Right up until she was standing on the 18th green, making her final putt of the tournament, Brigitte Thibault didn’t know she was winning the Kathy Whitworth Championship.

The three-stroke win in Trophy Club, Texas, was the first victory of the 24-year-old Thibault’s professional career. Thibault said she had just kept her head down for the third and final round of the Women’s All Pro Tour season finale.

“I had no idea what the leaderboard was. I was just trying to score as best as I could,” said Thibault. “It’s almost like I didn’t want to get ahead of myself and just felt like I just needed to keep pushing.”

Thibault finished the tournament 71-68-68 for a total of 207. The native of Rosemere, Que., came out of the front nine of her third round at 5 under, having three birdies and an eagle on the par-5 seventh hole at the Trophy Club Country Club.

She bogeyed the par-3 No. 13 to arrive at her final round score of 4-under 68 and the win.

“I kept missing great opportunities on the back nine,” said Thibault. “I’d reach a lot of pins and then not make the putts.

“I felt like I was giving it away, but I ended up coming up on top. That was exciting.”

Having won a professional event, Thibault’s next goal is to move up to a higher tier of women’s golf. That means a good showing in Stage II of the LPGA Tour’s qualifying series at Plantation Golf and Country Club in Venice, Fla., Oct. 17 to Oct. 20.

Thibault said she’ll be working with coach Chuck Cook in Austin, Texas, to ready herself for Stage II.

“Just preparation for what the course is asking for,” said Thibault. “Really make sure I’m comfortable with the type of shots that I’m going to need to be hitting. Just a lot of short game, to be honest.”

Winning the Kathy Whitworth Championship has shown Thibault that she can do it.

“My work is paying off and just to see it come to fruition is really exciting,” said Thibault. “But also just confidence in terms of like I’m trying to stay ready for Q-School and just to have competitive reps and to be able to come out on top it’s very encouraging on my end.”

It’s all been coming together for Megan Osland this winter.

Osland fired a 6-under 66 in the third round of Sunday’s Cactus Tour event for a one-shot victory. It’s the third win the native of Kelowna, B.C., has earned on the mini-tour this winter, and she feels she’s reaping the rewards of her hard work.

“I think it validates all the work that I’ve been doing in the off-season,” she said in an phone interview from Scottsdale, Ariz. “All my training is paying off.

“I’ve been working with my swing coach, my putting coach, and my mental coach. Everything’s coming together with all three of those.”

Osland said that she’s just made small adjustments in every facet of her game.

“Nothing major in any, in any category, just tweaking little things and just improving kind of the consistency of each area,” said Osland.

Those changes paid off in a three-stroke victory at the Sun City Country Club on Nov. 2, a seven-shot win at Riverview Golf Club on Jan. 15, and then Sunday’s win at Willow Creek Golf Club.

All three of those events were in Sun City, Ariz., but the Cactus Tour will shift to Beaumont, Calif., for its next two tournaments.

Osland plans to play in both as they could be a stepping stone from the developmental Cactus Tour to the second-tier Epson Tour. That circuit serves as a direct feeder to the LPGA Tour, the highest level of women’s professional golf.

“The carrot for that is the you get points for both of those tournaments and the overall point winner at the end of the two tournaments gets an exemption into an Epson Tour event,” said Osland, who played in five Epson Tour events in 2022 and was a regular on the second-tier circuit 2016-2019.

“Getting back on the Epson Tour full time is the biggest thing that I need to do. Then from there, obviously, the goal is to get an LPGA Tour card, whether that’s through Epson or Q-school at the end of the season.”

Osland’s hot start to the season puts her in a strong position to quickly meet her goals, as long as she continues to produce results.

“You’ve just got to play, well make some money, and then they’ve got a reshuffle in May,” said Osland, referring to the LPGA and Epson Tour’s annual recategorization. “Basically you can get reshuffled into having full status again, if you’ve made enough money.

“That’s the route that would be ideal if I can just get a couple starts early in the season.”

The Epson Tour kicks off its season next week with the Florida’s Natural Charity Classic at the Country Club of Winter Haven in Winter Haven, Fla. Sue Kim of Langley, B.C., won the event in 2015 and Samantha Richdale, also from Kelowna, took the title the next year for back-to-back Canadian wins.

Below is a list of how Canadian golfers fared across the major professional tours the week prior.

PGA TOUR

K.H. Lee eagled the 12th hole to take the lead for good on his way to a final round 63 and a one-shot victory over hometown favorite Jordan Spieth at the Byron Nelson. The 30-year-old South Korean joins Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus,  and Tom Watson as the only repeat winners at the event. Spieth finished a stroke ahead of Hideki Matsuyama and Sebastian Munoz. Xander Schauffele had a career-best 61 and tied for fifth with Ryan Palmer and Justin Thomas. …For just the second time this season Adam Svensson shot the same score in three of the four rounds played

NEXT EVENT:  PGA Championship (May 19)

CANADIANS ENTERED: Corey Conners, Adam Hadwin, Mackenzie Hughes,

LPGA TOUR

Minjee Lee made her only three birdies on the back nine of the final round but it was enough to hold off Lexi Thompson by two strokes in the Cognizant Founders Cup. It was her first victory of the year and seventh career LPGA title. Thompson, looking for her first LPGA Tour win since 2019, rallied from three down to grab a share of the lead with a birdie on No. 10. However, she closed with six straight pars for a final round 69. It was Thompson’s second runner-up finish in six events.

NEXT EVENT: Bank of Hope LPGA Match-Play (May 25)

CANADIANS ENTERED: Maude-Aimee Leblanc

PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS

Steve Stricker went wire-to-wire for a six stroke victory at the Regions Tradition, his fourth PGA Tour Champions major title. It was his second Tradition win and came in his third event since returning from a six-month absence due to health reasons. Paidrag Harrington bridied the final two holes to finish in second place. Steven Alker was in a five-way tie for third. He has finished four straight tournaments in the top three, winning twice. …Mike Weir snapped a streak of two straight top 20 finishes. …Stephen Ames posted his lowest result in eight starts this year

NEXT EVENT: KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship  (May 26)

CANADIANS ENTERED: TBA

KORN FERRY TOUR

Anders Albertson two-putted for birdie on the final hole for a one-stroke victory over Korn Ferry Tour points leader Carl Yuan in the Visit Knoxville Open. It was his first tour win since 2018. It was the sixth time in the first 12 events this season the margin of victory was one stroke, while another three events were decided in a sudden-death playoff. …After finishing 15 under par in his first event, Albin Choi is a combined 17 under par in his last four weekend starts

NEXT EVENT: AdventHealth Championship (May 19)

CANADIANS ENTERED: Albin Choi, Stuart Macdonald, Ben Silverman

EUROPEAN TOUR

Sam Horsfield carded a final round 68 to win the Soudal Open by two strokes. It was his third European tour title, and first since 2020. Ryan Fox, the overnight leader, needed a birdie on the final hole to force a playoff but made bogey to finish in a tie for second with Yannik Paul. Horsfield is two weeks into his return to the tour following a three-month injury layoff. There were no Canadians entered in the event.

NEXT EVENT: Dutch Open (May 26)

CANADIANS ENTERED: Aaron Cockerill

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) – The LPGA Tour has a new title sponsor for its developmental tour that will boost prize money, award $10,000 to each of the leading 10 players that graduate to the LPGA Tour and seek to eventually cut entry fees in half.

Epson America has a five-year deal with the LPGA Tour that runs through 2026.

The newly named Epson Tour, which is set to begin the first week of March in Florida, will announce its schedule in a few weeks.

“This ground-breaking partnership will provide expanded opportunities for the future stars of the game from around the globe to test their talent and take one step closer to realizing their dreams,” LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said.

The developmental tour enters its 42nd year of structured competition, and it has produced such future stars as Karrie Webb, Lorena Ochoa, Inbee Park and Nelly Korda. Nine players who started on the tour accounted for 12 victories last season on the LPGA Tour.

The LPGA’s deal with Symetra expired last year.

Japan-based Seiko Epson Corp., a global technology company, is the parent company of Epson America, based in California.

More than being the title sponsor of the main circuit that leads to the LPGA Tour, it will start the Epson Tour Ambassador Program, giving $10,000 to the 10 leading players to provide a financial boost as they start on the LPGA Tour.

The standard tournament prize money will be $200,000, another increase.

The commitment is believed to be roughly three times greater than the previous season.

The deal also includes Epson contributing money to lower entry fees by 10% each tournament for every player, which would amount to as much as a $1,000 savings for each player.

And through the Epson Tour DEI Partnership, the company and the LPGA are challenging at least four companies to join them by working to cut entry fees from $500 to $250. Participating companies would receive Pro-Am spots and advertising at every Epson Tour event.

“We don’t only want to put our name on the Epson Tour. We want to find ways to invest in players chasing their dream of the LPGA Tour and support them once that dream becomes a reality,” said Kendra Jones, Epson America’s vice president of legal affairs and general counsel.