The last time a Georgia native won a tournament on the LPGA Tour was 1995 when Tifton’s Nanci Bowen scored a stunning victory in the Nabisco Dinah Shore, one of the tour’s four major championships.
The winless stretch of more than two decades almost came to an end last week when Brunswick’s Katie Burnett tied for second in the Lotte Championship in Hawaii, finishing just one shot behind tournament winner Minjee Lee.
Burnett, in her fourth season on the tour, had just one previous top 10 finish in an LPGA event, that coming two years ago in the same Hawaii tournament, where she tied for eighth.
In her first five starts of 2016, Burnett’s best LPGA finish was a tie for 28th in the Australian Open, although she did tie for fifth in the Australian Masters, a Ladies European Tour event, the following week.
Burnett has played on both the LPGA and European Tours since she turned pro in 2013, enjoying much of her early success overseas. She notched three top-5 finishes on the LET that year, including a tie for second in the South African Open.
The 26-year-old Burnett qualified for the LPGA Tour in her first attempt and tied for 12th in her first-ever LPGA start at Kingsmill in 2013. Playing a partial schedule, she finished the year 99th on the money list to retain her playing privileges, and played respectably in both 2014 and ’15, placing 87th and 85th in earnings with a pair of top-20 finishes both years.
Burnett placed herself in contention early in the Lotte Championship, playing holes 1-6 at Ko Olina GC on Oahu in 4-under in both the first and second rounds. Scores of 70 and 66 had her within two shots of Lee after 36 holes, and Burnett moved to the front with a bogey-free third round 67 to take a one-stroke lead to the final round. Lee shot 74 in the third round and fell to a tie for sixth, five shots off the lead.
A pair of early birdies in the fourth round enabled Burnett to hold off an early challenge by 2015 U.S. Open champion In Gee Chun, who had finished second or third in each of three previous LPGA starts in 2016, including a tie for second in the LPGA’s first major of the year two weeks earlier.
Burnett retained her lead with back-to-back birdies on the two par 5s on the back nine, but Lee shot 6-under on the final nine for a 64 to take the clubhouse lead at 16-under. Burnett got to 16-under after the two par-5 birdies and got up-and-down for a third straight hole to save par at the 15th.
But after an excellent tee shot at the long, par-3 16th, Burnett got a little too aggressive with her birdie putt and missed her attempt for par coming back. She gave herself a chance to tie Lee when she hit a beautiful short iron approach to close range at the 17th, but lipped out the birdie try.
Burnett put her second shot on the dangerous par-4 18th on the green, but just missed her long birdie putt, finishing in a tie for second with Chun at 15-under, one behind Lee’s winning score. Playing with the lead in the final round for the first time on the LPGA Tour, Burnett shot a solid 2-under 70 and earned her biggest paycheck as a pro — $143,265.
“I don’t think I gave it away by any means,” Burnett said after the round. “I don’t necessarily feel like I lost the tournament. I feel like Minjee just won it.
“I didn’t hit it great really all week, but I still scored. Again today, I didn’t hit it that great, but I still made some putts coming in. I could have made a few more, but that’s how golf goes.”
Burnett played well in the tournament two years earlier, and said she believes playing in the wind at home in Brunswick and on St. Simons Island has enabled her to deal with the ocean breezes in Hawaii.
Although she was thousands of miles from home, Burnett was cheered on during the tournament by her older brother Ben, who is stationed at nearby Pearl Harbor.
With her tie for second, Burnett vaulted to 24th on the money list, and should be exempt into the tour’s majors for the rest of 2016, as well as locking up her exempt status for 2017.
Burnett was a relative late arrival to competitive golf, playing her first non-scholastic tournament at the age of 16. It didn’t take her long to adapt to competition in state and national junior events. She was the Georgia PGA Junior Tour’s Player of the Year and earned a scholarship to South Carolina, graduating as the school’s all-time scoring leader.
After turning pro in 2012, Burnett won her first tournament as a professional in Michigan by 10 shots, qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open and finished 25th in the finals of qualifying to earn her playing privileges for 2013. She reached the finals by winning her second stage qualifier by six strokes.
Burnett also qualified for the 2013 European Tour and divided her time that year between the U.S. and overseas, placing in the top 50 on the LET money list despite not playing a full schedule.