Angela Stanford, in her 20th year on the LPGA Tour, shot the round of the day to win by two shots at the Volunteers of America Classic on Sunday.
American veteran Angela Stanford captured her seventh LPGA Tour title with a two-stroke victory at the LPGA Volunteers of America Classic in her home state of Texas.
The 43-year-old Texan began the final round one shot behind the leaders, but carded seven birdies in a four-under-par 67 to finish on -7 and pick-up her first LPGA title since her major win at the Evian Championship in 2018.
Stanford is the first player at or over the age of 40 to win on the LPGA Tour since America's Cristie Kerr at the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia in 2017 and Scotland's Catriona Matthew at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in 2011.
Major winners, South Korea's Inbee Park and Ryu So-yeon, who had tied for the overnight lead with the American rookie Yealimi Noh, had to settle for a share of second on -5 after all three players shot a one-under-par final round of 70.
World number one, South Korea's Ko Jin-young, who started the day one behind the leaders with Stanford, got herself briefly into a share for second after two birdies, but a double bogey at the par-four 14th halted her challenge and she finished alone in fifth on -4.
England's Charley Hull eagled the 17th to finish with a level-par 71 and tie for sixth place with Sweden's Anna Nordqvist on -3.
After her win Stanford said:
"It’s pretty cool since my parents have never seen my win in person. “It was fun to have my dad walking around the whole time and then mom at the end. I know there are going to be a lot of people giving me grief because I did it during a COVID year and nobody could come out. But to have my parents here, that was a pretty big deal."
Stanford, also revealed she had been working hard with coach Todd Kolb on her short game, one of her key assets during the week.
"After the Evian, it would have been easy to be satisfied and I think I was for a little bit," she added. "But then there's just something about bad golf. I don't like bad golf."
"So I really kind of went to work with my instructor, Todd, up in South Dakota and it was always my short game. My short game's always kind of held me back. I told him I would commit to it if he would commit to help me a certain way."
"So it was fun to win around here because I've struggled here because of my short game."
The US Women's Open starts in Houston on Thursday, with the season-ending Tour Championship the following week in Florida.
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