While 2020 has been a challenging year for most, Denmark’s Emily Kristine Pedersen at least is enjoying a breakthrough season for the ages.Back-to-back Ladies European Tour (LET) wins in November for the Copenhagen native mean she has already wrapped up the 2020 Order of Merit title with a tournament to spare, cementing her status as one of golf’s rising stars.”This has obviously been a strange year for all of us with Covid,” Pedersen, 24, told reporters after securing her second win in a row, at Saudi Arabia’s Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, north of Jeddah earlier this month, to make history as the first woman to win a professional golf tournament in the Kingdom.”Everyone’s saying it’s such a bad year and I’m here having the best year ever, so it’s a little weird but I’m just really happy.”
Prior to this season, Pedersen had only one victory to her name and that came in October 2015, her debut season as a professional. Five years on, her fortunes have certainly changed. Having narrowly missed out in a playoff to former world No.1 Stacey Lewis at the Ladies Scottish Open in August, Pedersen cruised to a four-shot victory at the Czech Ladies Open two weeks later to end her long wait for a Tour title.
Playing with the confidence that her form merits, Pedersen’s performance in the closing stages of her final round at the Saudi Ladies International showed why she is one of the in-form players in the women’s game. Trailing 2018 British Open winner Georgia Hall by three shots with five holes to play, Pedersen played some inspired golf in the closing stages, including a phenomenal second shot into the par-five 18th to set up a birdie and force a playoff.”[The conversation with my caddy] was like, we’re going to go for it because that’s the best option for us, to make a birdie. I hit a fantastic shot and gave myself the opportunity,” Pedersen told CNN’s Living Golf’s Shane O’Donoghue. After going on to repeat the trick on the playoff hole, Pedersen was asked what was on her mind going into the duel with Hall. “To win,” she said with a smile.
“It’s very special,” she added of her historic victory.”I’m really happy that I got to be the first … It’s a bright future, I think, and I believe that I’ll come back here for many years.”
With the U.S. Women’s Open still to play this year and the 2021 Solheim Cup on the horizon, Pedersen has picked the perfect moment to find the form of her life. And with over $200,000 in prize money earned and two wins under her belt, November has been a fruitful month for the young Dane.
CNN Sports
