When Kristalle Blum signed for a final round three-under 69 at the Arkea Montauban Ladies Open, she had no idea where she stood on the leaderboard.
It came as a pleasant surprise when the Australian 28-year-old golfer, who shot five-under overall, found out she finished in solo second place; only one stroke behind eventual champion Lauren Holmey.
“I didn’t think I had any chance of winning, so that was a little bit of a shock,” Blum said. “It’s like the best result, probably in about four years. I just felt really calm last week. I had a few things go on in Austria that were sort of out of my control, and I was just not really in a great space mentally.
“I wasn’t too fussed with how I played out there, I was just keeping calm. It was nice to see it all sort of click last week. My putting was great, which definitely made a difference. It was the best I felt on the golf course for a really long time.”
Blum is eager to carry her good form into this week’s Raiffeisen Bank Czech Ladies Challenge on the LET Access Series (LETAS), the fourth event of the season taking place from June 12-14 at Panorama Golf Resort.
She will be competing amongst a field of 132 players comprising 32 nationalities and 27 local Czech players.
Blum said: “I played the front nine this morning, it’s pretty tricky. I didn’t really hit driver a lot, so it’s just about keeping it in play. It’s really hilly and definitely playing longer this year because it’s like so wet so there’s not a lot of run out there.
“The key is just to hit fairways, hit greens and try not to do anything too crazy.”
Her second-place finish in France, netting her a €5,300 payday, came after eight consecutive missed cuts in 2026.
“I haven’t had a great summer back home, so it was a bit hard,” she said. “But I also feel the results haven’t necessarily showcased how I played. I’ve felt like I was playing fairly well but it was just a few things missing.
“Last week, I really eliminated those errors, and I just tried to keep the ball in play and miss it in spots that I knew I could still make pars or birdies. I stuck to my game plan for the week and obviously it paid off. It does give me a lot of confidence heading into this week.”
Blum’s maiden win came in 2022, when she clinched the Golf Vlaanderen LETAS Trophy in Belgium. She took a brief break from golf in 2024 to take care of her mental health after experiencing anxiety and negative thoughts on the course.
At the Webex Players Series Victoria, she recorded an impressive T-13 finish on 10-under-par in a mixed-gender field but revealed she suffered a panic attack 15 minutes before her first-round tee time.
“Coming into this year, I definitely felt a lot calmer,” she said. “There’s just been so many things going on in my life over the last few years that you kind of go, okay, there’s worse things that you could be doing, there’s so many other things going on that are more important than golf.
“Me going out and shooting six-over or 10-over or 10-under, like at the end of the day, it’s not going to make a massive difference. Obviously you want to play well, but I just think I’ve sort of accepted when worse things happen, and just to enjoy the experiences that I get to have that so many people don’t.”
Blum was introduced to golf by her mother and grandfather, who also played golf professionally, after moving from Australia to the United Kingdom at the age of three.
Her grandfather passed away in 2024.
“It was just one of those years where everything kind of went wrong and nothing went right,” she said. “Hopefully now we can keep pushing forward and hopefully I can get a win for him in the next few months.
“My obvious goal is to finish in the top seven and get my card for the LET next year. I don’t really have any super specific result-oriented goals, but I think just seeing where I am at, I could maybe sit down, reassess a little bit and make a new plan.”
Currently sitting seventh in the LETAS Order of Merit on 320.00 points, Blum is in a good position to earn her LET card for the 2027 season but she is not counting her chickens yet.
“I’ve already made more points than what I did in a full season last year, so I didn’t come over with too many expectations,” she added. “I’m now in a really good spot, but there’s 16 events left so it doesn’t matter where you are over the next three months, it’s about where you end up finishing at the end of November.”
Blum will tee it up in the first round of the Raiffeisen Bank Czech Ladies Challenge at 8.29am (local time) alongside Switzerland’s Caroline Sturdza and Sweden’s Elsa Svensson.
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