Hyo Joo Kim wins LPGA's Founders Cup

South Korean teenager Hyo Joo Kim has outlasted American Stacy Lewis to win the LPGA Tour's Founders Cup.

Hyo Joo Kim during the JTBC Founders Cup

South Korean teenager Hyo Joo Kim has won the LPGA Tour's Founders Cup. (AAP)

South Korean teenager Hyo Joo Kim has birdied five of the last eight holes to outlast American Stacy Lewis and win the LPGA Tour's Founders Cup.

The 19-year-old Kim closed with a five-under 67, holing a 10-foot birdie putt on the 18th at Wildfire Golf Club in Phoenix to beat Lewis by three strokes for her second LPGA Tour title.

World No.3 Lewis (68) pulled within a stroke with a birdie on the par-4 16th, but three-putted for bogey on 18.

Projected to jump from eighth to fourth in the world, Kim finished at 21-under 267.

She won the Evian Championship last year in France for her first major title and has eight victories on the South Korean tour.

Kim is the fifth South Korean winner in the first six events this year - and the other winner, top-ranked Lydia Ko of New Zealand, was born in South Korea.

South Korea's Ilhee Lee (66) and Mi Hyang Lee (68) and Thailand's Pornanong Phatlum (67) tied for third at 16 under.

Ko had her third straight 69 to tie for sixth at 15-under.

The 17-year-old New Zealander has broken par in her last 24 LPGA Tour rounds and 27 worldwide, a streak that started in the first round of her victory last year in the season-ending event.

Ko won the Women's Australian Open and the Ladies European Tour's New Zealand Women's Open in consecutive weeks this year. In her other three LPGA Tour starts, she tied for second in Florida in the opener, tied for seventh in the Bahamas and was second in Singapore.

Australian veteran Karrie Webb, the 2011 and 2014 winner, finished with a 69 to tie for 34th at 9 under.


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Source: AAP


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