This week on the LPGA tour: Inbee Park, and her putter, are back

Posted: May 4, 2015 5:01 pm

In a 15-month stretch of 2013 into ’14, Inbee Park won eight tournament, including four major championships, and at one point won three straight majors, all of the strength of one of the purest, most fearless putting strokes the game has seen

Park, 26, is back at it, having rolled in 20 birdies en route to a two-shot win in the North Texas Shootout Sunday in Dallas. She closed the deal with a bogeyless final-round six-under 65 in which she hit 17 of 18 greens in regulation, for a 15 under-par title of 269.

It was Park’s 14th win, and second win in this event. She is second in the Rolex World Rankings. The win was an impressive bounceback from a brutal loss two weeks ago at the LOTTE Championship in Hawaii, in which Sei Young Kim chipped in on the last hole of regulation to force a playoff with Park, and then holed an iron shot for an eagle on the first extra hole.

NOTABLES: Christie Kerr and Hee Young Park shot final-round 66s to tie for second at 12 under. Kee jumped from 12th to seventh in the world rankings. World No. 1 Lydia Ko came back from a first-round 75 to make the cut, but finished tied for 41st. Ko has still never missed the cut in an LPGA event.

Six seeks from her 55th birthday, Juli Inkster shot 67 Sunday and tied for seventh.