Finally, Diaz Gets a Title

Laura Diaz knew she had the game and the poise to win. She just didn’t have the trophies to prove it.

That changed Sunday, when Diaz, only a month into her fourth season on the LPGA Tour, beat Hall of Famer Juli Inkster by a stroke in the Welch’s-Circle K Classic.

Diaz made a three-foot birdie putt on the last hole to cap a four-under-par 68 and win her first professional title with an 18-under-par 270. Inkster, the 1999 champion, led after the second and third rounds, but shot a closing 71.

“I think it’s great,” Diaz said. “But I won against 143 other people, and I won against the golf course. You know, 144 players teed it up at the beginning of the week, and I took the least number of strokes.”

Diaz finished second four times and had eight other top 10 finishes last year--good enough to win $751,466 and place ninth on the money list--all without a victory.

“As much as it’s been talked about--all of my seconds, no victories yet--I’m relieved,” she said. “The question, ‘When are you going to get a victory?’ I got a victory. The question is over.”

Inkster followed birdies on Nos. 3 and 10 with bogeys on Nos. 4 and 11, and squandered a birdie at the sixth when she had a bogey on No. 8. The trend cost her the win.

Grace Park matched the lowest round of the tournament with a 64 and tied Kelly Robbins, who shot 67, for third place at 273.

Karrie Webb, with a 67, and amateur Lorena Ochoa of the University of Arizona who has won her last six college tournaments, shot 68 to finish four shots off the lead.

The five-player group at 275 included Annika Sorenstam, the two-time defending champion, and 1988 Tucson winner Laura Davies.