Aditi shoots 68 for best round of week at Evian Champs, finishes T-42

Evian Les Bains (France), Jul 31 (PTI) Indian golfer Aditi Ashok shot her best round of the week with a 3-under 68 to finish Tied-42nd at the 2023 Amundi Evian Championship at Evian Resort Golf Club here.

The Indian, playing her 26th Major, had rounds of 71-72-74-68 for a total of 1-over 285.

Fellow Indian Diksha Dagar had missed the cut.

For Aditi, the final round was a confidence booster ahead of the next three weeks, which will see another major, the AIG Women’s Open and the Scottish Open and ISPS Handa Invitational.

All the three events will also witness Diksha and they are all co-sanctioned by the LPGA.

Aditi birdied the first and second and added a third on ninth to turn in 3-under.
She dropped her only shot of the day on 10th but got a birdie on 17th to finish the day a 68. The conditions once again were not easy, but this time Aditi handled them better than previous days.

Celine Boutier stormed to a six-stroke victory with a closing round of 68 (-3) as she became the first player from France to secure the Amundi Evian Championship since the event was designated a major.

It was a dream start for Boutier, who rolled in back-to-back birdies on her opening two holes before adding another birdie on the fifth to make the turn in 32 (-3) and extend her advantage at the top of the leaderboard.

Despite a dropped shot on 13, the Frenchwoman bounced back with a birdie on 15 and was able to walk up 18 and make her par to seal victory with a total of 14-under-par.

This is the second win on home soil for Boutier in two years after she won the 2021 Lacoste Ladies Open de France.

She also became the third Frenchwoman to win a major championship after Catherine LaCoste in 1967 and Patricia Meunier-Lebouc in 2003.

Brooke Henderson, who won the Championship in 2022, produced a final round of 70 (-1) to finish in outright second place on eight-under-par.

Five players finished the week in a share of third place — Norway’s Celine Borge, Mexico’s Gaby Lopez, Japanese duo Yuka Saso and Nasa Hataoka and Korea’s A Lim Kim on seven-under-par.

Scotland’s Gemma Dryburgh ended the week in outright eighth place on six-under-par while five players were T9 on five-under-par including 2021 Race to Costa del Sol champion Atthaya Thitikul.

In the 2023 Race to Costa del Sol, Spain’s Ana Pel ez Trivino still leads the way with 1,409.20 points with Aditi in second place (1,278.81) and Sweden’s Linn Grant is third (1,105.83).

Diksha is sixth, while England’s Cara Gainer is in seventh and Spain’s Carmen Alonso in eighth place.