During her time at Auburn (2007-11), Cydney Clanton won three tournaments. On Saturday, nearly a decade later, she earned her first LPGA Tour victory in the inaugural Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational at Midland Country Club in Michigan.
She is the first Auburn alum to win an LPGA event.
“I don’t know that it has truly set in what we accomplished this week, but it’s truly a blessing to be here.” Clanton said in an interview with the LPGA after the event.
Clanton partnered with Jasmine Suwannapura in what was the first team event in tour history. The duo pulled away from the field in the final round, shooting an 11-under 59 in best ball to win the title. They finished at 27 under for the weekend, six shots ahead of the next group.
Through most of this season, Clanton had primarily played on the Symetra Tour where she won the Murphy USA El Dorado in April. However, with this victory, the former All-SEC golfer earned exemptions to play in the next two LPGA events – next week’s Evian Championship and then the AIG Women’s British Open the following week.
“It’s a blessing,” Clanton said. “This year I didn’t know what I was going to do, to be honest. I was pretty low after missing out on my (LPGA) card by eight dollars. I took four months off, which I’ve never done in my whole career.
“It’s just one of those things where I’m happy to be here, I’m happy for the opportunity this week, I look forward to the opportunity to play at Evian – but I guess you have to take it one shot at a time because it’s a new week next week, so I have to kind of forget about what happened this week and move on to next week.”
Clanton will be joined by current Auburn golfer Julie McCarthy at next week’s Evian Championship in France. McCarthy earned an exemption to play in the event after being nominated by her peers at the Arnold Palmer Cup last month.
Twitter: @AuburnWGolf / Facebook: AuburnWGolf
For more information, contact Greg Ostendorf