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Shanshan Feng claims 4th Dubai Ladies Masters title

By James Jose
Published on
Shanshan Feng claims 4th Dubai Ladies Masters title

When not playing golf and racking up air miles, Shanshan Feng juggles between her place of birth, the southeastern Chinese province of Guangzhou and the United States, for her downtime.

But on the evidence of Saturday, the 27-year-old could perhaps make Dubai her home with a nice little trophy cabinet to store the 'Veiled Lady' Trophy. It could also maybe save her the trouble of checking it in, on the flight home.

In one of the stunning comebacks ever witnessed in women's golf, Feng truly unfurled her 'A' game on the day to make it a hat trick of Omega Dubai Ladies Masters titles and a fourth in five years.

After her putting not being on the same page as her over two days, Feng purred on the Majlis Course of the Emirates Golf Club on a pleasant Saturday to overturn a five-shot deficit and vault 13 spots to the top of this Ladies European Tour (LET) event.

Starting the day on two-under, Feng fired up the 6389-yard Course with eight birdies to turn in an astounding eight-under 64 and 10-under for the tournament, to win by two strokes.

England's Charley Hull, the LET Rookie of the Year in 2013 and Order of Merit winner in 2014, tried to make a fist of it and spiced things up with a seven-under 65 for the day and an overall eight-under to scale 23 places up to second.

But then, Feng had a lot more left in the tank as she used the gusty conditions to her advantage to blow the field away.

 

 

Rookie of the Year Aditi Ashok too put herself in the mix but Feng was too far a bridge to cross and the Indian prodigy had to settle for tied third, four shots adrift of the Chinese and two strokes behind Hull.

Round 1 leader Florentyna Parker finished along with Aditi, while England's Georgia Hall and South Africa's Ashleigh Simon were tied fifth. Overnight leader Felicity Johnson had a roller-coaster of a day, which translated into a tied seventh with last year's Rookie of the Year Emily Kristine Pedersen.

Meanwhile, Cheyenne Woods improved upon her 2014 showing by finishing tied 10th.

Feng's five-shot charge was the biggest final round comeback by a winner after Thailand's Pornanong Phatlum had fought back from being two shots down to win the tournament in 2013.

Beginning the day, Feng found herself in an unfamiliar situation than she is used to, five shots behind the leader Johnson. On the previous three occasions when she had won here, she had gone into the final day with a handy five-stroke lead.

Feng had it all to do and she sharpened her claws and went to battle to defend what is hers.

This article is written by James Jose from Khaleej Times and was legally licensed via the Tribune Content Agency through the NewsCred publisher network.