Bianca Pagdanganan carded a closing 1-under-par 71 to finish tied for seventh place in the Mizuho Americas Open in New Jersey City over the weekend.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympian remained steady in the fourth and final round and fired a single birdie in the par-3 second hole to finish with a 9-under 279, five strokes behind eventual champion and world No. 1 Nelly Korda.

Korda posted a similar 71 highlighted by four birdies against three bogeys at the front nine for a four-round aggregate of 274. She had earlier rounds of 70, 68 and 65.

After a second-round 74 that plummeted her to joint 35^th, Pagdanganan vaulted back into contention with a sizzling 66 in the third round to leapfrog to a share of eighth place.

She had an opening 68.

With the feat, Pagdanganan tied with six others that include Marina Alex (68), Yuna Nishimura (69), Patty Tavatanakit (70), Atthaya Thitikul (70), Sei Young Kim (71) and Ayaka Furue (73).

She pocketed $64,365 (around P3.7 million).

It was Pagdanganan’s best performance so far this year, having competed in eight LPGA events prior to this tournament.

She missed the cut three times, leaning on a then best-feat of a joint 29^th place at the Honda LPGA in Thailand last February.

Pagdanganan is also poised to make the cut into the 2024 Paris Olympics with a current ranking of No. 37 out of the 60 slots at stake.

Meanwhile, Fil-Japanese Yuka Saso also saw action in the tournament but missed the cut after shooting 72 and 74 for 146 after two rounds.