Women’s Open golf: final round – live

Nelly Korda’s putter has cost her this title. She creams her second at the par-four 3rd to three feet, only for the birdie effort to horseshoe out. That’s two short ones missed already, to file alongside similar efforts missed coming home yesterday evening. A serious challenge undone from short range, and a problem for the world number one to solve.

OK, now we’re really cooking, because the final match has taken to the tee. Home favourite Charley Hull crashes a drive straight down the middle to wild cheers. Lilia Vu follows her. There’s no doubting who the majority favour, but Vu gets an appreciative roar of her own from the knowledgeable and sporting Walton Heath gallery. This is on!

Celine Boutier went into the week as the hottest ticket in golf, with back-to-back wins at the Evian and the Scottish Open. “I know the odds,” the 29-year-old Parisian smiled wryly before teeing off on Thursday, and no, the three-in-a-row long shot wasn’t to be. An opening round of 74 saw to that. Inbee Park remains the last woman to notch back-to-back majors, when she captured the Dinah Shore, PGA and US Open in short order in 2013. But when you’re hot, you’re hot, and the in-form Boutier has ended the week in the style of a major champion: four birdies today for a blemish-free card of 68.

No world number one has won a major since Lydia Ko in 2016. That strange run looks like stretching to another year, because Nelly Korda’s putter is continuing to misbehave. She’s been sensational from tee to green this week, but a series of missed tiddlers have cost her dearly. Yesterday afternoon she was on a serious charge, five under for her round after eagle at 11, and just three off the lead. But she then yipped from kick-in distance on 13, an exquisitely timed “Aw [word redacted by Family Blog editor]-ing hell!” betraying her frustration. This afternoon, having nearly drained a long birdie effort on 1, she’s just pushed a short par putt wide right at 2, and instantly moves in the wrong direction. She’s -3.

Good news for the chasing pack: there’s a score out there all right, and Mao Saigo has proved it with a final round of 67. The 21-year-old from Japan is beginning to make a name for herself as a Sunday specialist in the majors, having shot 64 en route to third place in last year’s Evian Championship at Évian-les-Bains. It’s been an up-and-down week for Saigo: 75-70-78-67. Anyone who has ever picked up a club will immediately understand. She finishes at +2 overall.

At the start of moving day, Ally Ewing was five strokes clear of the field and set fair for her first major title. But you don’t have to veer too far off piste at Walton Heath to get into bother, and by the time she walked off the 6th green she’d carded her third bogey of the day. She ended up with a 75 – some comedown after Friday’s glorious 66 – while Lilia Vi and Angel Yin were compiling 67s, Charley Hull, Kim Hyo-joo and Linn Grant 68s. Throw in a 69 from Nelly Korda and suddenly the 2023 Women’s Open was exactly that. Wide open. Here’s how the top of the leaderboard looked going into this final round …

-9: Lilia Vi, Charley Hull
-8: Angel Yin, Kim Hyo-joo
-7: Ally Ewing
-6: Linn Grant
-5: Jiyai Shin, Andrea Lee
-4: Nelly Korda, Amy Yang, Perrine Delacour, Nasa Hataoka, Alison Lee

Any number of players have a realistic shout, and there’s a score out there if someone wants it. If we get even half of the drama Ashleigh Buhai and Chun In-gee served up on Sunday last year in the Muirfield gloaming, we’ll be in for a cracker. It’s on!