The game owes you nothing, so the theory goes, though in the final round of the U.S. Senior Women’s Open on Sunday, Leta Lindley played as though she was collecting on a debt that now is paid in full.

Lindley, 52, twice the runner-up in two previous starts in this national championship, turned a five-shot deficit to start the round into a two-stroke victory over 54-hole leader Kaori Yamamoto of Japan at Fox Chapel Golf Club in Pittsburgh.

“There’s no words,” Lindley said. “I’ve been dreaming about this day for so long, three years now before I turned 50, and I’ve imagined myself hoisting this trophy and winning this championship, and I dared to dream big. It’s just so satisfying to stand here now as your champion.

“I felt like as each year ticked by, there would be a new group of 50-year-old rookies coming out, and it would just get tougher and tougher, so third time is a charm. And I’m excited to go back to San Diego Country Club where I grew up in San Diego and to be the reigning champion and play there next year.”

She began the final round alone in second, five strokes back of Yamamoto, and closed with a seven-under par, bogey-free 64 for a 72-hole total of nine-under 275. Yamamoto, who has won four times on the Japanese LPGA’s Legends Tour, closed with an even-par 71 that included birdies on the final two holes to make the outcome look closer than it was over much of the back nine.

Lindley, a four-time All-American at Arizona whose roommate there and final-round playing partner on Sunday was Annika Sorenstam, enjoyed a long and modestly successful LPGA career that included only a single victory, in the LPGA Corning Classic in 2008. She finished second, losing in a playoff to Christa Johnson, in the McDonald’s LPGA Championship in 1997.

Her major championship disappointments continued into her senior years, finishing second to Jill McGill in 2022 and second to Trish Johnson in 2023 in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open.

At the outset of play on Sunday, she seemed destined only for another high finish, and again not high enough. Then she went out and wrested control of the championship with birdies on four of her first six holes, while Yamamoto played those six in two over, a six-shot swing that gave Lindley the lead.

When Yamamoto birdied the 11th hole, she briefly regained a share of the lead. But consecutive bogeys at 13 and 14, while Lindley made consecutive birdies at 14 and 15, gave the American a four-stroke lead with two holes to play, essentially sealing the victory.

“It’s amazing. I just am in shock,” she said. “I’m dead serious that for the last three years I’ve had Post-it notes on my mirror saying ‘U.S. Senior Women’s Open champion, you can do this, why not you.’ I have several Post-it notes, and I brought them with me. They’re in my calendar. I’ve been thinking about that literally for three years, about hoisting this trophy and telling myself that I was good enough to do this and good enough to win this championship.”

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com