France’s Evienne Le Bain – Golf wasn’t Gabriella Raffels’ first love, growing up with the desire to become a professional tennis player.
Now they see themselves becoming an unlikely major winner in their adoption sport.
Gainer, a British woman ranked No. 129, and Ruffels, the 71st Australian, will be in the final group of Sunday’s Evian Championship after winning the field in the third round of the fourth major in women’s golf.
On a glorious Saturday at Evian Resort Golf Club, Gayner shot a 7-under 64, moving to 11-under that week, with Raffels taking the lead, who shot a 66.
But they have many high quality companies on the leaderboard.
Latest winner of the Women’s PGA Championship, No. 6 Minzie Lee shot 66 and was a stroke from co-leaders to win back-to-back major titles as the first woman since Inbee Park in 2013.
Second-ranked Jeeno Thitikul (67), who has not yet scored majors, was tied down at Lee and 10 under with second-round leaders Somi Lee (71) and Grace Kim (70).
They all put pressure on Gayner and Raffels, who have been keenly looking at the Wimbledon Tennis Championship this week, finishing the three rounds just before the start of the women’s singles final between Amanda Anismova and IGA Swiatek.
They’ll definitely be seeing it.
“Tennis was my first love,” said the 29-year-old winner. “I’m still really enjoying it. I’m not playing anymore, but I love watching it. Clearly Wimbledon is this week, so that’s my night.”
Like Gayner, Raffel had a tennis coach and a former player for his father. Ray Ruffels was Australia’s three-time open singles semifinalist and arrived in 1978 at the Open Mixed Doubles Finals in the US with Billy Junking and Wimbledon.
Gabriella Raffels was very good as the No. 1 junior in Australia, and although she won many ITF junior events in Europe, she became golfing around the age of 14 and was the 2019 US women’s amateur champion.
Before coming to the French Alps, she stopped by Wimbledon with her boyfriend to be a guest at the retired Australian doubles Great Todd Woodbridge.
“It was a very cool experience,” said Raffel, 25. “It was great not to get through jet lag without touching the club for a few days. It seems like he was working this week.”
