Thailand’s Ornnicha Konsunthea completed a wire-to-wire victory today at the NT$3-million KENDA Tires TLPGA Open, her first win on the TLPGA Tour.

She shot a final round 70 to register a 54-hole total of 10-under 206, winning by a two-shot margin. The victory is worth NT$540,000.

A surprise runner-up saw Wang Li-Ning (王莉甯) used six birdies on Friday to match Babe Liu’s (劉嬿) performance, who started the day just one stroke behind Konsunthea, at 8-under 208.

Like in her previous round, Konsunthea could not quite get things flowing early on. She made six straight pars before finding her first birdie on the par-3 7th, and gave it right back on the 8th after missing a 6-foot par putt. Meanwhile, her compatriot Nook Sukapan, who were three shots off at the start of the day, found her best game in the morning by making five birdies in eight holes and arrived at the turn tied for the lead.

Unfortunately for Sukapan, the silver momentum evaporated quickly. Her concentration level dropped on the back nine as she made no more birdies but three bogeys, and settled for just a T4 finish with Nanthikarn Raksachat and Chang Ching-Ling (張靖翎) at 6-under 210.

Konsunthea was twice a TLPGA Tour runner-up but now she can finally call herself a TLPGA Tour winner. “I think I probably played a little too safe from the beginning, and I’m glad finally the putts were starting to drop in the most important moments,” said Konsunthea. She needed just 27 attempts on the greens today.

Trailing by one shot only, Babe Liu failed to capitalize on Konsunthea’s slow start, as she herself had her first birdie as late as on the 10th hole. “My irons were a bit all over the place. That left me little to work with on the greens,” said Liu, who was a former champion here at the 2014 KENDA Tires Open.

Wang Li-Ning mounted a late surge with four birdies in the last eight holes to finish tied for second with Liu. “I didn’t do particularly well from the tees, but I was having an amazing day with the irons. My irons were behaving themselves and just put me inside five foot most of the time so I could be really aggressive out there on the greens. That was a great finish for me,” said Wang.

Lin Jie-En (林潔恩), who just turned 14 earlier this month, shot a final-round 72 to win the low-amateur honor. She finished in T26 on the final leaderboard at 1-over 217. Lu Ya-Huei (呂雅惠) turned in a 2-under 70 to conquer the field of the special 18-hole senior event, which was held concurrently at the Taichung International Country Club.

This is the 11th annual KENDA Tires TLPGA Open. The Changhua-based KENDA Rubber started to provide sponsorship supports to professional golfers in 2003. In KENDA’s 50th anniversary in 2013, the first KENDA Tires TLPGA Open was staged.