Stacy Lewis shooting to end streak of second-place finishes in Alabama

 

PRATTVILLE, Ala. (AP) – Stacy Lewis is ready to finish one spot better.

 

Lewis has been racking up second-place finishes with some regularity since her last win in June 2014. Starting Thursday, she'll revisit the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic where she won in 2012 and finished second to a record-setting Mi Jung Hur last year.

 

Lewis is ready for a breakthrough on The Senator Course at Capitol Hill, part of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, especially with the Evian Championship in France in two weeks as the year's last major.

 

"The win has definitely been on the mind," Lewis, a 19-time runner-up, said. "I've been close a lot this year and doing it here would be really nice, especially leading into Evian and Solheim just to get that momentum. If I keep building off what I worked on last week and the good things I did last week, I think I'll be just fine."

 

She was runner-up last week, too, when Lydia Ko won the Canadian Pacific Women's Open with a par on the first hole of a playoff. It was her sixth second-place finish since winning the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship.

 

Lewis is happy to be playing a course where she's had success instead of sitting on the couch after a tough finish.

 

"I felt like last week every day I got a little bit closer with my game," she said. "You know, the good thing is I'm playing this week. If I were sitting at home, I think that would make Sunday's finish a little bit tougher, but the fact that I'm teeing it up again right away is really a good thing. My game's really close to playing some really good golf."

 

Hur, who is from South Korea, used the course in suburban Montgomery to end her own victory drought last year. With her father carrying her bag, she set a tournament-record with 21 under for a four-stroke victory. Hur closed with a 66 to end a five-year winless streak and earn her second career LPGA Tour win.

 

Her best finish this season is a tie for 11th place at the Kingsmill Championship.

 

"Everything was working for me that time," Hur said of last year's trip to Prattville. "Every tee shot I hit the fairway, every iron shot I hit the greens, and every putt I made. It was so easy to play. I hope I can play like that this year, too."

 

Past champions Lewis, Hur, Lexi Thompson and Katherine Kirk are all in the field. Thompson was just 16 when she won in 2011, becoming the youngest LPGA Tour winner at the time. Lewis and Thompson will both compete in the Solheim Cup from Sept. 18-20 in Germany.

 

First, they'll try for another win in Alabama.

 

"I like the layout and I like it when this golf course plays firm and fast, and I think we've had that quite a few times the past few years," said Lewis, a former Arkansas star. "You can just kind of bomb it and go find it. I think you've seen that in the winners, they all seem to hit it pretty far, and it comes down to hitting the right spots on the greens and making putts.

 

"It's just a fun course to play and I think just being back in the South is just really relaxing for me."

 

Copyright (2015) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. This article was from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.