Anyone looking back at the final scores of the 2009 Ricoh Women's British Open at Royal Lytham and St. Anne's will almost certainly come to the wrong conclusion that this was a comfortable three-shot win for Catriona Matthew. It was anything but as the seemingly imperturbable Scot struggled to hit a fairway throughout the final round and was only rescued by some superb recovery shots and a bunch of astonishing long putts.

After a nervy start, Matthew's three-shot overnight lead soon evaporated in the wind and the sun. By the turn, a succession of challengers led by Ai Mizyazato of Japan threatened to spoil the party that will surely follow this home victory. But one by one the challengers fell away and the 39-year-old Scot rallied bravely to re-establish her le ad and played the last few holes knowing that she only needed to avoid disaster to clinch her first major championship.



"And I came here just hoping to make the cut," Matthew said. After a start that was uncomfortably reminiscent of Saturday's, tour sapa từ hà nội the mother of two scrambled her way around the course but was seemingly struggling to hold it all together, and players in front such as Karrie Webb and Paula Creamer began to believe that they were in with a serious chance.

Rarely does a bogey provide impetus but Matthew rescued her score when, after hitting her approach into a gorse bush at 10 and taking a penalty drop, she heroically got up and down for a 5 that left her still in red figures and in a share of the lead with Ai Miyazato. That seemed to give Matthew a lift. At 13 she missed the fairway yet again but produced another brilliant recovery shot out of the punishing rough that somehow found the green and she proceeded to drain an 18-footer.

An even longer putt of 40 feet followed at the next and by the time she had birdied her third hole in a row at 15, after what she later described as, "the two best shots I hit all day," the championship, which had appeared to be slipping slowly from her grasp, seemed once again Matthew's to win or lose.

Her triumph was undoubtedly assisted by the misfortune and mistakes of others. Christina Kim, whom Matthew described as being "a very supportive playing partner," slipped behind early on with bogeys at three of the first five holes. Never one, however, to get too downhearted, Kim clawed her way back into contention with birdies on the eighth and 12th holes. But her challenge came to nothing and it was left to others to try and tear the title from Matthew's grip.












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