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Show STEPHENSON EARNS LPGA CROWN Although Jan Stephenson won the $200,000 LPGA championship rather easily Sunday, she was prepared for the worst. "All day I kept thinking something would go wrong and someone would make a charge," said Stephenson, who shot a final round l-under-par 71 for a 7-2 hole total of 279 for a two-shot win over runner-up Joanne Carner. "I kept telling myself: 'You're not going to win. Face the fact.' Now that I've done it, I can't believe it," she said. "I played games with my mind all day. It was the longest day of golf I've ever had." Stephenson said she finally realized she had a good chance to win when she rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt on the 15th green. "That putt was when I won the tournament," she said, "It gave me a cushion." Carner, who bogeyed the final two holes Saturday and the first one Sunday, costing her three vital strokes, said she was happy to finish second. "The way Jan played I don't think anybody was going to catch her," she said. "I really think she felt she was going to win the tournament." It was the first win of the year and eighth of her career for Stephenson, who missed several weeks early this season with a broken foot and later was fined $3,000 by LPGA Commissioner John Laupheimer for skipping a tournament to play in Japan. But the 28th LPGA Championship, Stephenson's second major victory, belonged to her. She shared the lead after the first round, led by one stroke after the second and by two after the third. Stephenson stretched her margifi to three shots 'on the first hole Sunday when she parred and Daniel, who collapsed on the back side, bogeyed. After that, Stephenson never led by less than two strokes and was five shots in front at one time. Stephenson, who picked up a $30,000 check for the win, came close to blowing the tournament wide open early in the round, barely missing birdie putts on both the first and third holes. She finally rolled in a 12-footer 12-footer for birdie on the fifth and followed with a Moot birdie putt on the sixth. Stephenson bogeyed the seventh when she three-putted three-putted and made the turn at l-under-par 35, two shots in front of Daniel. But a two-shot swing on the 10th hole, when Stephenson birdied and Daniel bogeyed, was the turning point. Daniel, who had played inconsistent golf the entire tournament but still managed to stay in contention, bogeyed three more holes in succession. She finished with a 75 and a 285 total, good for a seventh-place tie with Hollis Stacy and Sandra Haynie. Daniel's collapse left Carner, who turned in 36 and birdied the 12th and 13th holes, and streaking Janet Alex as Stephenson's only competition. But Stephenson refused to fold, knocking in a long birdie putt on the 15th to offset a bogey she suffered on the 16th when she caught a bunker. Carner, who picked up $19,600 for second, finished with a birdie on the par-5 18th for a 69 and sole possession of second place at 281. |