Chien Pei-Yun (錢珮芸) overcame a two-shot deficit to earn her second Hitachi Air Conditioning Ladies Classic victory in four years. She shot a final-round 5-under 67 on Sunday to finish with a 54-hole total of 9-under par 207 and edge overnight leader Babe Liu (劉嬿) by two shots. The win is worth NT$2.5 million.

Thailand’s Kamonwan Lueamsri wrapped it up in a tie for third on 6-under 210 with Hou Yu-Sang (侯羽桑) and Juliana Hung (洪玉霖).

Amateur talent Wu Chun-Wei (吳純葳) finished this season-opening TLPGA Tour event on four consecutive birdies to take the low-amateur honor with a total of 5-under 211. This score put her on equal fifth on the final leaderboard with Lu Hsin-Yu (盧昕妤).

“It’s been a wonderful week here at the Hsin Yi Club in my hometown Kaohsiung. It has always been a special thing for everyone to win at the Hitachi Air Conditioning Classic and make a great start to the new year, and I’m lucky to have done it twice. It definitely gives me a lot of confidence going forward into the 2024 season,” said Chien, who won this event in 2021 at the Orient Golf & Country Club. “I would like to thank again the sponsors and the TLPGA staffs for putting together such an amazing first tournament of the year.”

36-hole leader Babe Liu held her lead through 12 holes today, despite being pressurized early by Chien’s 5th-hole eagle, but a string of narrow miscues on the par-5 13th gave her the biggest challenge of the day, before she ultimately three-putted and left the hole with a double-bogey, which created a three-shot swing and handed over the lead to Chien. “I did make some opportunities for myself after that, but only managed to convert one on the 16th,” Liu said. “I’m still very happy about my performance this week, considering where I was this time last year, golf-wise or mental-wise.”

Coming from two shots off Liu’s lead, Chien didn’t really started well enough to think she stood a chance at the victory. “The grain was pretty strong here. I struggled quite a bit at the beginning. And yeah, on that 5th hole, my tee shot fell into the right roughs, with about 114 yards left. Just a sudden thought, I was like ‘maybe I should try the 50-degree from here’, when normally I would choose that,” said Chien, who also scored an eagle yesterday on the final hole. “And it just flew in. I felt very lucky and it was when I realized, ‘yeah, I can probably win the whole thing’!”

After Liu gave away her top spot on the 13th, Chien caught another birdie on the 14th to cement her lead, and finally used four straight pars to seal the deal.

Another Kaohsiung-native Juliana Hung carded a Sunday 68, needing only 28 total attempts on the greens, to make her way back into a top-3 finish. She just won the 2023 year-end event at the Taiwan Mobile Ladies Open.

Hou Yu-Sang and Wu Chun-Wei made low-round 66s to finish in T3 and T6 respectively. With high fairway percentage and just 25 putts needed, Wu struck an impressive eight birdies to eventually earn her the low-amateur prize. The promising youngster will now start her preparation for the Australian Women′s Amateur Championship and the Women′s Amateur Asia-Pacific Championship.

Kamonwan Lueamsri closed the week with a 71 to finish in a tie for third. She is the best-performing international player.

The 16th Hitachi Air Conditioning Classic is presented by Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning Taiwan. Annual proceeds from the tournament will used to endow 11 local charities. Over the past fifteen years, the donation amount has reached as high as NT$93 million.