) in South Bend (Indiana), in the United States of America. The Chinese, leading the leaderboard from the first lap, achieved a ‘wire to wire’ victory despite a 74 (+2) stroke last lap that forced her to challenge the American Gabby Lemieux (71 66 72) to the playoff.
and the Finnish Kiira Riihijarvi (72 69 68) after the three protagonists had closed the 54 regular holes with a score of 209 (-7) strokes. Yan Liu prevailed with a birdie on the first extra hole. Roberta Liti, the only Italian in the race and 4 / a at the end of the second round, lost positions in the final lap closing 33 / a with 214 (68 71 75, -2).
Yan Liu, Four Winds Invitational
For the 24-year-old Chinese this is her first career success on the Epson Tour, the second US circuit, after two top ten finishes this season: third place at the Garden City Charity Classic at Buffalo Dunes and ninth at Casino Del Sol Golf Classic .
Thanks to this exploit, Yan Liu cashed a check for $ 30,000 on a total prize pool of 200,000. The Symetra Tour, formerly known as the LPGA Futures Tour or Duramed Futures Tour, is the official development and qualification tour of the LPGA Tour, open to both professional and amateur players.
[1] The competition was founded in Florida in 1981 under the name of Tampa Bay Mini Tour. It officially became known as the Futures Golf Tour in 1983 and from 1999 it was introduced as an official development tour of the LPGA Tour (the largest US circuit in the women’s golf).
Grace Park, Marilyn Lovander and Audra Burks were the first players to automatically qualify for the LPGA Tour by finishing first, second and third on the Futures Golf Tour Money List respectively. The minimum age to participate was lowered to 17 years before the 2006 season began.
On July 18, 2007, the Ladies Professional Golf Association announced that it had acquired the Futures Tour, which had previously been a licensee of the same, with immediate effect. . Between the 2006 and 2010 seasons Duramed, a pharmaceutical company, was the official sponsor of the tour.
From the 2012 season, the US insurance company Symetra was chosen as the new official sponsor and the circuit was subsequently renamed as Symetra Tour.
