ÉVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — In her 18th year on tour, after a wild and tearful final few holes, Angela Stanford became a major tournament champion on Sunday.
It was a long journey to an unlikely one-shot victory at the Evian Championship for a player who believed as an L.P.G.A. rookie in 2001 that major titles would come sooner than her 40th birthday — and probably not in France.
“I would have laughed, ‘No way, it’s going to happen before,’” said Stanford, whose runner-up finish at the 2003 United States Women’s Open was the first of 13 top-10 finishes in majors without a win.