OAKLAND – Right from the beginning, Lori Frost had her final round on cruise control. Leading off with a birdie on the first hole and then taking advantage of some of her opponents’ misfortunes with timely putting, Frost fired a 3-over-par 76 on Wednesday, the final day of the Maine Women’s Amateur Championship, to win by nine strokes over Pennie Cummings of Springbrook Golf Club.

The title is the first for Frost, who was playing in her first WMSGA Championship in 11 years.

“I really didn’t feel tense out there, and I don’t feel like I was now, but I must have been,” Frost said. “I was spraying my irons everywhere again today.”

The story of the day for Frost, and indeed for the entire week, was her short game.

“Eleven years ago, with all of the up-and-down’s I had to make, I wouldn’t have won this week,” Frost said. “That has been a big difference in my game. I was very happy with my putting, especially. In the last two weeks or so I had fiddled with a couple of things, including being more upright when I putt, and it seems to have worked.”

On the 16th hole, already well in the lead, Frost showed just how well her short game has come along. Faced with a difficult greenside bunker shot from on the 148-yard par-3, Frost blasted the ball perfectly into the slope and watched as it took the break and slipped into the hole, lodging itself against the pin before dropping to the bottom.

“I made a bunch of sand saves this week that I never would have made,” Frost said. “I used to automatically think bogey or worse from a bunker, and now I can think about making par.”

Cummings meanwhile, had to work for her second-place finish, and nearly fell into third or fourth after a triple-bogey at the seventh followed by a double bogey at No. 8.

“I had a terrible front side, again,” Cummings said. “And on the back I played even par again. In seven I dumped it into the water, and on the eighth I went in the rough again. I’ve been in the rough all three days there and it is so hard to get it out of there.”

Playing in the group ahead of Cummings, Frost and Tiffany Shoppe of Northeast Harbor, Emily Allen of Turner equaled Frost’s 76, the low round of the day, and nearly jumped into second place.

“I knew I would be pretty close as I was walking on the 16th hole,” Allen said.

Through 16, Allen was just 1-over-par after three birdies and no bogies on the back countered four bogies on the front side.

“On 17 I got too greedy, I think,” Allen said. “My approach wasn’t quite right, I took my hand off the club a bit and it ended up short right, and then my chip, I hit it a little thin and hit it too deep into the green. It didn’t check up at all.”

Three putts later, Allen had a double-bogey 6 and was at plus-3 on the day. She parred the final hole, leaving Cummings with the opportunity to make a six and still tie for second. Cummings had a better idea – a solid approach to 20 feet and a two-putt par to finish at 7-over-par on the day and at 234 for the tournament, two ahead of Allen.

Shoppe struggled to hit the ball well off the tee all day, and managed an 8-over-par 81 to finish at 239, in fourth place.

Leslie Guenther of Norway rounded out the top 10 with an 80 on Wednesday and a three-day total of 243. Defending champion Abby Spector, who was in position to make a run at the top 10 despite battling fatigue and pain stemming from her recovery from heart surgery, faltered on Wednesday and finished with a 98 for a total of 267 over three days.

Martha White, Cummings’ sister and a 13-time champion, also equaled the low round of the day with a 76 to climb from a tie for 13th to sixth with a three-day total of 247.