After making a 4-foot birdie putt on the 54th hole Friday to claim the $11,000 winner’s check in the Colorado Women’s Open, Jessica Carafiello can joke to friends about being careful what you wish for.
A teaching pro from Coral Springs, Fla., Carafiello said she woke up prior to the final round at Green Valley Ranch “hoping I’d have a putt to win.”
Thanks to going bogey, double-bogey, double-bogey on holes 15-16-17, she did. Carafiello began the day with a four-stroke advantage and still led by that seemingly comfortable cushion before leaking oil on the home stretch.
Ultimately, Carafiello prevailed by a stroke with a wind-blown, 5-over-par 221 after a final-round 78. Her winning total matched the highest score to par for a champion in the 17-year history of the HealthOne Colorado Women’s Open. In 2004, Julie Tvede of Denmark also won in 5-over.
Recent Overland High School graduate Somin Lee claimed low-amateur honors by tying for sixth at 226, 10 over par.
“I didn’t feel too nervous out there,” said Carafiello, who played in the 2008 and ’09 Colorado Opens. “But, I don’t know, on that approach on 18, I was goofing off with the caddie, telling him, ‘Let’s get our nerves down a little bit here.’ “
At that point, Carafiello had fallen back into a tie for the lead with Joy Trotter of Chino Hills, Calif., who posted her 6-over 222 about 45 minutes earlier. But Carafiello hit a good drive on the 549-yard par-5 finishing hole, and then, with an iron, she set up a finesse approach shot of 71 yards to the pin.
Carafiello couldn’t have hit the wedge much better, landing the ball softly about 5 yards left of the pin and then watching, as if using a backstop the ball rolled down a tiered slope toward the cup. She took her time with the putt, even backing away from her stance, before draining it dead-center.
“That’s what we practice for,” said Carafiello, 27. “I was a little nervous because it was a left-to-righter, downhill. I told myself to keep my head down, wait until the ball goes in and then we can go celebrate.”
A former college player at Florida Atlantic, Carafiello played on the Futures Tour after turning pro in 2005. But she earned a career total of just $12,088, with no top-10 finishes, and turned to teaching full-time last fall.
“This was a long time coming,” she said Friday after the awards ceremony.
Playing a group ahead of Carafiello, former LPGA Tour regular Cindy Figg-Currier stood at 6-over entering the par-5 18th. But she left her approach short and it splashed into a greenside bunker. The bogey left her with a final-round 76 and lingering frustration.
“My putting . . . I just couldn’t get anything going,” Figg-Currier said.
Lee, heading this fall to college power Pepperdine, edged University of Oklahoma golfer Brooke Collins by a stroke for low-am honors. Collins, a former Monarch High standout, posted the low score of the day with a 3-under 69.
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
