LPGA Tour golfer Angela Stanford celebrates Sunday after winning the Evian Championship in France for her first major championship.EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France - In her 18th year on the LPGA Tour, after a wild and tearful final few holes, Angela Stanford became a major tournament champion Sunday.
It was a long journey to an unlikely one-shot victory at the Evian Championship for a golfer who believed as a rookie in 2001 that major titles would come sooner than her 40th birthday - and probably not in France.
"I would have laughed, 'No way, it's going to happen before,'" said Stanford, a Texan whose runner-up finish at the 2003 U.S. Women's Open was the first of 13 top-10 performances in majors without a win.
"I didn't know at the time how close I was," she reflected of that playoff loss 15 years ago. "It was only my third year, and I had no idea what I was doing, to be perfectly honest."
Those feelings returned on the 17th tee at Evian Resort Golf Club, she said, after a double bogey at the par-3 16th dropped Stanford out of a tie for the lead with Amy Olson.
Stanford finished her round of 3-under-par 68 by going eagle-double bogey-birdie before closing with a barely missed birdie putt that left her in tears minutes before Olson played the 18th and made double-bogey. Stanford's winning total of 12-under 272 was good for a $577,500 check.
Olson (74) fell into a four-way tie for second place with fellow Americans Austin Ernst (68) and Mo Martin (70), as well as South Korea's Sei Young Kim (72). Martin barely missed with a birdie chance on the 18th to face Stanford in a playoff.
Olson missed a six-foot putt for bogey on the 18th that would have forced a playoff. Stanford waited green-side out of sight of the putting surface after signing autographs for young spectators.
Tears flowed again as Stanford watched on a giant screen as Olson - who spent all day as outright or joint leader - prepared to putt. More than six years after earning the most recent of her five previous LPGA Tour titles, the 76th-ranked Stanford put her hands to her mouth in surprise before beginning an emotional round of television interviews.
The result ensured American women extended a streak of winning at least one major title each year since the Evian Championship was added as the fifth in 2013.
Big victory for Bae
BOISE, Idaho - Sangmoon Bae won the Albertsons Boise Open to regain his PGA Tour card, making a birdie on the final hole for a one-stroke victory in the third of four Web.com Tour Finals tournaments.
Bae finished at 19-under 265, closing with a 5-under 66 at Hillcrest Country Club to edge Anders Albertson (62), Adam Schenk (64) and Roger Sloan (63).
Chattanooga's Stephan Jaeger (69) tied for 58th at 6 under.
Bae returned to the PGA Tour this season after two years of mandatory military service in South Korea, but he lost his card with a 202nd-place finish in the FedEx Cup regular-season standings. The two-time PGA Tour winner entered last week needing a few thousand dollars to wrap up a card and ended up making $180,000.
Albertson already had earned a PGA Tour card with a top-25 finish on the Web.com Tour regular-season money list, and Sloan, Schenk and fifth-place finisher Roberto Díaz - he closed with a 68 to finish two strokes back - all earned enough money to get three of the 25 cards available in the four-event series.
The season-ending Web.com Tour Championship starts Thursday at Atlantic Beach Country Club in Jacksonville, Florida.
It's Broadhurst again
GRAND BLANC, Mich. - Paul Broadhurst won The Ally Challenge for his PGA Tour Champions-leading third victory of the season, closing with a birdie to beat Brandt Jobe by two strokes at Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club.
Broadhurst rebounded from a bogey on the par-3 11th with birdies on the par-4 12th and par-5 13th and made a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th. The 53-year-old Englishman finished at 15-under 201.
Jobe birdied five of the first six holes on the back nine in a 67. Tom Lehman bogeyed the 18th for a 70 to drop into a tie for third with Mark O'Meara (69) at 13 under.
Ooltewah's Gibby Gilbert III (71) tied for 24th at 7 under.
Wu first at KLM Open
SPIJK, Netherlands - China's Ashun Wu birdied the final hole to secure a one-stroke victory over England's Chris Wood at the KLM Open.
Wu watched his eagle putt on the final hole at The Dutch slide just past before tapping in for birdie and a four-round total of 16-under par 268. He led by a stroke after the first round and by three after 36 holes but was tied for second entering the final round, a stroke behind Wood, who closed with a 69.
Thomas Detry (66) and Hideto Tanihara (69) tied for third at 14 under.