(Provided by Tennis World USA)
Nuria Iturrioz won with 205 (68 70 67, -11) strokes the La Sella Open, the Iberian stage of the Ladies European Tour which took place on the La Sella Golf course (par 72), in Alicante. The home athlete overtook the German Laura Fuenfstueck (71 66 68) after two play-off holes, with whom she had tied the tournament.
In third place the English Cara Gainer with 206 (-10) and in fourth place the Czech Kristyna Napoleaova with 207 (-9). The other German Alexandra Forsterling, the Swede Anna Nordqvist and the Thai Trichat Cheenglab shared fifth place with 208 (-8).
Nuria Iturrioz, results
Clara Manzalini, the best of the Italians, finished in 46th place with 218 (68 73 77, +2) shots, while Alessandra Fanali and Virginia Elena Carta, 100th with 151 (+7) did not pass the cut.Nuria Iturrioz, 28 years old from Palma de Mallorca, thanks to a great comeback in the final lap in 67 (-5, five birdies, an eagle and two bogeys) celebrated her fourth victory on the LET and her seventh as a professional.
Iturrioz this year had already won the team competition in the Aramco Team Series in Florida (May 19-20) together with the French Pauline Roussin, the English Trish Johnson and with the amateur Michael Bickford. The Spaniard was rewarded with a check for €150,000 out of a €1,000,000 prize pool.Women’s golf in Europe only depopulated some time after the creation of the LPGA in the United States of America.
In 1978, the Women’s Professional Golfers’ Association (or simply WPGA) was founded, underpinning the largest operating Professional Golfers’ Association in the United Kingdom. The following year a tour was established with Carlsberg as the main sponsor and including 12 tournaments (36 holes), including the Women’s British Open.
For his first two seasons the Tour fields were rated for 36 strokes, later increased to 54; the prize money also underwent an increase, going from the initial 80,000 pounds to 250,000 in 1981, at the cost, however, of the loss of important tournaments and sponsorships.
At the end of the 1981 season the collaboration with Carlsberg ended, and despite an initial optimism, the Ladies European Tour experienced a period of crisis which culminated in the cancellation of further stages. In the second part of the eighties the circuit found itself with only 10 tournaments left and its future was called into question.To remedy the crisis and its now low visibility, in 1988 the main exponents of the management decided to create an independent body, the Women Professional Golfers’ European Tour Limited: the new entity then changed its headquarters, moving from The Belfry (shared with the PGA) to the Tytherington Club in Cheshire.
In 1998 the Tour changed its name to the European Ladies’ Professional Golf Association Limited and then to the Ladies European Tour Limited in July 2000. In 2008 the body changed headquarters again, this time settling at Buckinghamshire Golf Club, near London.
In 2010 the Tour announced the creation of the LET Access Series (LETAS), its official development circuit.In January 2020 the Ladies European Tour entered into a joint venture with the LPGA Tour, with the aim of further growing women’s professional golf around the world: the Ladies European Golf Venture Limited became the central body of the board of directors and was joined by representatives of other entities such as the LPGA Tour, PGA European Tour and The R&A.
