{"id":33563,"date":"2026-08-13T09:51:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T09:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/womens-open-2026-shiho-kuwaki-kuwaki-defeats-esther-henseleit-in-play-off-to-triumph\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T09:51:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T09:51:05","slug":"womens-open-2026-shiho-kuwaki-kuwaki-defeats-esther-henseleit-in-play-off-to-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/womens-open-2026-shiho-kuwaki-kuwaki-defeats-esther-henseleit-in-play-off-to-triumph\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Open 2026: Shiho Kuwaki Kuwaki defeats Esther Henseleit in play-off to triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"


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AIG Women’s Open – fourth round<\/b><\/p>\n

-5 <\/b>*S Kuwaki (Jap), E Henseleit (Ger); -4 <\/b>Y Noh (US); -2 <\/b>N Korda (US), J Thitikul (Tha)<\/p>\n

Selected others: -1 <\/b>C Hull (Eng), L Woad, (Eng), H Ryu (Kor), R Takeda (Jap); E <\/b>C Boutier (Fra), S Kouskova (Cze); +1<\/b> L Li (US), L Coughlin (US)<\/p>\n

Full leaderboard<\/a><\/p>\n

Shiho Kuwaki won the Women’s Open in dramatic fashion after an extraordinary play-off in which Esther Henseleit’s hopes were hit by her ball taking an unfortunate ricochet off a marshal.<\/b><\/p>\n

The gripping finale at Royal Lytham & St Annes brimmed with drama, magic and misfortune – particularly on the crucial 18th hole. <\/p>\n

Germany’s Henseleit initially forced an extension to play by sinking a 45-foot birdie putt to draw level at five under par with Japan’s Kuwaki, who sat nervously inside the clubhouse watching on.<\/p>\n

However, after both made pars in distinctly different fashion on the first sudden-death play-off hole, Henseleit was left in difficulty when her drive hit a course marshal and was redirected into a gorse bush as they went down the 18th for a third time. <\/p>\n

When she was unable to save her par, it was left for Kuwaki to make a short putt for a four to secure the top prize of \u00a31.11m just 12 months after failing to make the cut at Royal Porthcawl.<\/p>\n

“I just can’t believe it,” said Kuwaki, whose previous five wins as a professional had all arrived on her home tour.<\/p>\n

“To be on a stage like this is an honour and every hole I was just focused on shot by shot. I just tried to enjoy it as much as I could.<\/p>\n

“It’s an amazing feeling to win again as a Japanese player. I hope as team Japan we can continue to light up the golf world.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AIG Women’s Open – fourth round -5 *S Kuwaki (Jap), E Henseleit (Ger); -4 Y Noh (US); -2 N Korda (US), J Thitikul (Tha) Selected others: -1 C Hull (Eng), L Woad, (Eng), H Ryu (Kor), R Takeda (Jap); E C Boutier (Fra), S Kouskova (Cze); +1 L Li (US), L Coughlin (US) Full leaderboard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33565,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33563\/revisions\/33565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}