KUALA LUMPUR: National top women’s golfer, Kelly Tan put up a wonderful performance to finish strongly in joint-34th place out of a cast of 60 golfers on her last day campaign at the Tokyo Olympics today.
This result means Kelly managed to improve her record in her second Olympics after ending up in 51st place, when making her debut in Rio 2016.
The 27-year-old golfer closed her final round of the women’s individual stroke event held at Kasumigaseki Country Club, Saitama by climbing up 14 spots from yesterday’s action, to be tied with Min Lee of Chinese Taipei, Celine Boutier of France and Slovakia’s Pia Babnik.
All four had a four-day total of two-under 282.
Kelly became fired up after carding a bogey on the seventh hole, birdied seven of her last eleven holes to record her best display so far, after a series of below par performance in the first three days.
Meanwhile, Kelly said she was satisfied with her overall performance at the Tokyo Olympics especially despite starting slowly in the early stage of the golf competition.
“I thought I did really well today…Obviously I came here with the mindset of getting a medal for Malaysia but overall, it was really great to finish well and that will surely give me a lot of confidence after this,” she told Bernama when contacted.
However, the three-time winner of the Malaysian Open was gutted at not being able to bring along her own coach and team to the Tokyo Olympics as that would surely have motivated her to play much better on the course.
“(The) Tokyo Games is the Olympics that I’ll never forget and I look (forward) to play next in Paris 2024,” she added.
Nelly Korda of the United States clinched the gold medal after making a 17-under 267 total while Japanese golfer Mone Inami created history as she secured her country’s first ever medal in golf at the Olympics when she took the silver.
Inami and Lydia Ko of New Zealand had to go into a playoff for the silver after both players shot six-under 65 today and were tied for second on 16-under 268 total. Ko lost and had to settle for the bronze. – Bernama
