Cristie Kerr holds off youngsters in Malaysia to post 20th LPGA Tour victory

Cristie Kerr did not have to wait long to realize her goal of winning an LPGA event in her fourth decade.

With a no-doubter 35-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole of the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia, Kerr, 40, held off a pair of millenials and a 30-something to become the 27th tour player in tour history to earn 20 victories. The putt also saved the two-time major winner from having to go into overtime in Sunday’s weather-delayed finale to outlast Jacqui Concolino, Danielle Kang, and Shanshan Feng.

”What a way to win,” Kerr told LPGA.com after salting away her second victory of the 2017 season with a final-round 71 that gave her, at 15-under for the week, a one-shot triumph over the runners-up. “I always said I wanted to get a win in my 40s and I got it pretty quick.”

Not that Kerr’s W — the first by a tour player in her 40s since Catriona Matthew won the 2011 Lorena Ochoa Invitational at 42 — was a walk in the park. In fact, an hour-plus weather delay added to the day’s intensity, which Kerr compounded by three-putting for a bogey on the par-3 17th hole.

That unforced error came after Kerr took a two-stroke lead on defending champion Feng (final-round 71) with a birdie on the second hole, lost it with a double-bogey on the seventh, and had to fend off Kang (66), Nelly Korda (65), In Gee Chun (66), and Concolino (67).

“I was so determined all day,” Kerr said. “Things were just not going my way. When I hit good shots, I’d get in some bad spots. You know, that’s just the way it goes sometimes in golf, but I stuck it out.”

Kerr, now needing just five points to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame, will donate part of her winner’s share to the tournament’s cancer-awareness campaign. A tireless advocate of anti-cancer efforts whose mother is a breast cancer survivor, the founder of the 10-year-old Birdies for Breast Cancer made a similar gesture when she won the Lacoste Ladies Open on the Ladies European Tour earlier this month.

“I’m sorry, but f**k cancer,” Kerr said in France after winning the contest staged in memory of LET player Cassandra Kirkland, who died earlier this year at age 32 from lung cancer, and just days after former LPGA Tour golfer Kelli Kuehne’s mother passed away from the disease. “I played for them, and I played for myself. I’m so sorry to say the F-word, but I’m so sick of people losing people to cancer.”

About that putt, which Kerr and her caddie, Brady Stockton, paced off again while waiting for the post-victory photo shoot.

“That’s probably the longest putt I’ve ever made to win a golf tournament,” Kerr said. “When I hit it, I could just tell it was going in. It was the most amazing thing. Like it was perfect speed; if it missed, it was going to be two feet by.

“It was right in the center,” she added, “never even thought about missing.”