When Céline Boutier of France returned home this week for the Evian Championship, she arrived at Évian-les-Bains as a different player than when she stepped onto home turf in 2018.
Boutier, a native of Clamart, is now an L.P.G.A. tour winner.
And even at 25, the third-year tour member brings new expectations to the major championship, not only as a young professional on the rise, but also as the world’s top-ranked woman from France at No. 71.
She has posted three top-10 finishes in 2019, including her inaugural L.P.G.A. victory in February at the ISPS Handa Vic Open in Australia. She also tied for fifth at this year’s United States Women’s Open in May.
“I’m pretty excited to go back home to play,” said Boutier, who lives in Dallas and works with the swing coach Cameron McCormick, swing guru of the PGA Tour winner Jordan Spieth.
“I feel more confident about my game, so I also feel more positive about going and performing well at Evian,” Boutier said. “I haven’t played well there in a while, so I am looking forward to the challenge.”
The 2019 Evian Championship will be only the fourth appearance at this event for Boutier, who tied for 29th when she played as an amateur in 2014, and finished one shot behind Karine Icher, France’s top-ranked player at the time.
Boutier played again at Evian Resort Golf Club as an amateur in 2015 and missed the cut. Playing Evian in her first year as a pro, she tied for 69th at the 2018 championship.
“She is very accurate, calm and smart for her age and experience as a young professional,” said Icher, who has been the top French finisher at Evian for six of the last 10 years.
But Boutier, whose parents are Thai, was not a child who was confident growing up on the outskirts of Paris.
“I was never super talented at anything,” she said in March during the L.P.G.A.’s Bank of Hope Founders Cup. “I feel like when I started, a lot of people were kind of saying that I would never get there because I was too robotic, that I didn’t really have the level [of skill], and I wasn’t good enough.”
Because of schedule conflicts with the French National Championships — held at the same time as the Evian tournament — Boutier missed receiving amateur invitations for the Evian when it was held for many years in July. The former French National Team member helped her country win the 2010 and 2011 European Team Championships.
By the time the Evian was moved to a late-summer date, she was in school at Duke University, where she would become the 2013-14 national player of the year as a freshman and help Duke win a N.C.A.A. Division I Women’s golf championship, paced by her runner-up finish.
When she accepted the invitation to play the Evian in 2014, it fulfilled a childhood dream.
“I would watch it on TV every year, and it was always a big deal,” Boutier said.
Boutier’s transition into professional golf has been marked by steady, gradual progress. She had conditional playing status on the 2017 L.P.G.A. tour, but opted to spend the season on its pipeline Symetra Tour in 2017, where she recorded eight top-10 finishes, including two wins.
That performance landed her at the No. 3 spot on the 2017 Symetra Tour’s season money list, which rewarded her with full 2018 L.P.G.A. tour membership. Boutier earned her first L.P.G.A. top-10 with a third-place finish at the 2018 Blue Bay L.P.G.A. tournament.
And her new confidence was on full display when she carded a career low of 63 in the third round of the 2018 Thornberry Creek L.P.G.A. Classic.
But the soft-spoken, nonflashy player has always concentrated on tiny individual goals with laser focus.
“I first met her when we were freshmen at Duke, and nothing really stood out in her game, but the more I was around her, the more I realized how good she is,” said Yu Liu of Beijing, world-ranked at No. 37.
“Céline takes practice very seriously and is a well-rounded player,” said Liu, who was on Duke’s 2014 championship team with Boutier.
But even with the guidance of Dan Brooks, the Duke women’s golf coach, whose teams have won seven national titles, and McCormick, who has been polishing Boutier’s on-course confidence, she wrestled with her self-belief before her first win this year.
“I used to be more dependent on my golf coaches and other people’s opinions, and now I have more confidence in my swing and the way I approach the game,” Boutier said.
“I knew I could finish in the top 10 last year, but I just wasn’t convinced that I had the level to win,” she added. “Unless you think that you can do it, you’re not going to do it.”
And when victory came early this year, Boutier may have been the only one who was not surprised.
“She knows how to handle herself when it really matters and when you do have an opportunity to win, that’s what makes the real difference between the greatest players and the good players,” Liu said.
Icher, who paired with Boutier in last week’s L.P.G.A. team tournament in Michigan, watched as Boutier stepped up at this year’s U.S. Women’s Open. Icher said she believed that Boutier would have no problem handling the stress of home-country expectations at the Evian this week.
And Brooks said her return as a tournament winner could make her homecoming even sweeter.
“Wins have a way of relieving pressure,” he said. “To head to her country as a winner should be a relief.”
Boutier admitted to a mixture of excitement and stress to be playing the Evian, but she also acknowledged having moved to a new place in her life as a tournament winner.
“I proved something to myself to win a tournament, and I’m hoping this is just the beginning,” said Boutier, who is also in position to land a spot on this year’s European Solheim Cup team in Scotland in mid-September.
“It’s not that easy to get your first win on the L.P.G.A., and some people never do,” she said.
Boutier’s top-five finish at the Women’s Open also signaled that she was ready to contend at major championships.
The Evian Championship, the fourth of the L.P.G.A.’s five majors, is on a course that fits her game and rewards the kind of accurate approach shots she typically hits, Boutier said. She has a season average of 71.4 percent greens hit in regulation.
Her first dream-come-true came five years ago when she was asked to play at Evian. Now, she has learned to dream bigger.
“Honestly, if there was one tournament I could pick to win,” she said, “it would be this one.”
Source : NYtimes
