Million-dollar Ashleigh Buhai wins playoff for Women’s Open and first major

• South African defeats Chun In-gee after four extra holes
• Buhai let big lead slip with triple bogey on 15th hole

You wait more than 130 years for a mainstream women’s event at Muirfield then nobody wants to leave. The R&A, which presides over the Women’s Open, was at least spared the embarrassment of a Monday conclusion but such an outcome was in the equation as a playoff between Ashleigh Buhai and Chun In-gee rumbled on to the fourth sudden-death playing of the 18th hole.

For Buhai, glory and $1.1m from a major she looked at one point determined to give away. Chun, who would have completed a grand slam – but not a super slam – of majors with victory here, drove into a penal fairway bunker at the worst possible time and the rest is history. Muirfield, once the epitome of male-only golf environments, toasted a female major champion at ten past nine at night. Buhai beat rapidly fading light – the consequence of preposterously late tee off times to accommodate television schedules – as well as Chun.

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