For a while on Saturday, it looked as if Casandra Alexander would be in the lead heading into the final round of the Amundi Evian Championship in France. And then major championship pressure happened.
Not that Alexander, who had a share of seventh place in last year’s AIG Women’s Open to use as a reference point when it came to dealing with the home stretch of moving day at Evian Resort Golf Club in Evian-les-Bains, Haute-Savoie, dealt with it badly.
She had made three birdies on the front nine to get to 10-under on the top of the leaderboard without troubling either of the reachable (for her) par-fives. With two more par-five opportunities on the back-nine par-fives, and the fact that she was playing the par-threes so well in her favour, things were looking rosy.
“And then towards the back nine came up to the tougher holes, that stretch, 11, 12, 13, I just got myself in some unfortunate positions that were difficult to make par from,” she said. It was a wayward approach on 11 which saw her unable to get up and down for par that brought about the first of two bogeys.
The other came on 17 as she was once again profligate with her approach, and not even a great flop shot to 15 feet from a tough spot was enough the help her save par. And an agonisingly close shave with a birdie-putt on 18 left her on nine-under for the tournament after her third-round two-under 69.
She was two strokes behind the lead which was shared by England’s Cara Gainer and Australia’s Gabriela Ruffels. Between Alexander and the lead were Minjee Lee of Australia, Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikul, a third Aussie in Grace Kim and Korea’s Somi Lee.
Reason to be anxious, but not nervous. “I didn’t feel too nervous,” she said of her third round. “When I hit it quite close on 16 I said to Charlie, I felt nervous over this putt. I’m not sure why, but I think it was just because all the people that were around there. Not too many nerves coming in or towards the beginning. Think it was easier because the camera guys were around the whole time instead of them bombarding you if you do play well. Nerves were okay. Don’t know about tomorrow. We’ll see then.”
With her play having lifted to the level where she can think about the real possibility of winning, her final round it something she is looking forward to. “I’m very excited. I can’t control what everyone else does so I’m just going to go out tomorrow and play and see what happens.”
She has seen others go low at the course – as she did to win her maiden Ladies European Tour title last month – and embraced the experience of the apparent chaos of being where she is in a major. “You just got to play your own game and not think about everything else,” she said. “I think the biggest problem with majors is people overthink it. It’s just another golf course and another round of golf, and that’s how I’m going to tackle it tomorrow.
“It’s always special. You know, this is what we work so hard for and we want the crowds, we like them and all the little girls coming out to watch. We hopefully motivate them and see them out here in a couple years.”
