Rookie Granada caps off 2006 with ADT win

BY Bruce Young | LPGA Tour | 2006 ADT Championship | Wrap | 20 Nov 2006

Paraguay’s Julieta Granada had already had a brilliant rookie LPGA Tour season leading into today’s final round of the ADT Tour Championship but to say the least this rather tops it off.

A US$1 million prize was up for grabs as all eight players who had survived two cuts to get to Sunday, headed out onto the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in Florida with not only a outrageous first prize on offer but for both Lorena Ochoa and Karrie Webb, the money list title.

Granada, who has only just turned 20, gained the right to play the LPGA Tour when finishing 6th at the LPGA Tour School last year and she has made every post a winner in 2006 and earning more than US$600,000 even before today’s big payday.

The leading individual at the 2004 World Amateur Team’s Championship in Puerto Rico at the age of just 17, Granada is clearly one of the most exciting golfers to have joined the LPGA Tour in recent years. Both she and Ochoa are flying the flag for Latin American golf.

Granada had been rock solid all week and qualified for the final day in second place and today she was bogey free as she won by two over the Player of the Year on the LPGA Tour, Lorena Ochoa, and by three over the number two golfer on this year’s money list Karrie Webb.

Granada’s win was made all the more memorable for the Granada family in that she had her mother on the bag for the week.

Ochoa appeared to be moving towards yet another win in 2006 when she turned in two under but a double bogey at her 13th hole slowed the momentum. She regained those shots back with two quick birdies but her chance was gone when she bogeyed the 17th hole. She settled for the second prize of US$100,000 but she has the money and player of the year titles safely in her keeping.

Karrie Webb was round in 71 but it was a roller coaster ride with four bogeys and five birdies. She finished third but won just US$20,500 which brings into question the merits of this format. While the concept of ’winner takes all’ is hardly a bad one, the fact that it could well have perhaps unfairly determined the outcome of the money list race is not so appealing. The news was not all bad for the Australian however as Webb passed US$2 million for the season for the first time in her career.

The victory moved Granada to 4th on the money list while for Ochoa she has easily broken her previous money list best and she finishes the season with US$2,592,000.

It will be interesting to see how the tournament has been received at week’s end by those involved.