In-form American matches Bob MacIntyre's Canadian-Scottish title double

Three weeks after landing her breakthrough win on the LPGA Tour in the CPKC Women’s Open, the 31-year-old is the new ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open champion as well.

With the CPKC event being the Canadian Women’s Open, Coughlin pulled off exactly the same title double as Bob MacIntyre earlier in the summer as she stormed to an impressive four-shot success on the Ayrshire coast.

Leading by one at the start of the day, the resident of Charlottesville in Virginia signed off with a polished 69 to finish on 15 under par after four testing days in the third straight staging of the $2 million event at this venue.

For the second week running, German Esther Henseleit had to settle for second spot. There was no silver medal for the 25-year-old on this occasion, but she’s now looking like a certainty for next month’s Solheim Cup in the US.

“It's kind of unbelievable,” said Coughlin of her latest success, which was worth $300,000 and saw her join US Solheim Cup captain Stacy Lewis and Ryann O’Toole on the list of Americans to land this title but the first to do so at Dundonald Link. “Two in three events is pretty crazy.”

In between her victories, she also finished in the top ten in the Portland Classic and, before coming out on top in Canada, had been fourth in the Amundi Evian Championship, the penultimate major of the season.

“I just kind of stuck in there, tried to stay as present as I could, and got some putts to drop at the end,” she added of signing off with an incredible run of single putting the last seven greens.

Earlier, Coughlin had dropped two shots in the first four holes before quickly repairing that damage with birdies at the fifth and seventh. With Henseleit clinging on to her coat-tails, it was only after the leader then birdied the 14th and 15th that she found herself with a bit of breathing space.

With Heneseleit in close at the 17th, Coughlin produced a brilliant up and down to save par before seeing her nearest challenger miss her golden birdie opportunity, meaning Coughlin headed to the 18th tee with a three-shot cushion when it could quite easily have been one.

She then rounded off her week in style by holing a left-to-right 22-footer for a closing birdie and, though the margin of victory was maybe a bit flattering, there was no denying that the event had produced another worthy winner after the same could be said of Japan’s Ayake Furue in 2022 the French player Celine Boutier 12 months ago,

“I played super solid all four days and just kind of tried to let the wind do what it did and try to not fight it too much and I was able to just hit the ball where I was trying to most of the time and good distance and then make some putts,” said the champion.

“I really struggled in the wind up until last year when I came to this event, and it's something that I've struggled with. But I've started to kind of get figured out and a lot of it is just trying to not fight it too much and let the wind do what it needs to do and trust it as much as you can.”

This is Coughlin’s seventh season on the LPGA Tour and, on the back of easily her best campaign so far, having been outside the top 100 in the Rolex Women’s World Rankings earlier in the year but up to 26th even before this triumph, she’s now heading to the Old Course at St Andrews as a serious major contender.

“If you would have told me at the beginning of last year let alone at the beginning of this year, I wouldn't believe this is what I've done and it's incredible. It just how hard I've worked to get here, and it's amazing,” she admitted.

Asked if it has been a classic case of someone keeping believing, she added: “Yeah, absolutely. I think that's kind of what I've done my whole career, not even just professionally but in college and junior golf, kind of pretty much I wasn't really recruited coming out of junior golf. I walked on at University of Virginia and just kind of tried to get better every year, and that's what I've been trying to keep doing.”

Along with Korda, 2023 AIG Women’ Open winner Lilia Vu and Ally Ewing, Coughlin has secured her Solheim Cup spot, with this year’s venue, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, being just over an hour from where she lives.

“The goal is just going to be kind of trying to keep rolling into the Solheim,” she said of what will be her debut in the biennial bout. “It's still a few weeks away, so I’ll be trying to keep my game as sharp as I possibly can going into that and these next few weeks, especially next week, too, with The Open.”

Her husband, John, was there to help Coughlin celebrate this success and it’s going to be a real family affair at St Andrews. “Next week my dad and my uncle are coming,” she said. “My coach, John Lewellen, is also coming. It's going to be a fun week.”

Henseleit, who closed with a 70 that contained three birdies and just one dropped shot, finished two shots ahead of former champion Furue (68) and American Megan Khang (74), with Charley Hull (73) a further shot back as she recorded her best finish of the season on the LPGA Tour.