By MARK NELKE

Sports editor

WORLEY — After spending the 2020 and ’21 seasons on the LPGA Tour, Jillian Hollis would like to return to the top women’s professional golf tour next year.

And you wouldn’t blame her if she’d like to take the greens at Circling Raven Golf Club with her.

Hollis birdied nine holes on Sunday, with the last two birdie putts totaling more than 100 feet, en route to a final-round 64 and a two-shot victory at the Epson Tour’s Circling Raven Championship at Circling Raven.

“These greens … they’re so good,” said Hollis, 25. "These greens are so good; they remind me a lot of the bent(grass) greens I play on at home (in Ohio); they’re just perfect. You get a good read and a good speed, like, you’re not wondering … are the greens different? Every green’s the same. We’re so lucky we get to come here and play on such a great golf course. … It's awesome. They did a great job.”

Hollis finished at 18-under-par 198 (68-66-64) to receive a first-place check of $30,000 out of a total purse of $200,000. It was her first victory since 2019, when the Epson Tour was called the Symetra Tour. She won twice that year, and finished fifth on the money list to qualify for the LPGA Tour.

There, she played 27 events in two years, making the cut four times, with a best finish of T13 at the ISPS Handa Women's Australian Open in 2020.

“It’s been like three years since I’ve won a golf tournament,” said Hollis, a three-time All-American at Georgia. “The COVID times were pretty rough for me; 2020 and 2021, I struggled a lot. And then to just be able to go out and win again is such a cool feeling. I feel more like myself now, and this whole year. It felt really natural, how I played today. It was so fun being in contention again.”

Hollis played in the second-to-last group. After she finished, Robyn Choi, in the final group, birdied the par-4 17th hole to pull within one shot of Hollis. Needing birdie at the last to force a playoff, Choi pulled her second shot left of the green. She had a difficult chip from about 10 yards off the green to an elevated putting surface, and, needing to hole it, she left it just short of the green, and finished with a bogey.

Choi had seven birdies and shot 68-66-66—200 for her best finish on the Epson Tour.

Rookie Alexa Pano had seven birdies — all in the first 13 holes — and was within one stroke of the lead at one point on the back nine before finishing with a 65 and a 14-under 202.

Hollis, Choi, Jessica Welch and Hyo Joon Jang were tied for the lead entering Sunday’s final round of the 54-hole tournament. Jang shot 69 and tied for fourth at 13 under. Welch shot 71 and tied for seventh at 11-under.

On Sunday, Hollis birdied the first three holes (the nines at Circling Raven are flipped for this tournament), bogeyed No. 4 and birdied 5, 7 and 8 en route to a front-nine 31.

She birdied 14, 15 and 17 on the back, rolling in an estimated 60-footer on the par-4 15, and an estimated 42-footer on the par-4 17th.

“It was good every day,” Hollis said of her putting in the tournament. “I made a lot of really long putts. The greens were pretty firm, and the fairways were kinda firm, so you didn’t have a lot of easy shots into the greens, so I had a lot of 30-plus feet putts, and just made them this week. I’ve been working really hard on my putting … It's good that it finally all came together this week.”

On the par-3 12th, Hollis found the sand for the first time all week, but got up and down, sinking a 5-footer for par.

Hollis said she hit two bad drives all week — both on 17. Sunday’s tee shot left her on the left side of the fairway, with a sidehill lie. Rather than take on a pin tucked behind a bunker on the right side, she hit a 9-iron from 140 yards that trickled onto the left side of the green. She rolled in the long putt for a two-stroke lead.

On the par-4 18th, she was just short of the green in two, but chipped to 2 feet, sank the putt and smiled to the appreciative fans lining one side of the closing green.

Hollis said she didn’t look much at a leaderboard all week.

“I didn’t look at all today,” she said. “I had looked the day before, and just … doesn’t really matter, I’m just going to play my own game, I’m going to try to keep making birdies, because I know that this course is super gettable. I played in the wind the last two days, being in the afternoon (on Friday)/morning (on Saturday) wave. Having no wind today, I was like, I’m really going to have to hit good golf shots and play well. It doesn’t really matter what everybody else was doing. It did on the last hole. I checked (the leaderboard) because I had a little chip and I was like, ‘Do I need to hit this tight? Do I need to hit it in?’ so I looked, and I thought I probably needed to make a par, at least.”

Pano moved up from ninth to seventh on the money list.

Hollis bettered by two strokes last year’s winning score at the inaugural Circling Raven Championship, when Peiyun Chien won at 16 under 200.

The win moved Hollis from 24th to eighth on the Epson Tour money list. The top 10 at season’s end qualify for the LPGA Tour in 2023.

There are five events remaining in the Epson Tour season. Hollis is headed to Pendleton, Ore., this week for the inaugural Wildhorse Ladies Golf Classic.

The following week, she’s scheduled to play in the LPGA Tour’s Kroger Queen City Championship in Cincinnati on a sponsor’s exemption. Hollis is from Rocky River, Ohio, some 250 miles from Cincinnati.

Sophie Hausmann, the former University of Idaho star, shot 71 on Sunday and tied for 38th at 4-under 212.

Gabby Lemieux, from Caldwell, shot 70 in the final round and finished in a tie for 50th at 3-under 213.

Next year will be the third year of a three-year deal between the Epson Tour and The Coeur d’Alene Tribe for Circling Raven to host the Circling Raven Championship.

TOP FINISHERS

Jillian Hollis 68-66-64—198 -18

Robyn Choi 68-66-66—200 -16

Alexa Pano 67-70-65—202 -14

Polly Mack 65-71-67—203 -13

Gabriela Ruffels 66-69-68—203 -13

Hyo Joon Jang 67-67-69—203 -13

Grace Kim 67-68-70—205 -11

Jessica Welch69-65-71—205 -11

Kristin Coleman 70-70-66—206 -10

Riley Rennell 69-71-67—207 -9

Dani Holmqvist 69-70-68—207 -9

Dottie Ardina 68-79-69—207 -9

Amelia Garvey 70-67-70—207 -9

Full scores: https://www.epsontour.com/tournaments/circling-raven-championship/leaderboard