Royal Lytham & St Annes doesn't do quiet finishes, and the 2026 AIG Women's Open just proved it. Shiho Kuwaki came in having overturned a 3-shot deficit during an eventful final round, closing with a 1-under 70 to get to 5-under. That should've been enough to win a major outright. It wasn't.
Esther Henseleit's clutch birdie on the 72nd hole ties the leaderboard and forces sudden death.
Because Esther Henseleit had other plans. She drained a 45-foot birdie putt on the final hole to catch Kuwaki at 5-under, and just like that a coronation turned into extra holes. That's the kind of putt that gets replayed for years — the difference between a runner-up finish and a shot at your first major, made from a spot on the green where most players are just trying to two-putt and go home.
The playoff itself was every bit as chaotic. Both players went back to the par-4 18th for sudden death, and Kuwaki promptly hit an errant drive that looked like it might hand the tournament right back to Henseleit. Instead, she scrambled to an unlikely par. Henseleit had a 10-foot birdie putt to win it on the spot and missed. That's golf — the same hole that made a hero out of one player 30 minutes earlier turned around and made a villain out of the other.
Kuwaki, 23, took the second playoff hole and the title, becoming the 2nd straight Japanese winner of the AIG Women's Open and picking up her first career major. The moment hit differently given how the round actually went — she was down 3 shots at one point on Sunday and had to claw all the way back just to force the extra holes she'd eventually win. According to Golf Digest, Kuwaki's game has been described as confident and 'out there,' the kind of personality that doesn't rattle easily when a rival makes a 45-footer to extend your day.
For Henseleit, it's a brutal one to swallow. She did everything right to get into that playoff — the 72nd-hole birdie was as good as it gets under pressure — and still walked away without the trophy after missing from 10 feet with a chance to end it immediately. Kuwaki's win is worth remembering less for the final scorecard and more for how much drama got packed into the last hour: a leaderboard tie nobody saw coming, an errant drive that should've been fatal, and a par save that wasn't.