Ingrid Lindblad wins JM Eagle LA Championship in 3rd start as LPGA Tour member

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ingrid Lindblad won the JM Eagle LA Championship on Sunday in her third start as an LPGA Tour member, avoiding a playoff when fellow rookie Akie Iwai bogeyed the final hole at El Caballero Country Club.

“You should never not expect it, right?” Lindblad said. “But obviously got it done in a couple starts. Just kind of crazy.”

Playing a group ahead of Iwai, Lindblad shot a 4-under 68 to finish at 21-under 277. The 25-year-old former LSU star from Sweden made the last of her six birdies on the par-5 11th and parred the final seven holes. She had two front-nine bogeys.

“Felt like I could have made a couple more birdies on the back nine but nothing really wanted to drop. I feel like I was just trying to like be where you can’t see if you’re 5-under par or 5-over par. Just staying in the moment and show no emotion. But sometimes it’s hard to show no emotion.”

Iwai followed a third-round 64 with a 69 to fall a stroke short.

“I got confidence, yeah, but I lose this week,” Iwai said. “But I got confidence, a lot. Little by little, this week, next week, the next week, just keep going”

The 22-year-old Japanese player's twin sister, Chisato, tied for 11th at 15 under after a 68. The sisters played alongside each other Saturday.

Iwai pulled even with Lindblad at 21 under with a birdie on the par-5 16th. After her drive went left and bounced twice on the cart path, Iwai hit a low cut around a tree to the front edge of the green and rolled a 75-foot eagle putt to inches.

On the par-4 18th, Iwai drove to the right over a bunker into rough, then hit a 9-iron from 150 that bounced near the flag and went off the back edge.

“Maybe I have adrenaline,” Iwai said. “But I don’t like short.”

From a good lie in choppy rough, she ran the downhill chip past the hole and missed the comebacker.

“That was a tough putt,” she said.

Lindblad got a break on the par-4 13th when her drive struck a tree on the left side and bounced into the fairway. She parred the hole to maintain a two-stroke lead.

“I don’t know the camera guy up there, but he was like, `There was a little squirrel up there who was nice to you and bumped it out on the fairway,'” Lindblad said.

Lauren Coughlin (70), Esther Henseleit (64), Miyu Yamashita (66) tied for third at 19 under. Nasa Hataoka had a 63 to get to 18 under.

Hannah Green, the winner each of the last two seasons at Wilshire Country Club, closed with a 67 to tie for ninth at 16 under. Second-ranked Jeeno Thitikul also was 16 under after a 69.

Top-ranked Nelly Korda had a 72 to tie for 16th at 14 under in her final start before her title defense in the Chevron Championship. The major event starts Thursday outside Houston at The Woodlands.

The tournament — the final event of the tour’s West Coast swing — was played at El Caballero because of renovations at Wilshire. It will return to Wilshire next season.

Lindblad also shot 68 in the first and second rounds and had a 63 on Friday.

“I feel like I played pretty aggressive all week,” Lindblad said. “I think it would just hurt me if we were trying to get too defensive. Felt like we stuck to the same game plan as we had the first three days, and turns out it worked out really well.”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Ingrid Lindblad hits from the fifteenth tee during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad lines up her putt on the fifteenth green during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad putts on the fourteenth green during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad looks on after hitting from the fifteenth tee during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad reacts while being sprayed with champagne after winning the LPGA JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club, Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad reacts while being sprayed with champagne after winning the LPGA JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club, Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Yuri Yoshida hits from the sixth tee during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Savannah Katarina Grewal hits from the fifth tee during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Akie Iwai hits from the seventh fairway during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Akie Iwai hits on the sixth hole during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Lauren Coughlin hits from the seventh tee during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad putts on the sixth green during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Akie Iwai hits from the seventh tee during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad hits from the bunker on the sixth hole during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad poses with the trophy after winning the LPGA JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club, Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad hits from the sixth tee during the final round of the LPGA's JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Ingrid Lindblad poses with the trophy after winning the LPGA JM Eagle LA Championship golf tournament at El Caballero Country Club, Sunday, April 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — President Donald Trump offered some encouraging words and advice for graduating students at the University of Alabama on Thursday in a speech interspersed with impressions of transgender weightlifters, accusations that judges were interfering with his agenda and attacks on his predecessor, Joe Biden.

The Republican’s jolting speech was standard fare for Trump and well-received by the crowd in deep-red Alabama, which backed him in all three of his presidential runs.

“You’re the first graduating class of the golden age of America,” the president told the graduates.

But he quickly launched into a campaign-style diatribe, saying that the U.S. was being “ripped off” before he took office and that the last four years, when he was out of power, “were not good for our country.”

“But don’t let that scare you,” he said. “It was an aberration.”

The president of the University of Alabama, Stuart Bell, told graduates before Trump took the stage that Thursday night’s event was all about them.

“This special ceremony offers a meaningful opportunity for you, for I, to reflect on the important connection between academic inquiry, civic leadership, and public service,” Bell said.

Trump mostly went in a different direction.

He did a grunting impression of a female weightlifter as he criticized the participation of transgender women in sports. He bragged about how tech moguls have warmed up to him, saying, “They all hated me in my first term, and now they’re kissing my ass.”

And he falsely claimed that the 2020 election, which he lost, was “rigged.”

But after talking up his tariff plans, sharing his successes from his first 100 days in office and bashing the media, Trump turned back to the graduates, offering 10 pieces of advice drawn from his life and career, such as “Think of yourself as a winner,” “Be an original” and “Never, ever give up.”

He told them they were never too young to be successful and described how he worked on his first hotel development deal in his 20s.

“Now is the time to work harder than you’ve ever worked before,” he said. “Find your limits and then smash through everything.”

Although Trump described the speech as a commencement address, it is actually a special event that was created before graduation ceremonies that begin Friday. Graduating students had the option of attending the event.

Former Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban also spoke, regaling the audience with a story about visiting the Oval Office in 2018 during Trump's first term. Saban said Trump was a gracious host.

In his remarks Thursday, Trump noted that he was marking his 100th day in office and touted the plummeting levels of arrests at the southern U.S. border as evidence that his immigration policies were working. But he accused the courts of trying to stop him from fulfilling the promises he made on the campaign trail.

“Judges are interfering, supposedly based on due process,” he said. “But how can you give due process to people who came into our country illegally?”

Trump has a long history of injecting such rhetoric into his remarks at venues where traditional political talk was seen as unseemly.

On his first full day in office in 2017, he used a speech at a memorial for fallen CIA agents to complain about journalists and defend the size of his crowd at the inauguration. Later that year, he drew backlash for talking about politics at a Boy Scouts gathering. And earlier this year, he delivered a grievance-filled speech at the Justice Department where he threatened to “expose” his enemies.

Ahead of Trump's arrival, Emily Appel, a 22-year-old advertising major from Norcross, Georgia, called Trump's appearance at her school “a cherry on top” of her college years.

She said she hoped he had a message to share that was "positive about us being able to work in the real world and for our future.”

Sophie Best, who is graduating with a communications degree, said, “I don’t think that we could have had a greater person come to speak."

The 21-year-old from Cartersville, Georgia, said she attended Trump's first presidential inauguration in 2017 when she was a freshman in high school, along with her father, who she said loves Trump.

“I think that no matter what political party or whatever you believe in, I think that it’s super cool that we get to experience and make history and be a part of this,” she said.

At a park a mile away, hundreds of people gathered at a counter-rally hosted by College Democrats. One-time presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke of Texas and former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Alabama, addressed the attendees at their event, called a “Tide Against Trump” — a play on the university’s nickname.

Aidan Meyers, a 21-year-old junior studying biology at the university, said he was upset by the decision to let Trump speak at a graduation-related event.

“I felt betrayed that the university was willing to put up with someone who has made it clear that they hate academia, essentially holding funding above universities' heads as a bargaining chip, unless they bow down to what he wants, which is kind of a hallmark sign with fascist regime,” Meyers said.

O'Rourke told the rally that Trump was trying to make the students’ graduation “all about him, true to form.” He urged students and others gathered to go out and use their voices to “win America back.”

“The power of people works in this country, even against Donald Trump,” O’Rourke said.

Jones told the crowd they were there “not just as a protest, but as a movement.”

“You are here today because you’re concerned, you’re afraid. You understand that this country’s great democracy is teetering right now with what we’re seeing going on,” the former senator said.

Trump’s presence also drew criticism from the Alabama NAACP, which said his policies are hurting universities and students, particularly students of color.

After his stop in Alabama, Trump is scheduled to travel to Florida for a long weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Later this month, he is scheduled to give the commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.

Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

Former presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke of Texas speaks next to former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama at a rally called "Tide Against Trump" in Tuscaloosa, Ala., held in opposition to President Donald Trump's appearance on campus on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Kimberly Chandler)

Former presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke of Texas speaks at a rally called "Tide Against Trump" in Tuscaloosa, Ala., held in opposition to President Donald Trump's appearance on campus on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Kimberly Chandler)

Nick Saban speaks before President Donald Trump arrives to give a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

President Donald Trump gives a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Nick Saban speaks before President Donald Trump arrives to give a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

President Donald Trump arrives to give a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Donald Trump arrives to give a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Donald Trump arrives to give a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala.(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Donald Trump dances after giving a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

President Donald Trump gives a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

President Donald Trump yells after giving a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

President Donald Trump talks about transgender weightlifters as gives a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

President Donald Trump gestures after giving a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Donald Trump arrives at Tuscaloosa National Airport, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Donald Trump arrives at Tuscaloosa National Airport, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

University of Alabama president Stuart Bell speaks before President Donald Trump arrives to give a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

President Donald Trump arrives at Tuscaloosa National Airport, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Donald Trump walks with Air Force Col. Angela Ochoa, Commander of the 89th Airlift Wing from Marine One to board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., en route Tuscaloosa National Airport, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)