Lexus Cup Sunday: It All Comes Down to This

The singles matches for the final day of the Lexus Cup are amazing. I'll start with the preview and then cover the action. (As in my earlier Lexus Cup posts, the numbers in parentheses reflect the players' final positions in my Best of the LPGA rankings.)

Se Ri Pak (#44) vs. Annika Sorenstam (#3): The Hall of Famers go off 1st, the better to fulfill their captain duties the rest of the day, but, wow, what a way to kick Day 3 off with a bang!

Sarah Lee (n.r.) vs. Nicole Castrale (#38): On paper, it's advantage Team International for the 2nd straight match, but look for Pak's vice captain to dig deep.

Ya Ni Tseng (#4) vs. Suzann Pettersen (#5): May be the match of the day! Can Tseng bounce back from a tough day yesterday the way Pettersen did from an even tougher day Friday? Can Pettersen keep up the intensity from a Saturday that saw her carry Sorenstam for most of the day until the Team International captain chipped in for eagle on the 18th and the win? This one's a toss-up.

Inbee Park (#13) vs. Helen Alfredsson (#11): Another toss-up, as Park played well down the stretch in the losing effort against Sorenstam and Pettersen, while Alfredsson made solid contributions to her and Kerr's win over Pak and Seon Hwa Lee. Alfredsson is trying to avenge her team's Day 1 loss to a team that included Park.

Na Yeon Choi (#9) vs. Paula Creamer (#2): A reprise of half of Team Asia's upset win over Team International yesterday. Another toss-up, due to Creamer's recent health problems. Both players are trying to avoid a losing record this week.

Song-Hee Kim (#17) vs. Cristie Kerr (#6): Both players are looking to go undefeated this week, so let's call this one a toss-up, too.

Jeong Jang (#12) vs. Katherine Hull (#23): Ditto, although if I had to give an edge I'd give it to Jang, whose 2 victories came against tougher competition than Hull's.

Mayumi Shimomura (n.r.) vs. Natalie Gulbis (#46): Can Gulbis flash back to her heroics last season? Can Shimomura shake off her 2 losses, too? Call this one another toss-up!

Namika Omata (n.r.) vs. Christina Kim (#29): I guarantee you Kim will not lose 3 matches in a row this year.

Candie Kung (#19) vs. Nikki Campbell (n.r.): Another battle of the undefeateds, but this one is clearly advantage Team Asia.

Seon Hwa Lee (#8) vs. Angela Stanford (#7): This is the 2nd-best match of the day for me, with both players looking to avenge surprising losses--Lee her 1st in match-play since 2006 and Stanford 2 defeats by teams including Kung. Why shouldn't it all come down to this one, the way things have been going all week?

OK, you can follow the action here. Here's what stands out to me!

Pak/Sorenstam: Pak bogeyed 3 of her 1st 4 holes but battled back from her 3-down hole to get within 1 by the 8th when Annika made a rare bogey. But a Pak bogey on 12 dropped her to 2-down and even though she made 2 birdies in a row, Annika topped her with 3, so she's 3 down with 3 to go. Looks bad for Team Asia.

Lee/Castrale: Castrale won 2 with a birdie, 3 with a par, 7 with a par, and 10 with a birdie, but Lee has bounced back each time with a par on 4, a birdie on 6, a par on 9, and a birdie on 11, and they remain all square with 4 to play.

Tseng/Pettersen: Pettersen made back-to-back birdies on 3 and 4 but only went 1-up, as Tseng matched her 2nd one, but then Tseng turned the tables with consecutive birdies of her own on 6 and 7 before making another on the 11th to go 2-up before a bogey on the 12th allowed Pettersen to pull within 1. Tseng remains 1-up with 5 to go.

Park/Alfredsson: Alfredsson was -2 through 5 and had a chance to go 4-up through 6, but a bogey on the 6th let Park off the hook. They matched birdies on the 8th before an Alfredsson birdie on the 10th gave her that 4-up lead. But then Park won with a par, tied with a birdie, and won with a birdie on the next 3 holes, so has pulled within 2 with 5 to play.

Choi/Creamer: Creamer's definitely hurting, as she's +2 on the day and 2 down to Choi, who has won with birdies on 3 and 5 and a par on 11.

Kim/Kerr: Kerr has just jumped out to her 1st lead of the day with wins on the 10th (par) and 11th (birdie). Kim had been playing well, winning the 1st with a birdie and the 6th with a par, but has bogeyed the 1st 2 on the back.

Ji/Stupples: The opposite story here, as Stupples got out to a 1-up lead with back-to-back birdies on 3 and 4 but gave it back and more with bogeys on 7 and 10.

Jang/Hull: They matched birdies on 1 and pars for the next 7 holes until Hull jumped out to a 1-up lead with a birdie on the 9th.

Shimomura/Gulbis: They were all square for the 1st 6 holes until a Gulbis bogey and than a Shimomura birdie gave Team Asia a 2-up lead through 8.

Omata/Kim: Omata's made 7 straight pars and Kim sandwiched a birdie between 2 bogeys.

Kung/Campbell: Kung was 2-up through 6 thanks to a Campbell bogey on 2 and a double on 4, but she just gave 1 back with a bogey of her own on the 7th.

Lee/Stanford: Lee is -1 through 6 and 2 down, thanks to 3 early birdies by Stanford.

So far Team Asia is up in 6 matches, Team International in 5, and they're all square in 1. More soon!

[Update 1 (8:28 pm): As Annika and the AP report, Team International came from behind for the win. It took a 2-putt birdie for Christina Kim to live up to my prediction and halve her match for the winning half-point. What they don't go into the right detail on is how the other wins and halves came about for Team International.

A birdie on 17 was just enough for Sarah Lee to edge Castrale, so with Annika's win over Se Ri, the teams stood 7-7. Then, Tseng birdied 15 to go 2-up with 3 to go, but gave one back with a bogey on 16; it came down to 18, where a Pettersen eagle beat a Tseng birdie and got Team International a key half-point. Alfredsson then withstod a furious Park charge: even though Park birdied 4 holes in a row, Alfredsson birdied 3 of them, so when Park couldn't keep the birdie train going on 16, the match was over, 3 & 2. Choi handled an ailing Creamer easily, but Song-Hee Kim came back against Kerr, winning 4 of the last 7 holes with birdies, including a walk-off one for the win that gave Team Asia a 9.5-8.5 lead and her a 3-0 record this week. Things were looking good for Team Asia around that time--with Ji 2-up on Stupples with 5 to play, Shimomura 2-up on Gulbis through 10, Omata 1-up on Christina Kim through 11, and Kung 3-up on Campbell through 13, it looked like they could easily get the points needed to retain the cup. But of them, only Kung ended up getting her point--her 3rd of the week. A final-hole eagle pulled Stupples even with Ji, Gulbis won 2 holes with birdies and another 2 with pars for what ended up and easy win against Shimomura, Jeong Jang's comeback attempt against Hull fell just short (she was 3 down with 3 to go and only a Hull birdie on 18 to halve the hole preserved her 1-up win), and Angela Stanford dominated Seon Hwa Lee. Omata actually acquitted herself well--after falling 1-down to Kim after a she bogeyed the 12th and Kim birdied the 13th, she got it back to all-square with a birdie on 15. Each player finished par-par-birdie for the tie that gave the victory to Team International.

So without Pettersen's, Stupples's, and Hull's final-hole heroics, Kim wouldn't have had the chance to seal the win for Team International.]

[Update 2 (12/1/08, 2:52 am): Be sure to check out LPGA.com's notes and interviews. With Team Aussie 5-1-0 and Team Japan 1-4-1, I think it's time to revisit the timing of the event to allow the top players on the JLPGA to compete in this event. I can't help but wonder if the results would have been different had, say, Miho Koga and Yuri Fudoh been on the team! Or even people who were available, like Ai Miyazato and Shanshan Feng....]

Ricoh Cup Sunday: And Down the Stretch It's...

...not Bo-Bae Song who's leading the field in the final round of the final event of the JLPGA schedule, the final major of 2008, the Tour Championship Ricoh Cup. No, a double bogey on the easy par-5 11th hole just dropped Song to +2 through 11 holes today and -3 for the tournament, tied for 4th with Shinobu Moromizato (-3 through 14), Ji-Woo Lee (-3 through 13), Miho Koga (-1 through 13), and Akiko Fukushima (E through 13). Nor is it Momoko Ueda, who remains 1 shot behind Song thanks to a birdie-less 38 on the front. It's not Yuko Mitsuka, either, although she has pulled into 3rd at -4 thanks to a -2 start through the 13th. And it's not Yuri Fudoh, alone in 2nd at -5 after playing bogey-free -2 golf through her 1st 12 holes.

That leaves Mi-Jeong Jeon, who's -3 through her 1st 12 holes and -6 for the tournament, as the leader of the pack heading into the home stretch, which features 2 birdie holes in the part-5 13th and par-4 17th and a whole lot of trouble otherwise. Jeon parred her 1st 7 holes but got going with a birdie on the tough par-3 8th and followed it up with birdies on the next 2 par 5s, the 9th and 11th holes, to vault ahead of Fudoh and Mitsuka, who matched her bogey-free 34 on the front.

Will Jeon play the next few holes like Moromizato, who followed up birdies on 10 and 11 with birdies on 13 and 14? Or will she stumble like Sakura Yokomine, who fell back to E on the day and for the tournament with consecutive bogeys on the 13th and 14th? We'll just have to wait until the JLPGA lifts its online leaderboard freeze to find out!

[Update 1 (7:20 pm): Sorry for the delay. Had to get back from Grandma and Grandpa's house! You'll never believe who won this and how!

Jeon did play the 13th and 14 exactly like Moromizato. Her pair of birdies got her to -8. When Fudoh followed up a birdie on 13 with a bogey on 15, Jeon's lead seemed commanding--3 on Fudoh and 4 on Mitsuka and Fukushima. And then when Mitsuka also bogeyed 15 and Fukushima bogeyed 16--and Song bogeyed 15, as well, to drop to -2, Jeon's only threat seemed to be Fudoh. Even though Miho Koga had birdied 8, 13, and 14 to get to -4, it seemed too little, too late. But then Koga birdied 17 and 18, Fudoh birdied 17, and Jeon bogeyed 17. All of a sudden, she stood at -7, only 1 shot up on Fudoh and Koga. So of course Fudoh bogeyed 18 and Jeon doubled it to hand the victory to Koga! And of course I'm too late with this update to catch the breitbart.com Kyodo News feed with the details!]

[Update 2 (7:47 pm): Here are the complete results:

1st/-6 Koga (73-71-70-68)
T2/-5 Fudoh (72-73-68-70), Jeon (71-71-71-70)
T4/-3 Moromizato (72-70-74-69), Mitsuka (71-74-69-71), Fukushima (72-70-71-72)
T7/-2 Ji-Woo Lee (76-73-67-70), Ueda (74-69-69-74), Song (69-71-71-75)
10th/-1 Ji-Hee Lee (71-74-72-70)

T11/E Yukari Baba (72-75-73-68), Sakura Yokomine (73-75-68-72)
13th/+1 Saiki Fujita (77-73-70-69)
T14/+3 Eun-A Lim (74-74-71-72), Rui Kitada (74-73-72-72)
16th/+4 Ji-Yai Shin (71-75-72-74)
T17/+5 Midori Yoneyama (74-73-74-71), Erina Hara (72-75-73-72)
19th/+6 Hiromi Mogi (73-71-75-75)
T20/+7 Esther Lee (75-72-74-74), Akane Iijima (72-76-71-76)
T22/+8 Mayu Hattori (77-75-71-73), Chie Arimura (73-77-73-73), Maiko Wakabayashi (75-73-75-74)
25th/+10 Hiroko Yamaguchi (74-75-73-76)
26th/+11 Ayako Uehara (76-71-80-72)
27th/+13 Hyun-Ju Shin (76-77-73-75)

Wow, what a sad finish for the JLPGA's Korean contingent. Not only did both Jeon and Song blow great chances for the win, exhaustion clearly got the best of Ji-Yai Shin and injuries of Hyun-Ju Shin. But what a great win for Koga! Not only did she tie Yuri Fudoh for the most wins on tour in 2008, she passed both Yokomine and Ji-Hee Lee to win the money title, as well!]

[Update 3 (7:59 pm): Here's the final 2008 money list:

1. Miho Koga ￥120.85M
2. Ji-Hee Lee ￥119.65M
3. Sakura Yokomine ￥103.19M
4. Akiko Fukushima ￥96.50M
5. Yuri Fudoh ￥91.86M
6. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥90.85M
7. Yuko Mitsuka ￥83.56M
8. Shiho Oyama ￥75.04M
9. Eun-A Lim ￥73.41M
10. Erina Hara ￥65.87M
11. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥64.63M
12. Shinobu Moromizato ￥64.37M
13. Bo-Bae Song ￥63.47M
14. Ayako Uehara ￥63.31M
15. Mayu Hattori ￥58.72M
16. Esther Lee ￥54.94M
17. Momoko Ueda ￥54.62M
18. Hiromi Mogi ￥52.62M
19. Akane Iijima ￥51.40M
20. Miki Saiki ￥50.84M
21. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥50.06M
22. Ji-Woo Lee ￥47.63M
23. Chie Arimura ￥47.35M
24. Ji-Yai Shin ￥45.54M
25. Midori Yoneyama ￥45.29M
26. Yukari Baba ￥44.14M
27. Hiroko Yamaguchi ￥42.85M
28. Rui Kitada ￥36.34M
29. Saiki Fujita ￥31.72M
30. Yun-Jye Wei ￥29.63M
31. Mie Nakata ￥28.33M
32. Ai Miyazato ￥27.89M
33. Nikki Campbell ￥27.04M
34. Yuko Saitoh ￥25.87M
35. So-Hee Kim ￥24.89M

Good thing for Koga the 1st prize was 30 million yen and not 25 million as I thought!]

Lexus Cup Saturday: Best-Ball Battles

The 2nd day of the Lexus Cup ended much like the 1st--with Team Asia and Team International battling to another 3-3 draw. Both captains mixed up their foursomes teams from the previous day, with mixed results. Pak's strategy was to pair someone playing well with someone struggling, while Sorenstam's was to keep the victorious Aussie and American pairings from day 1 together but mix everyone else up. How did it turn out?

Eun-Hee Ji (#14) and Inbee Park (#13) vs. Suzann Pettersen (#5) and Annika Sorenstam (#3): This one was a cliffhanger, with every hole that changed hands decided by a birdie except the last, which Sorenstam eagled for the win. Team Asia was 2-up with 7 to play, but couldn't keep pace with Pettersen's 4-hole birdie train; and even when Ji's birdie on 14 and Park's on 16 each lifted them back to 1-up, Pettersen responded on 15 and 17 with her 7th and 8th birdies of the day. So it was fitting that Sorenstam would respond with an eagle on 18 that made both Ji and Park's birdies meaningless--and gave Team International a 4-3 lead.

Se Ri Pak (#44) and Seon Hwa Lee (#8) vs. Cristie Kerr (#6) and Helen Alfredsson (#11): Early stumbles by Team Asia helped Team International jump out to a 2-up lead on the front, but they birdied 3 of the 1st 4 holes on the back to even up the match. They were still tied with 4 holes to go, but Team International birdied all 4 to win 2-up. Match-play ace Lee failed to make a birdie in this stretch as Team International opened up a 5-3 lead.

Jeong Jang (#12) and Na Yeon Choi (#9) vs. Paula Creamer (#2) and Nicole Castrale (#38): Team Asia posted 3 birdies as they began the back to turn a 1-hole deficit into a 1-hole lead, but Creamer's birdie on the par-3 14th evened things up. They stayed that way until both Jang and Choi birdied the par-3 17th and neither Creamer nor Castrale could match them. The match ended with birdies all around as Team Asia gutted out a 1-up win and cut the Team International lead to 5-4.

Sarah Lee (n.r.) and Song-Hee Kim (#17) vs. Karen Stupples (#16) and Christina Kim (#29): Kim was the hero of this match, helping turn a 1-hole deficit after 2 to a 4-up lead after 7 when she matched Pettersen's 4-hole birdie train. Team International could never get closer than 2 holes down, and when Kim birdied 15 and Lee birdied 16, they sealed a 4 & 2 victory that brought Team Asia back to a 5-5 tie.

Candie Kung (#19) and Mayumi Shimomura (n.r.) vs. Natalie Gulbis (#46) and Angela Stanford (#7): This was essentially a Kung vs. Stanford showdown that Kung won handily with 5 birdies in 15 holes, leading Team Asia to a 6-5 lead.

Ya Ni Tseng (#4) and Namika Omata (n.r.) vs. Katherine Hull (#23) and Nikki Campbell (n.r.): Amazingly, Tseng and Hull contributed only 1 win each on the front as Omata and Campbell battled to a tie, which lasted until Campbell won the par-5 13th with a birdie and matched both of Tseng's birdies on the par-5 15th and 18th to seal the Team International win and even the competition at 6-6.

(Again, the numbers in parentheses reflect the players' final positions in my Best of the LPGA rankings.)

The individual matches should be awesome tomorrow!

[Update 1 (11/30/08, 12:54 am): Check out Mike McGee's report on Day 2 over at Annika's blog!]

[Update 2 (12/1/08, 2:44 am): And LPGA.com's notes and interviews.]

Ricoh Cup Saturday: Bo-Bae Song Hangs onto the Lead

2nd-round leader Bo-Bae Song fought back for her 2nd-straight 71 today in the JLPGA Tour Championship Ricoh Cup, but is hanging onto the lead by her fingernails, as Momoko Ueda fired her 2nd-straight 69. And right behind Ueda are the rest of the JLPGA's finest who took advantage of moving day:

1st/-5 Song (69-71-71)
2nd/-4 Ueda (74-69-69)
T3/-3 Yuri Fudoh (72-73-68), Akiko Fukushima (72-70-71), Mi-Jeong Jeon (71-71-71)
T6/-2 Yuko Mitsuka (71-74-69), Miho Koga (73-71-70)
T8/E Ji-Woo Lee (76-73-67), Sakura Yokomine (73-75-68), Shinobu Moromizato (72-70-74)

11th/+1 Ji-Hee Lee (71-74-72)
12th/+2 Ji-Yai Shin (71-75-72)
T13/+3 Eun-A Lim (74-74-71), Akane Iijima (72-76-71), Rui Kitada (74-73-72), Hiromi Mogi (73-71-75)
T17/+4 Saiki Fujita (77-73-70), Erina Hara (72-75-73), Yukari Baba (72-75-73)
T20/+5 Esther Lee (75-72-74), Midori Yoneyama (74-73-74)
T22/+6 Hiroko Yamaguchi (74-75-73), Maiko Wakabayashi (75-73-75)
T24/+7 Mayu Hattori (77-75-71), Chie Arimura (73-77-73)
26th/+10 Hyun-Ju Shin (76-77-73)
27th/+11 Ayako Uehara (76-71-80)

Ueda and Jeon outplayed Song on the long par 3s today--they both are -2 for the tournament on them, while Song dipped to E. What allowed Song to keep the lead was her performance on the short par 4s: she birdied 3 of the shortest 4 of them to make up for her uncharacteristic merely E performance on the par 5s.

Even though the last 6 holes remained tough--Fukushima was +2 on them after an eagle on the par-5 11th had lifted her briefly into a tie for the lead at -5--Mitsuka played them in -3 and Ji-Yai Shin, Yokomine, Fudoh, and Ueda played them in -2. As a result, we saw much lower scores on the back than in the 1st 2 rounds: Yokomine and Fudoh shot bogey-free 32s and Mitsuka and Shin bogey-free 33s. Of the players who made big moves on moving day, Ji-Woo Lee, who birdied 4 in a row on the front on her way to a 32, was the only one not to make a big move on the back.

For Song to hold on for a wire-to-wire win would be an amazing way to end her season. But if anyone from way back is able to make a charge on the front and Song is unable to respond between the 9th and 13th, this could be almost anyone's tournament for the taking over its last 5 holes. Half the field still has an outside chance of chasing Song down, while the 6 players 3 or fewer strokes down are well within striking range. Should be a compelling final round!

Ricoh Cup Friday: Bo-Bae Song Maintains Her Lead

1st-round leader Bo-Bae Song could only manage a 71 today in the JLPGA Tour Championship Ricoh Cup, but it was good enough to preserve her 2-shot lead on Mi-Jeong Jeon. Even though Akiko Fukushima (70) and Shinobu Moromizato (70) both moved within 2 and Momoko Ueda (69) leaped to within 3 of her lead, some of Song's top competitors fell off the pace, from Ji-Yai Shin and Sakura Yokomine (both 75s) to Ji-Hee Lee and Yuko Mitsuka (both 74s).

1st/-4 Song (69-71)
T2/-2 Fukushima (72-70), Moromizato (72-70), Jeon (71-71)
5th/-1 Ueda (74-69)
T6/E Miho Koga (73-71), Hiromi Mogi (73-71)
T8/+1 Yuri Fudoh (72-73), Ji-Hee Lee (71-74), Mitsuka (71-74)

11th/+2 Ji-Yai Shin (71-75)
T12/+3 Ayako Uehara (76-71), Esther Lee (75-72), Midori Yoneyama (74-73), Rui Kitada (74-73), Erina Hara (72-75), Yukari Baba (72-75)
T18/+4 Maiko Wakabayashi (75-73), Eun-A Lim (74-74), Yokomine (73-75), Akane Iijima (72-76)
T22/+5 Ji-Woo Lee (76-73), Hiroko Yamaguchi (74-75)
T24/+6 Saiki Fujita (77-73), Chie Arimura (73-77)
26th/+8 Mayu Hattori (77-75)
27th/+9 Hyun-Ju Shin (76-77)

Looking at the hole-by-hole scores, a few things stand out. While the 317-yard 17th is a birdie hole, the 400-yard 18th is very tough: Mogi and Mitsuka both doubled it, while Ji-Woo Lee tripled it. You also see a lot of bogeys on the 14th-16th holes. So while the last 6 holes start off easy--the par-5 13th is a definite birdie hole, particularly if you've gotten some momentum from birdies on the 9th and 11th, both easy par 5s--they provide a great test to anyone in contention on Sunday.

Where Song has distinguished herself so far, however, has been on the long, tough par 3s--the 5th, 8th, and 16th holes--which she's played at -1 thus far. Jeon and Ueda are E on them, but everyone else near the top of the leaderboard is over par on them.

This course can get you in so many ways, though. Fudoh actually had something going after a bad start, but bogeyed 3 of her last 4 holes. Ji-Yai Shin, by contrast, was +4 through 11 on today's round and couldn't make up much ground in her last 8 holes. Yokomine bogeyed 4 of her last 7 holes. And Jeon rode the birdie-bogey roller coaster again today, making 6 of the former and 5 of the latter. The only players to handle the back--Moromizato and Hattori, who both shot 34s--couldn't even go that low on it.

Whoever wins this thing will really earn it. If Song can put together a strong moving day and keep the pedal to the metal on the 1st 13 holes Sunday, she should be able to play conservatively the rest of the way and let the closing holes be her best defense. But she could just as easily fall back toward E tomorrow and open up a Sunday free-for-all. We'll know soon enough!

Lexus Cup Friday: Alternate Shot Showdown

Check out the pre-tournament interviews and the pairings for the 1st round of the Lexus Cup. They're playing foursomes--alternate shot--today.

Here's how the teams stack up, with each player's latest Mostly Harmless ranking in parentheses after her name:

Song-Hee Kim (#17) and Inbee Park (#13) vs. Helen Alfredsson (#11) and Christina Kim (#29): Even though the average ranking for each team suggests a toss-up, with Park playing so horribly of late and Christina Kim a match-play ace, I have to give the advantage to Team International in this match. Neither Song-Hee Kim nor Park are all that accurate off the tee--the former is T59 at 70% and the latter is T85 at 67.6%--so even though Kim's iron play is fantastic (she's 5th on tour at 68.9%), she may find herself trying to hit greens from unfamiliar spots (Park, by contrast, is 109th on tour at 61.4%). While both Alfredsson and Kim are less accurate drivers than their competitors, they are both ranked in the top 30 in GIR and their extra length could give them an advantage on a course Annika Sorenstam has called long and wet. Team Asia has to hope Kim's approaches and Park's putting can save them.

Sarah Lee (n.r.) and Na Yeon Choi (#9) vs. Cristie Kerr (#6) and Karen Stupples (#16): Definite advantage to Team International here. Kerr and Stupples are both playing well in the 2nd half of the season, while Choi has been underperforming of late and Lee has dropped off the map. Lee is the only player in the field driving the ball less accurately than the inconsistent Se Ri Pak. Yikes!

Ya Ni Tseng (#4) and Seon Hwa Lee (#8) vs. Suzann Pettersen (#5) and Natalie Gulbis (#46): Definite advantage to Team Asia here, as Lee is 12-1-0 in match play since the 2006 HSBC and Gulbis hasn't played competitive golf in what seems like months. The only thing that can trip up Team Asia here is Tseng's Pak-like driving accuracy, but given that she'll be putting Lee a lot closer to the green than she's used to being, they should still get plenty of birdie opportunities. Tseng actually has a better GIR rate than Lee (#7 vs. #15) and must be putting the ball closer to the pin than her, too (T15 putts per GIR vs. T57), so Lee should be able to take advantage of where Tseng puts her and vice versa. The only hope for Team International is that Pettersen and Gulbis both play superlatively.

Se Ri Pak (#44) and Eun-Hee Ji (#14) vs. Paula Creamer (#2) and Nicole Castrale (#38): Definite advantage to Team International here, as Castrale is playing much better than her ranking while nobody knows which Pak will show up. Only chance for Team Asia is if the right Pak does--and if Creamer's intestinal woes prevent her from playing anywhere close to her potential.

Jeong Jang (#12) and Candie Kung (#19) vs. Angela Stanford (#7) and Annika Sorenstam (#3): I know, I know, on paper it's a definite win for Team International, but I'm calling this one a toss-up. I just think that Jang's and Kung's games mesh really well together and that they're experienced enough not to be intimidated by going up against Team International's strongest pairing.

Namika Omata (n.r.) and Mayumi Shimomura (n.r.) vs. Katherine Hull (#23) and Nikki Campbell (n.r.): Hull is one of the hottest players in the world right now and Campbell is #33 on the JLPGA money list, while Omata is #37 and Shimomura is #46, with scoring averages above 73, so definite advantage to Team Aussie over Team Japan here. But an upset could really spark Team Asia for Saturday's play.

We'll see how this shakes out shortly. Back soon!

[Update 1 (2:02 am): Don't bother with LPGA.com's livescoring link. Try this one from the Lexus Cup 2008 site.]

[Update 2 (2:10 am): Big upset for Park and Kim! And nice win by Jang and Kung. Tseng and Lee didn't dominate like I thought they would, but they still pulled out the win. Pak and Ji are taking Creamer and Castrale to the last hole--if they could halve, it would be a great 1st day for Team Asia!]

[Update 3 (11/30/08, 12:49 am): Here's Hound Dog's Day 1 recap.]

[Update 4 (12:52 am): And here are some links and photos from Annika Sorenstam.]

The Best of the LPGA: December 2008 Edition

This is it, my final Best of the LPGA ranking of 2008. As always, my system combines the most recent results from the Rolex Rankings, the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, the LPGA Official Money List, and Hound Dog's Top 30.

Identifying the world #1 is still a no-brainer...but this may be the last time I'll be able to write that for a while.

1. Lorena Ochoa: #1 money ($2.76M), #1 RR (16.91), #1 GSPI (68.25), #1 HD. She won her 3rd straight Player of the Year award and Vare Trophy, closed the season with 7 wins, and was 1st in every major statistical category. But next year is going to be the biggest challenge of her career. Knowing her, I expect she'll be ready.

The lead chase pack is still closing on Ochoa and, if I were to count Ji-Yai Shin's non-member wins and winnings (she'd be my #3), still growing:

2. Paula Creamer: #2 money ($1.82M), #4 RR (8.50), #3 GSPI (69.16), #2 HD. She couldn't get that 5th win she was shooting for, but her literally gutsy performance at the ADT Championship shows why she's still Ochoa's closest competitor.
3. Annika Sorenstam: #4 money ($1.74M), #3 RR (9.67), #5 GSPI (69.39), #4 HD. I think she'll get worldwide win #90 in Dubai, but she'll have to settle for 72 on the LPGA.
4. Ya Ni Tseng: #3 money ($1.75M), #2 RR (9.77), #8 GSPI (69.83), #5 HD. The best rookie year since Creamer's in 2005 is good enough to keep her #4 in my book. But with Ji-Yai Shin taking Sorenstam's place in my pre-season predictions for 2009, the Rookie of the Year can't rest on her laurels! She could learn from Shin and Seon Hwa Lee about closing the deal when she's in contention.
5. Suzann Pettersen: #7 money ($1.18M), #5 RR (8.1), #4 GSPI (69.26), #7 HD. I didn't think she'd have such a good season as this one turned out to be. Imagine how great it would have been if she could have added an LPGA win to her 2 LET ones.
6. Cristie Kerr: #10 money ($1.11M), #7 RR (6.26), #6 GSPI (69.47), #6 HD. 5 straight million-dollar seasons are nothing to sneeze at, but she's definitely the #2 American. And unlike Creamer, I'm not sure she has what it takes to end Ochoa's reign.

Right behind the lead chase pack are a bunch of great players with at least 2 top 10s:

7. Angela Stanford: #9 money ($1.13M), #9 RR (5.53), #12 GSPI (70.26), #8 HD. What a great finish to her season!　But does she have the staying power to remain a top 10 player, or will she go back to being a very good and very streaky golfer?
8. Seon Hwa Lee: #6 money ($1.19M), #11 RR (4.87), #15 GSPI (70.51), #9 HD. Had a great chance to pick up her 3rd win of the season at the ADT, but 1 swing on the 17th ruined her chances. Look for her to do better in 2009.
9. Na Yeon Choi: #11 money ($1.10M), #28 RR (3.53), #9 GSPI (69.92), #10 HD. Although she couldn't steal the ROY from Tseng despite having some great opportunities down the stretch, she joined her in breaking the million-dollar barrier in season winnings--the 1st time 2 rookies have ever done that. And to think she started the season non-exempt!
10. Karrie Webb: #18 money ($854.6K), #10 RR (5.28), #10 GSPI (70.05), #15 HD. Couldn't repeat at the ADT her come-from-behind victory over Ji-Yai Shin in their 1st event of the season in Australia, but gave it everything she had. When she's on, she's still one of the world's best.
11. Helen Alfredsson: #5 money ($1.43M), #8 RR (5.97), #54 GSPI (71.64), #14 HD. Her amazing year should earn her Comeback Player of the Year--if there's any justice in the world.

But the rest of the chase pack has fallen even further behind and can be found in the top 10 in only 1 of the 4 systems and/or in the top 20 in all:

12. Jeong Jang: #12 money ($1.08M), #13 RR (4.56), #7 GSPI (69.75), #12 HD. Can't rest that wrist just yet--the Lexus Cup and the Pinx Cup are calling.
13. Inbee Park: #8 money ($1.14M), #21 RR (3.82), #34 GSPI (71.09), #11 HD. Needs the winter break to refocus as much as for the rest, but she, too, will be doing the international team competition thing 1st.
14. Eun-Hee Ji: #15 money ($914.0K), #17 RR (4.28), #14 GSPI (70.43), #13 HD. Salvaged a disappointing end to the season with a good ADT Championship in which she was the last Super Soph standing.
15. Hee-Won Han: #19 money ($826.7K), #18 RR (4.15), #13 GSPI (70.34), #16 HD. She had a good season but not a great one, but when you consider that her infant son was separated from her for most of it, you'll understand what a sacrifice being the top mom on tour actually was. Look for an even better '09 from her.

Surprisingly, there are only 4 players with top 20s in at least 2 of the 4 systems.

16. Karen Stupples: #23 money ($726.4K), #20 RR (3.84), #11 GSPI (70.17), #19 HD. Made a great stretch run to attempt to take the top mom spot from Han, but came just short.
17. Song-Hee Kim: #14 money ($980.9K), #36 RR (2.90), #20 GSPI (70.64), #18 HD. Had the best stats of all the Super Sophs this season; only a disappointing hme stretch kept her from breaking the million-dollar barrier in '08.
18. Jee Young Lee: #21 money ($796.0K), #15 RR (4.38), #16 GSPI (70.52), #22 HD. Nice finish to a tough year bodes well for 2009, but, man, what a disappointing season overall.
19. Candie Kung: #16 money ($876.2K), #26 RR (3.60), #24 GSPI (70.78), #17 HD. It was great to see this former top 5 player come closer to realizing her potential this season. Would love to see her keep it up in '09.
20. Laura Diaz: #20 money ($809.5K), #23 RR (3.77), #17 GSPI (70.52), #24 HD. Hats off to the top NYer in the LPGA! Whenever you thought she couldn't sustain her great play, she'd come up with another good finish.

Which means there are a lot of players with 1 top 20 or at least 3 top 30s:

21. Angela Park: #17 money ($869.9K), #22 RR (3.81), #27 GSPI (70.90), #25 HD. The top-ranked Super Soph came so close to breaking through this year, but always fell back after each comeback. Wait till next year!
22. In-Kyung Kim: #22 money ($774.0K), #25 RR (3.61), #28 GSPI (70.90), #20 HD. Finally got back to where I thought she would have been all season--among the hottest golfers on the LPGA. Look out for her in '09.
23. Katherine Hull: #13 money ($1.05M), #30 RR (3.37), #35 GSPI (71.15), #21 HD. Another player who got super-hot during the 2nd half of the season, but is it just a nice run, or can she sustain her fantastic play and keep moving up the rankings?
24. Maria Hjorth: #31 money ($588.4K), #16 RR (4.34), #21 GSPI (70.69), #28 HD. We'll see how quickly she can regain her top 30 status when she returns to the LPGA as the newest mom on tour!
25. Morgan Pressel: #24 money ($711.3K), #19 RR (4.12), #48 GSPI (71.40), #27 HD. Not a bad year for someone reengineering her swing during it. She should be ready for '09.
26. Juli Inkster: #38 money ($441.5K), #24 RR (3.62), #18 GSPI (70.58), #32 HD. Will she play as limited a schedule in '09 as she did this season? It seemed to work for her this time around, but I'd love to see her around more next year.
27. Mi Hyun Kim: #40 money ($438.6K), #29 RR (3.48), #22 GSPI (70.74), #29 HD. We'll have to see how a wedding and a well-deserved rest in the off-season helps her recover from last off-season's knee surgery. I think she'll be back tougher than ever.
28. Momoko Ueda: #45 money ($413.6K), #14 RR (4.41), #26 GSPI (70.81), #35 HD. Going for her 3rd JLPGA win of '08 this week in their last major. If she even finishes well, she'll have made more money on a limited JLPGA schedule than on the LPGA this season. Wonder if she'll continue her globe-trotting in '09 or commit to a full LPGA schedule?
29. Christina Kim: #27 money ($678.6K), #38 RR (2.78), #30 GSPI (70.98), #26 HD. Nice job to make it to the ADT, even if she stumbled her way in, most likely due to her marathon schedule at the end of the season. No rest for the weary--she's playing in the Lexus Cup this week. And with Solheim Cup membership at stake next season, watch out for her in '09!
30. Ji Young Oh: #26 money ($680.2K), #55 RR (2.00), #29 GSPI (70.94), #23 HD. This Super Soph was the biggest surprise of '08 in her class. But I think she's for real.

A handful of players have 1 top 30 or at least 3 top 40s:

31. Brittany Lang: #30 money ($630.3K), #46 RR (2.54), #31 GSPI (70.99), #31 HD. Had one of the best end runs of the year, but it just wasn't enough to get her into the ADT. Look for her to get her 1st LPGA win in '09.
32. Sun Young Yoo: #25 money ($699.0K), #56 RR (1.99), #36 GSPI (71.15), #33 HD. Made it to the ADT despite sitting out the Mizuno. I think she's made a quantum leap and will be a top 30 threat for years to come.
33. Jane Park: #29 money ($631.4K), #47 RR (2.40), #32 GSPI (71.02), #34 HD. Still isn't close to realizing her potential, but she's getting closer.
34. Sophie Gustafson: #28 money ($646.3K), #33 RR (3.15), #55 GSPI (71.65), #37 HD. Not the same player after losing that huge lead on a fateful Sunday midway through the season, but still can bring it any given week.
35. Teresa Lu: #34 money ($507.6K), #62 RR (1.89), #37 GSPI (71.15), #40 HD. Another Junior Mint who seems to have made a quantum leap.
36. Stacy Prammanasudh: #37 money ($470.6K), #34 RR (2.94), #44 GSPI (71.30), #36 HD. Salvaged a respectable season, but didn't play close to her talent level in '08. With Solheim Cup membership at stake next season, look for her to come back strong.

There's a bigger group with at least 1 top 40 or at least 3 top 50s:

37. Meena Lee: #32 money ($553.1K), #58 RR (1.96), #42 GSPI (71.19), #38 HD. Made a nice little push at the end of the season.
38. Nicole Castrale: #33 money ($540.6K), #32 RR (3.19), #49 GSPI (71.47), #41 HD. I have to admit she's better than I thought. Let's see how she does at the Lexus Cup.
39. Lindsey Wright: #42 money ($424.9K), #51 RR (2.15), #33 GSPI (71.08), #39 HD. Tailed off in the 2nd half of the season, but still one of the best Aussies on tour.
40. Catriona Matthew: #41 money ($433.7K), #35 RR (2.91), #39 GSPI (71.21), #42 HD. This mom's relatively disappointing 2nd season back since giving birth does not bode well for other new moms.
41. Ai Miyazato: #46 money ($410.8K), #37 RR (2.88), #46 GSPI (71.33), #49 HD. She didn't get that win I was predicting for her in the 2nd half of the season, but she's fully recovered from last year's injury and should be moving up these rankings in '09.
42. Hee Young Park: #35 money ($474.4K), #57 RR (1.97), #47 GSPI (71.35), #43 HD. Pretty successful rookie season for a KLPGA star who's wanted to play in the States for some time. Look for her to be one of the top Super Sophs next season.
43. Leta Lindley: #39 money ($439.2K), #81 RR (1.39), #74 GSPI (72.01), #46 HD. Great comeback season for her. Hope she can keep it going in '09.
44. Se Ri Pak: #52 money ($366.1K), #31 RR (3.33), #93 GSPI (72.48), #63 HD. An inexplicably terrible season by her standards still saw her contend more than once. So don't count her out for '09.
45. Shanshan Feng: #36 money ($472.8K), #49 RR (2.18), #106 GSPI (72.69), #55 HD. A fantastic 2nd half of the season elevated her among the game's elite. Hope she can avoid a sophomore jinx in '09!
46. Natalie Gulbis: #56 money ($266.2K), #39 RR (2.75), #79 GSPI (72.12), #56 HD. MIA for most of the 2nd half of the season, she has to do something about her back if she wants a comeback in '09.

And here are the best of the rest:

47. Giulia Sergas: #43 money ($417.6K), #69 RR (1.63), #51 GSPI (71.54), #48 HD.
48. Kristy McPherson: #47 money ($407.2K), #73 RR (1.50), #63 GSPI (71.79), #45 HD.
49. Shi Hyun Ahn: #55 money ($303.1K), #43 RR (2.64), #64 GSPI (71.83), #47 HD.
50. Minea Blomqvist: #44 money ($417.0K), #67 RR (1.70), #62 GSPI (71.78), #51 HD.
51. Jimin Kang: #51 money ($373.4K), #80 RR (1.40), #53 GSPI (71.63), #50 HD.

[Update 1 (12/4/08, 3:44 pm): Hound Dog profiles his top 5, next 5, and 3rd 5.]

[Update 2 (12/6/08, 5:14 am): Here's HD's 4th 5 player profiles.]

[Update 3 (12/9/08, 6:31 pm): Here's HD's 5th 5.]

[Update 4 (12/11/08, 7:09 pm): Here's HD's 6th 5.]

[Update 5 (12/17/08, 2:27 pm): Here are the 1st 5 of the 15 from the rest of his top 70 that HD will profile.]

[Update 6 (12/18/08, 7:17 am): Here are the 2nd 5 of the last 15 HD will profile.]

[Update 7 (12/23/08, 12:02 am): Here's the last in HD's (planned) profile series--but I'm sure he'll take requests!]

[Update 8 (12/29/08, 10:07 am): Daniel Wexler takes a look at the top 15 in the year-end Rolex Rankings.]

Ricoh Cup Thursday: Bo-Bae Song Takes the Lead

The JLPGA's Korean contingent acquitted themselves well in the 1st round of the JLPGA Tour Championship Ricoh Cup today. Young Gun Bo-Bae Song jumped out to a 2-shot lead over Ji-Yai Shin, Ji-Hee Lee, and Mi-Jeong Jeon, along with Yuko Mitsuka, by taking advantage of the par 5s and par 3s. But the elite field is bunched and nobody is out of it.

Here are the complete results:

1st/-3 Song (69)
T2/-1 Shin, Ji-Hee Lee, Jeon, Mitsuka (71)
T6/E Akiko Fukushima, Yuri Fudoh, Erina Hara, Shinobu Moromizato, Akane Iijima, Yukari Baba (72)

T12/+1 Sakura Yokomine, Miho Koga, Hiromi Mogi, Chie Arimura (73)
T16/+2 Momoko Ueda, Eun-A Lim, Hiroko Yamaguchi, Midori Yoneyama, Rui Kitada (74)
T21/+3 Maiko Wakabayashi, Esther Lee (75)
T23/+4 Ayako Uehara, Hyun-Ju Shin, Ji-Woo Lee (76)
T26/+5 Mayu Hattori, Saiki Fujita (77)

Mitsuka was +2 over her last 6 holes, while Shin, Lee, and Jeon played birdie-bogey ping-pong for most of the day. Fukushima went 33-39 and Fudoh matched her 4 birdie, 4 bogey total. Yokomine birdied her 1st 2 holes, but endured a bogey-bogey-double-par-bogey run on the front, while Ueda's 1st birdie of the day came on the 17th.

There are so many storylines to follow this week. Song torched the field in the very 1st event of the season, but hasn't won since. Ji-Hee Lee has won twice, owns the lowest scoring average among JLPGA regulars, and is looking to stay ahead of Yokomine and Koga in the race for the money title. Jeon has been slumping lately, but can break the 100-million-yen barrier in season winnings for the 3rd straight year with a win this week. Mitsuka, too, can break the 100-million-yen barrier with what would be her 2nd win of the season and 3rd of her career. Shin needs no introduction. Suffice to say that any money she earns this week only pads her world-leading winnings total for 2008. Fukushima, like Jeon, has been slumping in the last third of the season, but she, too, has a chance to break the 100-million-yen barrier, as does Fudoh, who's looking for her 5th win of 2008. A win by Koga gives her a chance to take the money title from Lee and would allow her to match Fudoh's JLPGA-leading total. Yokomine is looking for her 2nd straight win, which would turn a good season into a great one, particularly if it resulted in her finally winning a money title--she's finished 4-3-2 over the last 3 seasons.

With Shiho Oyama and Miki Saiki skipping this week to prepare themselves for LPGA Q-School, it turns out that Ai Miyazato ended her season less than 3 million yen shy of qualifying for the Ricoh Cup. Maybe this will convince Ai-chan to play a few more JLPGA events in 2009, particularly given all the gaps in the LPGA schedule.

But enough about next year. Can Song stay ahead of a star-studded field over the final 54 holes? Stay tuned!

The Best of the Young Guns: Top Super Sophs, November 2008 Edition

Eun-Hee Ji was the last Super Soph standing in the ADT Championship, validating my ranking her at the head of her class in September. But you can't keep a good Park down--even though she cooled off at the end of the season and is still searching for her 1st career win, she's still the Super Soph to beat.

So here's how I rank the LPGA Class of 2007 at the end of 2008. When comparing them to where the Class of 2006 stood at this time last year, it's impressive how they've spread the wins around and how closely their top 12s match up with what is still the strongest rookie class in the history of the LPGA, but unless the '07ers at the bottom of the pile do well in Q-School, it's clear the '06ers are a much deeper class. However, with the '07ers' top 7 so closely bunched, expect their rankings to be a bit more volatile in '09.

Simply the Best

1. Angela Park: I predict multiple wins in '09 for Angela. She's bound to break that million-dollar barrier in season winnings soon!
2. Eun-Hee Ji: Another season like this one and I'll put her back in the top spot, but Angela Park came on too strong in the 2nd half of the season to deny it to her this time.
3. In-Kyung Kim: Put on a fantastic run in the 2nd half of her season, from a 3rd at the U.S. Women's Open to a 9th at the Women's British Open to her 1st career win at the Long Drugs. So even though she didn't make it to the final round of the ADT Championship, I would say she had the best 2nd half of all the Super Sophs. And I expect 2009 to be even better.
4. Inbee Park: Had about as disappointing a 2nd half of 2008 as Ai Miyazato's was in 2007. Still, she's got a major under her belt and no injuries to deal with, so look for her to bounce back in '09.

The Contenders

5. Song-Hee Kim: Probably the best player in her class without a win, she had a close call at the Samsung and only a disappointing Asian Swing and early rounds of the ADT Championship stopped her from breaking the million-dollar barrier. She had the best stats in her class in '08, which is really saying something. Plus, she's the only one besides Angela Park to break the million-dollar barrier in career winnings without needing a win to do so. Once she gets that 1st win, watch out for her!
6. Jane Park: Just missed the ADT Championship this season, but I don't think that'll happen too often the rest of her career. If she hadn't slumped by her standards the 2nd half of the season, I'd call her the best in her class without a win. Watch for her to break through next season with her 1st win and to put herself in contention many times.
7. Ji Young Oh: No post-win let-down for this Super Soph! She played a lot after her win and played very well. Looks like she's for real.
8. Kristy McPherson: Good Southern Swing, bad Asian Swing for this up-and-coming Super Soph. Expect her to be making the Asian swing for many more years to come.

Quantum Leap Candidates

9. Jin Joo Hong: T11 at the Mizuno Classic was a great way to end her 2008 season on the LPGA.
10. Na On Min: Phew--she kept her card for 2008! Must be glad to get that sophomore jinx out of the way.
11. Irene Cho: Made 4 of 5 cuts down the stretch when her card was on the line--and kept it with room to spare. A good sign for '09.
12. Charlotte Mayorkas: Made the top 100 but is heading to Q-School to improve her status even more. I think she's going to do it. By how much, I'm not so sure. It's the strongest Q-School field in recent memory--and maybe the best ever.

On the Bottom Looking Up

13. Sophie Giquel: Going back to Q-School. I'm not optimistic for her. But at least she made the top 120 on the money list, so she'll get into some LPGA events next season.
14. Paige Mackenzie: Ditto.
15. Becky Lucidi: The only one in this bunch not headed to Q-School. But at least she made the top 120 on the money list, so she, too, will get into a few LPGA events.

On the Outside Looking In

16. Seo-Jae Lee: Having fallen outside the top 120 on the money list, Q-School is her last stand. I'm not at all optimistic.
17. Su A Kim: Ditto.
18. Sarah Lynn Sargent: Ditto.
19. Cindy Pasechnik: Ditto.
20. Jeanne Cho-Hunicke: Ditto.

For your reference--and mine--here are the stats on which I'm basing the November ranking.

2008 LPGA Money List (rank), stroke average (rank), birdies per round average (rank [in total birdies]), greens in regulation rate (rank): I focus on four key indicators of how well someone played this season--how much money they've made, how they've scored, how many birdies they've averaged per round, and how many greens they've hit in regulation on average per round, plus how they rank in each category (except for birdies, which LPGA.com ranks by total and not by average). I figure I can figure out how well they're hitting their irons and putting by comparing the last three figures, so I don't include putts per green in regulation here. Some of the figures Hound Dog thinks are most important I'm looking at in the career stats (below), where I think they belong. These stats are all about the present and future.

1. Inbee Park, $1.14M (#8), 71.78 (#26), 3.34 (#22), 61.4% (#109)
2. Song-Hee Kim, $980.9K (#14), 71.23 (#10), 3.48 (#29), 68.9% (#5)
3. Eun-Hee Ji, $914.0K (#15), 71.47 (#15), 3.24 (#18), 65.9% (#39)
4. Angela Park, $869.9K (#17), 71.99 (#37), 3.26 (#20), 64.9% (#58)
5. In-Kyung Kim, $774.0K (#22), 71.54 (#18), 3.54 (#13), 62.2% (#96)
6. Ji Young Oh, $680.2K (#25), 71.65 (#22), 3.29 (#12), 65.7% (#44)
7. Jane Park, $631.4K (#29), 71.83 (#31), 3.13 (#31), 66.9% (#24)
8. Kristy McPherson, $407.2K (#47), 71.86 (#34), 3.22 (#33), 65.9% (#40)
9. Jin Joo Hong, $339.5K (#53), 72.37 (#53), 2.84 (#76), 62.5% (#89)
10. Irene Cho, $176.8K (#71), 72.92 (#83), 3.11 (#73), 63.3% (#74)
11. Na On Min, $146.6K (#76), 73.19 (#101), 2.63 (#71), 61.7% (#105)
12. Charlotte Mayorkas, $107.6K (#97), 72.96 (#84), 2.67 (#84), 62.3% (#93)
13. Sophie Giquel, $85.1K (#112), 73.64 (#126), 2.56 (#110), 63.1% (#77)
14. Becky Lucidi, $83.8K (#113), 73.32 (#107), 2.89 (#108), 66.7% (#25)
15. Paige Mackenzie, $78.8K (#120), 73.11 (#97), 3.03 (#119), 61.3% (#104)
16. Seo-Jae Lee, $61.9K (#128), 73.47 (#116), 2.64 (#105), 54.7% (#157)
17. Su A Kim, $55.7K (#132), 73.80 (#132), 2.63 (#106), 57.6% (#145)
18. Cindy Pasechnik, $16.6K (#161), 74.71 (#151), 2.07 (#157), 54.8% (#156)
19. Sarah Lynn Sargent, $12.9K (#163), 74.28 (n.r.), ?, ?
20. Jeanne Cho-Hunicke, $2.5K (#187), 76.84 (n.r.), ?, ?

Career LPGA Money List (rank), # of LPGA events entered/majors/wins/top 3s/top 10s/top 20s/cuts made (made cut rate): About the only thing these stats are useful for is comparing people who entered the LPGA in the same year (although if you count generations by 3 years, it can be interesting). Between inflation, changing purses, and length/timing of careers, it's very hard to compare and contrast winnings across generations of LPGA greats. Fortunately the Super Sophs haven't been at this all too long, so the career money list is a decent stat for comparing them, even if it's a bit unfair to people who have not been exempt both years. What would really be great is if we had a world money list in inflation-adjusted dollars, with inflation- and exchange-adjusted other cash denominations added in (or just totalled up separately to avoid comparing dollars and yen), which included all each golfer earned as a professional on any tour. But even the guys don't have that, so that'll have to remain a dream for now. I include these other ways of seeing how the Super Sophs finished relative to their competition in the tournaments they entered because they reveal a lot about how well someone is able to compete at every level, from just making cuts to grinding out top 20s and top 10s to contending for wins. So here's how they stand at the end of '08.

1. Angela Park, $1.85M (#96), 55/0/0/6/15/22/50 (.910)
2. Inbee Park, $1.52M (#111), 47/1/1/3/9/15/33 (.702)
3. In-Kyung Kim, $1.23M (#136), 51/0/1/3/12/20/43 (.843)
4. Eun-Hee Ji, $1.16M (#148), 32/0/1/4/10/13/27 (.844)
5. Song-Hee Kim $1.06M (#160), 51/0/0/4/9/17/37 (.725)
6. Ji Young Oh, $.83M (#201), 51/0/1/1/5/12/36 (.706)
7. Jane Park, $.70M (#221), 37/0/0/3/4/8/31 (.838)
8. Jin Joo Hong, $.50M (#258), 43/0/0/0/2/7/28 (.651)
9. Kristy McPherson, $.49M (#264), 42/0/0/0/6/9/30 (.714)
10. Na On Min, $.46M (#272), 45/0/0/1/2/5/28 (.622)
11. Charlotte Mayorkas, $.26M (#340), 43/0/0/0/0/4/30 (.698)
12. Irene Cho, $.24M (#353), 40/0/0/0/2/4/23 (.575)
13. Paige Mackenzie, $.13M (#425), 36/0/0/0/0/1/17 (.472)
14. Sophie Giquel, $.11M (#442), 26/0/0/0/0/0/14 (.538)
15. Becky Lucidi $.09M (#474), 22/0/0/0/0/2/8 (.364)
16. Su A Kim, $.07M (#490), 22/0/0/0/0/0/10 (.455)
17. Seo-Jae Lee, $.07M (#494), 21/0/0/0/0/0/9 (.429)
18. Sarah Lynn Sargent, $.05M (#532), 26/0/0/0/0/0/12 (.462)
19. Jeanne Cho-Hunicke, $.02M (#594), 20/0/0/0/0/1/2 (.100)
20. Cindy Pasechnik, $.02M (#607), 19/0/0/0/0/0/5 (.263)

Other Career Measures: Rolex Ranking (as of 11/24/08) and rank, Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index (as of 11/23/08) and rank, International and Non-Member LPGA Wins (as of the end of the 2007 season): This is a way of seeing how those Super Sophs who sometimes or regularly or often compete on other tours stack up over the course of their careers to date (the RR includes results over the past 104 weeks on the LPGA, LET, JLPGA, KLPGA, and Futures Tour; the GSPI includes results over the past 52 weeks on all these tours except the KLPGA).

1. Eun-Hee Ji, 4.28 (#17), 70.43 (#14); 4
2. Inbee Park, 3.82 (#21), 71.09 (#34); 0
3. Angela Park, 3.81 (#22), 70.90 (#27); 0
4. In-Kyung Kim, 3.61 (#25), 70.90 (#28); 0
5. Song-Hee Kim, 2.90 (#36), 70.64 (#20); 0
6. Jane Park, 2.40 (#47), 71.02 (#32); 0
7. Ji Young Oh, 2.00 (#55); 70.94 (#29); 0
8. Kristy McPherson, 1.50 (#73), 71.79 (#63); 0
9. Jin Joo Hong, 1.31 (#86), 72.09 (#76); 2
10. Na On Min, 1.06 (#99), 73.14 (#129); 0
11. Irene Cho, .88 (#117), 72.58 (#101); 0
12. Charlotte Mayorkas, .74 (#131), 72.70 (#108); 0
13. Sophie Giquel, .55 (#170), 73.28 (#144); 1
14. Becky Lucidi, .39 (#222), 73.83 (#186); 0
15. Paige Mackenzie, .35 (#236), 73.45 (#157); 0
16. Su A Kim, .23 (#283), 73.87 (#190); 0
17. Seo-Jae Lee, .19 (#316), 73.88 (#192); 0
18. Jeanne Cho-Hunicke, .04 (#514), 76.74 (#426); 0
19. Sarah Lynn Sargent, .04 (#533), 75.13 (#294); 0
20. Cindy Pasechnik, .01 (#678), 75.18 (#300); 0

So there you have it. One more of these things to go for '08:

February: Junior Mints
March: Super Sophs
April: both
May: Junior Mints
June: Super Sophs
July: Junior Mints
August: Super Sophs
September: both
October: Junior Mints
December: all the Young Guns (post-Q School)

Lexus Cup 2008: Can Team Asia Defend Their Title?

The 2008 Lexus Cup is almost here. The field may well be the strongest in the history of the event. The only player besides Lorena Ochoa among the world's elite skipping this week is Ji-Yai Shin--and that's only because she's competing in the JLPGA's final major. (My suggestions from earlier this month to captain Se Ri Pak on whom to pick from Japan were so off because I didn't realize at the time that such a glaring schedule conflict was possible.) I wonder if Pak approached Ai Miyazato, who didn't qualify for the JLPGA's last event, or whether her availability came up too late for her to be considered. She really could have helped Team Asia defend its title--certainly more than Sarah Lee or Mayumi Shimomura. Fortunately, Team International captain Annika Sorenstam was as soft-hearted as Pak was when it came to rounding out her team: Natalie Gulbis has been MIA on the LPGA for the last few months, while Nicole Castrale has been playing well, but not as well as Morgan Pressel or Brittany Lang. Still, their sponsor's picks are actually pretty tough: Nikki Campbell is having a good season on the JLPGA, while Christina Kim thrives on team play. With Pak getting one of the sponsor's picks for Team Asia and Namika Omata the other, they will be short two of their stalwarts from last year, Jee Young Lee and In-Kyung Kim.

So on paper, it's Advantage: Team International. But Team Asia still has Seon Hwa Lee, who's 6-0-0 in Lexus Cup play and 12-1-0 in match play going all the way back to the 2006 HSBC match-play event. And they're playing in Singapore, where they'll have something of a home-field advantage. Factor in the pressure of playing for a "stepping away" Sorenstam on a more experienced but also older Team International, and I think you're going to see an upset victory for Team Asia. You heard it here first!

Congrats to Lorena Ochoa and Ya Ni Tseng

Despite their disappointing performances at the ADT Championship, Player of the Year and Vare Trophy winner Lorena Ochoa and Rookie of the Year Ya Ni Tseng had fantastic seasons. They ended up 2008 in the top 2 positions in the Rolex Rankings, ranked 1-2 in rounds in the 60s, 1-2 in birdie rate, 1-3 on the money list, 1-4 in scoring average, 1-T4 in rounds under par rate, 1-T6 in top 10 rate, 1-7 in greens in regulation rate, 1-8 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, and T4-T15 in putts per green in regulation. You have to go back to 2005 to see a rookie put up stats that impressive--taking nothing away from the impressive rookie seasons of Seon Hwa Lee and Angela Park the last 2 years--so it's fitting that the only LPGA member I would rank higher than Ya Ni right now is the 2005 ROY, Paula Creamer.

ADT Championship Sunday: Shin Wins Again!

I actually got to see the putts on 17 and the entire 18th hole for Ji-Yai Shin and Karrie Webb yesterday in the ADT Championship--at the home of the 2nd set of friends onechan, imoto, and I visited while the Full Metal Archivist was finishing up a presentation for today--but having successfully avoided the temptation of the web before we headed out, there were a lot of gaps to fill from the last few minutes of the coverage. Why did Seon Hwa Lee look so disgusted after making that tough putt for bogey on 18? How did Angela Stanford blow up? Why was Eun-Hee Ji a non-factor at the end? And how did Suzann Pettersen and Jeong Jang score so badly?

Thanks to Hound Dog and Verdant Garden, I know more of the answers to these questions than I did from looking at the scorecards alone, but I'm still wondering how Seon Hwa could have hit such an awful shot on 17 when Ji Yai could stick hers there 4 times in a row. Time to check the Golf Channel highlights. Well, her swing didn't look any different--looks like she just overclubbed and hit it purer than she intended (or was it one of those pulls that goes a lot further than usual?). Too bad for Seon Hwa; great for Ji Yai! In only 10 events, she won enough as a non-member to have come in 3rd on the LPGA money list this season. Having won twice in Japan in 5 tries, that makes her 5 for 15 4 for 14 [sorry, forgot the Mizuno was a co-sponsored LPGA/JLPGA event] outside Korea in '08. Wonder what that ratio will be in '09? All I can say is, watch out, Lorena!

Fun to read the reactions over at Seoul Sisters.com, Waggle Room, and from Annika Sorenstam. I'll link to more here as the day goes on.

[Update 1 (11:11 am): Here's Hound Dog's epilogue.]

[Update 2 (11:18 am): Here's Beth Ann Baldry on Shin's win.]

[Update 3 (11:27 am): Here are LPGA.com's final-round notes and interviews.]

[Update 4 (11:39 am): Have to strongly disagree with Sal Johnson's criticism of the LPGA allowing a non-member to compete in the ADT and his feeling that Shin's win is bad for the LPGA. As I've said many times before, the LPGA should be applauded for trying to attract the best women golfers in the world to their tour and that great golf and great rivalries are what make a tour. With Shin, Tseng, and Creamer at the head of the line to challenge Ochoa for #1 in '09, the LPGA is in great shape, competition-wise, particularly when you consider they are going to have about 60 players who can win any given week after Q-School is done.]

[Update 5 (11:45 am): Steve Elling gets the story right, IMHO.]

[Update 6 (12:08 pm): Average Golfer notes Shin's win, but mistakenly implies her season is over: she still has the last major on the JLPGA to play, as well as the Korea vs. Japan showdown, the Pinx Cup, and may even play 1 more KLPGA event. For us golf bloggers, there's still the LPGA's Lexus Cup and Q-School, too.]

[Update 7 (11/25/08, 6:43 pm): Here's Daniel Wexler on Shin's early arrival!]

[Update 8 (11:33 pm): Here's Ron Sirak's big ADT recap story.]

[Update 9 (11/26/08, 12:18 am): Here's Karen Crouse in the New York Times on Shin's win.]

Final AnnikaWatch Update...of 2008, at Least

I'm not going to get all that emotional over the end to Annika Sorenstam's probably-not-all-that-final season on the LPGA Tour. First, her 2008 isn't over, as she still has a chance for at least 1 more LET win that would bring her world-wide total to an even 90 (to match her LPGA 72). Second, I don't think she's going to let the ADT be her last LPGA memory. And I don't think she'll be able to resist mixing it up with Lorena Ochoa, Ya Ni Tseng, Ji-Yai Shin, Paula Creamer, Suzann Pettersen, Cristie Kerr, Seon Hwa Lee, and the other top contenders for #1 in women's golf after a few years mixing business and parenting.

So I'll leave the tributes and reminiscences to the pros, and simply review her record when playing head-to-head against her peers this season on the LPGA.

In the end, only 9 players could avoid getting beaten by her:

Angela Stanford (1-0-2)
Mi Hyun Kim (1-0-1)
Maria Hjorth (1-0-1)
Se Ri Pak (1-0)
Catriona Matthew (1-0)
Linda Wessberg (1-0)
Amy Hung (1-0)
Shanshan Feng (1-0)
Angela Park (0-0-1)

But only 2 can really say they had a great record against her. Any doubts that Tseng should be considered Ochoa's chief rival for #1 in '09?

Ya Ni Tseng (6-1)
Lorena Ochoa (6-3-1)
Juli Inkster (2-1)
Lindsey Wright (2-1)
Karrie Webb (2-1-1)
Paula Creamer (3-2-1)

Only 6 players have even broken even with her:

Inbee Park (2-2)
Hee-Won Han (1-1)
Helen Alfredsson (1-1)
Jee Young Lee (1-1)
Minea Blomqvist (1-1)
Catrin Nilsmark (1-1)

But mostly playing against her has been an exercise in futility (more so for some than for others). Check out the names who have struggled to beat her even once! Is Annika in Suzann's head, or what?

Jeong Jang (2-3-1)
Morgan Pressel (2-3)
Laura Davies (1-2)
Laura Diaz (1-2)
Sun Young Yoo (1-2)
Momoko Ueda (1-4-1)
Cristie Kerr (1-4)
Suzann Pettersen (1-5)

At least 30 more people can say they got to play with Annika during her farewell tour.

Stacy Prammanasudh (0-1-1)
Lorie Kane (0-1)
Pat Hurst (0-1)
Sophie Gustafson (0-1)
Na Yeon Choi (0-1)
Katherine Hull (0-1)
In-Kyung Kim (0-1)
Jane Park (0-1)
Teresa Lu (0-1)
Ji Young Oh (0-1)
Kristy McPherson (0-1)
Young Kim (0-1)
Il Mi Chung (0-1)
Gloria Park (0-1)
Jin Joo Hong (0-1)
Nicole Castrale (0-1)
Meaghan Francella (0-1)
Reilley Rankin (0-1)
Alena Sharp (0-1)
Charlotte Mayorkas (0-1)
Erica Blasberg (0-1)
Marisa Baena (0-1)
A.J. Eathorne (0-1)
Michelle Ellis (0-1)
Diana D'Alessio (0-2-1)
Christina Kim (0-2)
Ai Miyazato (0-2)
Eva Dahllof (0-2)
Seon Hwa Lee (0-3)
Natalie Gulbis (0-4-1)

Annika's record this year on the LPGA against 59 of the best women golfers in the world was 83-46-13. 'Nuff said.

[Update 1 (11/26/08, 12:09 am): Check out the Celebrating 15 Years of Annika page for more on her career.]

ADT Championship Sunday: As They Make the Turn....

Don't read this if you want to be surprised from the start of the 3 pm telecast of the ADT Championship's final round! None of the people I've called about watching have gotten back to me, so thought I'd blog the front 9 at least.

Right now the field remains fairly bunched, with each twosome playing roughly similar styles of golf, except for the lead pairing, where the only thing similar about them is that Seon Hwa Lee (E) and Suzann Pettersen (+3) have each made 2 birdies in their 1st 10 holes. The next pairing, Paula Creamer (+2) and Jeong Jang (+3) played birdie-less fronts, but Jang just birdied the 10th. Karrie Webb (-2) and Ji-Yai Shin (-1) are reprising their showdown in their 1st event of the season as they make the turn in their last LPGA appearance of '08. Meanwhile, Angela Stanford and Eun-Hee Ji have made 8 pars in a row as they approach the 9th green.

So far, nobody's doing what Lorena Ochoa did last year around this time--get off to such a hot start so early that she forced her competitors to take risks their games couldn't back up under that kind of pressure.

Daio Paper ElleAir Ladies Sunday: Yokomine Breaks Through

Sakura Yokomine's 1st win of 2008 came in convincing fashion today at the Daio Paper ElleAir Ladies, as she birdied 7 of her 1st 10 holes and finished with a fantastic 66 that brought her to -11 and gave her a 4-shot victory over Midori Yoneyama and a 5-shot victory over Ai Miyazato. When you shoot a 33 on the front and lose 3 shots to the leader--as Yoneyama, Miyazato, and Miki Saiki did--you know you need a miracle on the back. But only Momoko Ueda could produce one--a pair of birdies at the turn and an eagle-birdie finish that gave her a 31 there and a 66 overall--which is why she was able to join Ji-Hee Lee, Yuko Mitsuka, and a bunch of others T4 at -5.

Here are the final results:

1st/-11 Yokomine (71-66)
2nd/-7 Yoneyama (71-70-68)
3rd/-6 Miyazato (73-69-68)
T4/-5 Ueda (74-71-66), Eun-A Lim (74-70-67), Ji-Hee Lee (72-70-69), Mitsuka (71-70-70), Michie Ohba (70-71-72), Junko Omote (69-72-72)
10th/-4 Kumiko Kaneda (70-70-72)

Another nice welcome to the JLPGA for Kaneda, eh? She was -2 through 13 and playing bogey-free golf--until she bogeyed 2 of the next 3 holes, that is, and got lapped by a million people. Wonder if she's going to try for the LET or JLPGA next year? She's gotta turn pro after so many great JLPGA starts this season, right? For that matter, I wonder why she didn't join fellow amateur superstar Mika Miyazato in going for LPGA Q-School? She just beat someone who should cruise through it in a couple of weeks (Saiki), and a whole host of big names, too, many of whom should also be thinking about giving the LPGA a try in 2010 (Bo-Bae Song, Erina Hara, Mayu Hattori, Maiko Wakabayashi, Ayako Uehara, Akane Iijima, Chie Arimura, Hiromi Mogi):

T11/-3 Saiki (72-70-71), Yun-Jye Wei (69-72-72)
T13/-2 Song (75-71-68), Tamie Durdin (72-72-70), Uehara (71-72-71), Iijima (69-72-73)
T18/-1 Yukari Baba (76-70-69)
T20/E Hara (74-72-70)
T24/+1 Esther Lee (70-72-75)
T28/+2 Akiko Fukushima (73-75-70), Wakabayashi (74-72-72)
T30/+3 Arimura (75-72-72), Sakurako Mori (72-75-72)
T34/+4 Yuki Sakurai (75-73-72)
T36/+5 Mogi (74-73-74), Ji-Woo Lee (74-73-74), Hattori (75-69-77)
T41/+6 Yuki Ichinose (70-72-80)
T44/+7 Mie Nakata (74-72-77)
T46/+9 Riko Higashio (75-72-78), Shinobu Moromizato (72-74-79)

With time, perhaps Esther Lee, Sakurai, and Mori should be added to that list.

Congratulations to Yokomine on her win, her breaking the 100-million-yen barrier, and her long-awaited move to #2 on the money list:

1. Ji-Hee Lee ￥117.86M
2. Sakura Yokomine ￥101.70M
3. Miho Koga ￥95.85M
4. Akiko Fukushima ￥89.71M
5. Yuri Fudoh ￥79.61M
6. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥78.60M
7. Yuko Mitsuka ￥76.77M
8. Shiho Oyama ￥75.04M
9. Eun-A Lim ￥72.49M
10. Erina Hara ￥65.26M
11. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥64.20M
12. Ayako Uehara ￥62.89M
13. Bo-Bae Song ￥59.75M
14. Mayu Hattori ￥58.25M
15. Shinobu Moromizato ￥57.58M
16. Esther Lee ￥54.45M
17. Hiromi Mogi ￥52.11M
18. Momoko Ueda ￥50.90M
19. Akane Iijima ￥50.90M
20. Miki Saiki ￥50.84M
21. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥49.59M
22. Chie Arimura ￥46.88M
23. Ji-Yai Shin ￥44.80M
24. Midori Yoneyama ￥44.69M
25. Ji-Woo Lee ￥43.92M
26. Yukari Baba ￥42.65M
27. Hiroko Yamaguchi ￥42.40M
28. Rui Kitada ￥35.42M
29. Saiki Fujita ￥30.53M
30. Yun-Jye Wei ￥29.63M
31. Mie Nakata ￥28.33M
32. Ai Miyazato ￥27.89M
33. Nikki Campbell ￥27.04M
34. Yuko Saitoh ￥25.87M
35. So-Hee Kim ￥24.89M

That's 3 top 3s and 4 top 10s in 5 events for Ai-chan. Wouldn't it be cool if she won next week? Or if Momo-chan got win #3 on lucky JLPGA start #13? Wonder if Ji-Yai Shin will fly over for the last JLPGA major of the season....

[Update 1 (5:24 am): An eagle-eyed reader (who can read Japanese better than I can, apparently) notes that Ai-chan won't be playing in the year's last major, as she's neither won on the JLPGA nor finished in the top 20 on its money list. Too bad!]

ADT Championship Saturday: And Then There Were 8

What can I say about the 3rd round of the ADT Championship that hasn't already been noted by LPGA.com, summarized by Average Golfer, or recapped by Hound Dog? Well, maybe a few things.

• Who would have thought 2 of the hottest golfers left in the field, Katherine Hull and In-Kyung Kim, would all of a sudden blow up with 41s on the front?
  
• Hats off to Suzann Pettersen and Ji-Yai Shin for stringing together birdies in bunches just when they needed them--Pettersen to make up for her early triple bogey (and then some), Shin at crunch time (on 3 of her last 4 holes).
  
• Clutch birdie by Eun-Hee Ji to get back to E and into that playoff, eh? Did I tell you she reminded me of Seon Hwa Lee? It's no coincidence that they're the last Super Soph and Junior Mint standing in 2008, I don't think.
  
• Watch out for Paula Creamer when she's sick and Seon Hwa Lee when she's playing for high stakes.
  

Here are the pairings for the final round. I love it that Seon Hwa chose to go off 1st with Pettersen. Jang's reason for choosing to play with Creamer was hilarious--she loves to play before big galleries! Webb ending up with Shin is priceless, as they've duelled more than once in Australia. And the Ji-Stanford pairing could have lots of drama tomorrow.

This is not to be missed! I just have to find out which friend will let me bring the girls over for 3 hours to watch it on their TV. Onechan will be rooting for Paula and Karrie; I'll be rooting for Seon Hwa and Eun-Hee. Hopefully one of us will come home happy....

[Update 1 (11/23/08, 2:27 am): Geoff Shackelford shows remarkable taste with his choice of title!]

Daio Paper ElleAir Ladies Saturday: Yokomine's (Next-to-) Last Stand

It's not like Sakura Yokomine has been having a terrible 2008: even though she hasn't won all season, she's 4th on the money list and has the 2nd-best scoring average and birdie rate of all the JLPGA regulars. But she has a chance to turn an ok season into a good one in a few hours, as she's leaped to the lead in the Daio Paper ElleAire Ladies event in Shikoku this week with a tournament-best 68. Still, at -5, she only has a 1-shot lead on amateur Kumiko Kaneda, who shot her 2nd straight 70, a 2-shot lead on Yuko Mitsuka, Akane Iijima, Midori Yoneyama, Yun-Jye Wei, and 2 others, and a 3-shot lead on Ai Miyazato, Ji-Hee Lee, Miki Saiki, Esther Lee, and 3 others.

Here are the top 10 and notables:

1st/-5 Yokomine (71-68)
2nd/-4 Kaneda (70-70)
T3/-3 Mitsuka (71-70), Yoneyama (71-70), Michie Ohba (70-71), Iijima (69-72), Wei (69-72), Junko Omote (69-72)
T9/-2 Miyazato (73-69), Ji-Hee Lee (72-70), Saiki (72-70), Mumi Ohkubo (72-70), Natsu Nagai (71-71), Esther Lee (70-72), Yuki Ichinose (70-72)

Yokomine is fortunate to have such a large lead on so many people playing well of late:

T16/-1 Ayako Uehara (71-72)
T21/E Mayu Hattori (75-69), Eun-A Lim (74-70), Tamie Durdin (72-72)
T25/+1 Momoko Ueda (74-71)
T28/+2 Yukari Baba (76-70), Bo-Bae Song (75-71), Erina Hara (74-72), Maiko Wakabayashi (74-72), Mie Nakata (74-72), Moromizato (72-74)
T35/+3 Chie Arimura (75-72), Riko Higashio (75-72), Hiromi Mogi (74-73), Ji-Woo Lee (74-73), Sakurako Mori (72-75)
T44/+4 Yuki Sakurai (75-73), Akiko Fukushima (73-75)

But at least they made the cut. Last week's winner and #2 on the money list missed the cut, as did the soon-to-be-formerly top-ranked player on the JLPGA:

T51/+5 Saiki Fujita (76-73), Miho Koga (75-74), Rui Kitada (75-74)
T70/+8 Mi-Jeong Jeon (75-77), Hiroko Yamaguchi (75-77), Ritsuko Ryu (75-77)
T90/+12 Kaori Higo (76-80)

Once again, Ai-chan is in the hunt for her 1st win anywhere since 2006. Can she chase down Yokomine, Kaneda, and Mitsuka, and outrace Ji-Hee Lee? Or will someone else step up to take Yokomine's 1st title of 2008 away from her?

ADT Championship Friday: Can't Watch...Must Watch...Can't...Must....

If the ADT Championship doesn't have the most compelling--and painful--format in golf, I don't want to know about the alternative. I can't imagine what it's like to play it. I'm not even watching it--just checking in on scorecards on LPGA.com--and it's all I can do to avoid covering my eyes and peeking through my fingers as the scores update. Thankfully, my lunch break is almost over! Hopefully the round itself will be over by the next time I can check in.

Of the 4 players tied for 16th right now at +1, Maria Hjorth had been at -3 for her round and the tournament as she headed to the 7th tee. She's now heading to the 10th, having dropped from contending for the 36-hole lead to hoping to make the 36-hole cut. Na Yeon Choi and Ji Young Oh just dropped back to join her with their doubles on the par-3 7th. Helen Alfredsson is playing comparatively steadily, with only 1 birdie and 1 bogey through 14 holes.

1 shot back is Candie Kung, who just shot her 2nd straight 38. 2 shots back is Lorena Ochoa, who just bogeyed the par-4 16th after making birdie on 2 of her previous 3 holes to come back from another weak start. Thanks to a shaky 39 on the front, Morgan Pressel is also 2 back. Then there's Annika, who's 3 back with 3 to go. And....

I can't go on. See you in a few hours!

[Update 1 (4:24 pm): I am so glad I missed what just took place. Song-Hee Kim? No million-dollar season for this Super Soph! Young major winners like Ya Ni Tseng and Morgan Pressel? Forget about it! Not even close. But not as bad as Ji Young Oh, who went from +1 on her day and -1 in the tournament to +15/+13 in the space of 12 holes. Maria Hjorth was "only" +8 over her final 12 holes--and only missed the cut by 2 shots. Candie Kung's double on 18 dropped her back to +5 with Hjorth, Ochoa, Sorenstam, Kerr, Diaz, and Han--and they all finished T18! But maybe the most painful finish belongs to Na Yeon Choi, who made three doubles on the day--and 2 in her last 6 holes--to drop from E to +4 and miss a playoff by 1 shot.

Even those who made the top 16 are likely to be scarred heading into tomorrow's round. Karrie Webb was +5 over her last 11 holes of birdie-less golf--and ended up in 16th place. Karen Stupples made 5 bogeys and a double, yet her 4th birdie of the day on the par-3 17th secured 15th place for her. Eun-Hee Ji got all the way to -6 for the tournament before finishing triple-bogey-triple on her final 3 holes--yet her 75 dropped her only to +1 and T10. Jee Young Lee's Friday was filled with as many thrills and spills as Thursday's, but a walk-off birdie finally brought her back to +1. Neither Ji-Yai Shin (75) nor In-Kyung Kim (73) had confidence-building back 9s, to say the least.

Probably the only players sad to see their scores erased will be Katherine Hull (a bogey-free 71 brought her to -5) and Angela Stanford (whose 67 pulled her to -4). Paula Creamer (-2) was +2 over the final 10 holes for the 2nd day in a row, while Christina Kim (-2) bogeyed 2 of her last 3 today and must be furiously trying to exorcise the memories of worse finishes last year. Jeong Jang (-1) went 32-38 today, while a walk-off bogey marred Angela Park's otherwise perfect performance (70, -1). Seon Hwa Lee shot 72-72, but was +3 over her final 11 holes today, while Suzann Pettersen was almost as steady (72-73), but also stumbled down the stretch with a birdie-less 38 on the back. Even Sun Young Yoo, one of the few players to fight her way into the top 16, shot a 37--and that was 4 shots better than last round. Well, it's time for everyone to clear the memory banks and scorecards--even though the latter is easier than the former--and start over tomorrow....

It's not just the qualification system for the ADT that's like NASCAR--it's the event itself. The crashes are as spectacular as the brilliance. And it seems to me they're getting worse from year to year. Is it just me?]

[Update 2 (4:34 pm): Here are some reactions from Hound Dog, Ryan Ballengee, and Jay Busbee.]

[Update 3 (11/23/08, 2:30 am) Here's Bill Jempty on the results and the controversy.]

[Update 4 (3:48 am): And here are Brent Kelley's, Ryan Ballengee's, and Geoff Shackelford's takes on the various Friday results. Once again the LPGA is taking heat from the golfy media--but not the LPGA bloggers--for doing the right thing (l'affaire Wie card, in particular). Plus they don't seem to be getting much credit for turning the wrong thing into a much better thing (seems like the English requirement is going to become something like a cultural immersion program, although we'll still have to see how close to the 2-way mentoring model I called for it turns out to be). Bob Smiley gets both the LPGA's PR problems and the golfy media's overreactions to them dead right!]

[Update 5 (4:24 am): Back to the golf, the LPGA Insider covers every painful shot of Annika's final LPGA round of 2008. Was her putter evil, or what?]

Daio Paper ElleAir Ladies Friday: The Horror, The Horror

Scoring is high in the 1st round of the JLPGA's penultimate event, the Daio Paper ElleAir Ladies. As of this writing, only 12 players are under par. Ai Miyazato had been one of them until she double bogeyed the vicious par-3 16th to drop back to E. Now she's joined the 23 players at par or better. Scoring would be even higher were it not for the great number of birdie holes on the front 9. If you don't take advantage of #4 to #6 and the 9th hole, however, the back is full of trouble. #13 to #16 have caused all kinds of problems even for the leaders, while all too many players have failed to even break 40 on the back 9. Shinobu Moromizato's 72 is an extreme example of this overall trend. She made 6 birdies, 6 bogeys, and 6 pars today, but all her birdies occurred on the front and all her bogeys on the back. Yup, she went 30-42. Tomoko Kusakabe was the only player to buck this trend when she opened the back with a bogey-free 33, but she blew up to a 41 on the front. In fact, only 3 other players--Ji-Woo Lee, 18-year-old Sakurako Mori, and amateur Kumiko Kaneda--were able to shoot 34s on the back. And, of them, only Kaneda had even a decent front side. Which is why she sits 1 shot off the lead at -2.

Thus it should be no surprise that only 4 players have broken 70 so far today. Akane Iijima, Yun-Jye Wei, Junko Omote, and Mihoko Iseri will have their work cut out for them, however, as they could only manage 69s. Iijima had the most drama to her round--a par-birdie-double-birdie-birdie-birdie-bogey-par-birdie string on the front followed by 3 birdies in her 1st 5 holes and 2 bogeys in her last 3 holes on the back--but none of them played bogey-free golf. Hence, despite making a double bogey on each side, Yuko Mitsuka is right in the thick of the tournament, having posted a 71 thanks to 5 birdies and no bogeys in her other 16 holes.

More coming!

[Update 1 (4:30 am): Defending champion Momoko Ueda, by the way, made her 1st birdie of the day on the 16th hole (she's 1 of only 7 players to accomplish that feat so far today) to pull back to +2. That's a 3-shot swing on her playing partner Ai Miyazato, which again shows how fragile the leaders' position is on this course.]

[Update 2 (6:03 am): Play seems to have been suspended. Here are the results thus far:

T1/-3 Iijima, Wei, Omote, Iseri (69)
T5/-2 Esther Lee, Kaneda, Michie Ohba (70), Yuki Ichinose (through 16)
T9/-1 Mitsuka, Natsu Nagai (71), Sakura Yokomine (through 17), Ayako Uehara (through 15)

T13/E Moromizato, Tamie Durdin, Mori (72), Ji-Hee Lee (through 17), Miyazato (through 16), Midori Yoneyama (through 15)
T24/+1 Miki Saiki (through 17), Hiromi Mogi (through 15)
T34/+2 Erina Hara, Eun-A Lim, Maiko Wakabayashi, Ji-Woo Lee, Mie Nakata (74), Ueda (through 16), Akiko Fukushima (through 16), Rui Kitada (through 15)
T48/+3 Mi-Jeong Jeon, Bo-Bae Song, Chie Arimura, Hiroko Yamaguchi, Yuki Sakurai, Riko Higashio (75), Miho Koga (through 16), Mayu Hattori (through 16), Ritsuko Ryu (through 16), Saiki Fujita (through 15)
T70/+4 Yukari Baba, Kaori Higo (76)

With only 7 strokes separating the top of the leaderboard and bottom of the notables, anything can happen tomorrow, particularly if the weather remains dicey.]

[Update 3 (11/22/08, 6:40 pm): OK, they finished the 1st rund. Ichinose stayed at -2, Yokomine and Uehara at -1, Ji-Hee Lee at E, Ueda at +2, and Koga, Hattori, and Ryu at +3. But Yoneyama improved to -1, Saiki to E, and Fukushima to +1, while Miyazato fell back to +1, Mogi to +2, Kitada to +3, and Fujita to +4.]

ADT Championship Thursday: The Race for the Top 16 Just Heated Up

The 1st round of the ADT Championship has set up a tense Friday, as Cristie Kerr blew up with a 78, Lorena Ochoa salvaged a disappointing 75, and Annika Sorenstam fought her way back to a tough-to-take 74. With 16 players at E or better, they have their work cut out for them tomorrow. Given the number of roller-coaster rounds, however, just about anything can happen tomorrow. Even Katherine Hull (68), Ji-Yai Shin (69), and In-Kyung Kim (69) are still in the danger zone.

Consider the following cases in point:

• Ji Young Oh was -4 through 14 but limped home with bogeys on 16 and 17.
  
• Christina Kim was -4 and bogey-free through 12 but gave it all back with bogeys on 4 of her next 5 holes before a birdie on 18 got her off a 3-hole bogey train and salvaged a 71.
  
• Paula Creamer was -3 and bogey-free through 8 but ended up with a 71, thanks to a tough turn where she bogeyed the 9th and 11th.
  
• Maria Hjorth was -2 through 15, but finished double-birdie-bogey for a 72.
  
• Ya Ni Tseng eagled the 3rd, erased it with a pair of consecutive bogeys on the front, got to -2 through 12 after back-to-back birdies, and then went bogey-par-double-birdie before parring out her last 2 holes for a 72.
  
• Candie Kung had a bogey-free 34 on the front and a birdie-less 38 on the back.
  
• Seon Hwa Lee shot a 72 after a 34 on the front, thanks to a stretch on the back where she went bogey-bogey-par-birdie-double-birdie.
  
• Jee Young Lee's 72 included a 4-hole bogey train to close out the front, a 3-hole birdie train in the middle of the back, and a bogey-birdie finish.
  

I'll stop there, and just suggest you take a peek at Helen Alfredsson's and Angela Stanford's scorecards--or Sun Young Yoo's, if you have the stomach for it.

All I can say is that it's fitting this tournament comes near Q-School, as the best women golfers in 2008 will face the closest kind of pressure to its tomorrow that they're likely to encounter the rest of their careers. I guarantee Annika isn't going out like that.

[Update 1 (5:18 pm): Wonder who the LPGA Insider will cover if I'm wrong.]

[Update 2 (7:37 pm): Here's Hound Dog's 1st-round overview, as well as Bill Jempty's great preview post.]

[Update 3 (8:02 pm): Here are the post-round notes and interviews.]

[Update 4 (11/21/08, 4:59 am): Average Golfer not only slickly summarizes the 1st-round results, but also points us toward Ji-Yai Shin's interview.]

[Update 5 (6:36 am): Verdant Garden's on-course reporting is not to be missed!]

[Update 6 (4:34 pm): Here's Bill Jempty's overview.]

Responding to the 2009 LPGA Schedule

The LPGA has released its 2009 schedule and Hound Dog, Brent Kelley, and Ryan Ballengee have already offered significant responses. All I can say is that February and March are as ugly as I predicted and there's little-to-no time to put together the Asian events I called for to fill those dead weeks, but at least April isn't as cruel as I had feared, thanks to the surprising survival of the Corona--particularly given the possibility of something cropping up for the last week as a result of the extra time to put it together. While I have a quibble with the Corona coming after the Ginn--why couldn't it follow the Kraft Nabisco, to cut down on travel costs for the players, and have the Ginn kick off the Eastern Swing?--the first half of the season isn't the disaster I feared. Now if the Tulsa event can somehow still be saved....

The Wegmans and Farr will certainly benefit, not just as tune-ups for the year's third--and some would say biggest--major, but also because there is a string of limited-field events in late July and August. The Safeway also benefits by being the real start to the LPGA's fall for the majority of players on tour and preceding the Canadian Open. But, man, is August thin for almost everyone, or what? Too bad HSBC won't go in for putting their Women's World Match Play Championship back on the schedule somewhere in there.

If the LPGA can get their early-season Asian-Pacific swing for '10 as settled as their late-season one seems to be, that may be the best way to ride out the economic storm. Let's wait and see how Q-School in December turns out before we assume things will be worse with Annika gone. If Michelle Wie, Stacy Lewis, Alison Walshe, Sun-Ju Ahn, Anna Nordqvist, Shiho Oyama, Miki Saiki, and Mika Miyazato join Ji-Yai Shin and Vicky Hurst (among others) in the Class of 2009--and '08ers like Amy Yang get full playing privileges on the LPGA next season--we may look back on that year as the real changing of the guard in the world of women's golf.

[Update 1 (11/20/08, 4:20 pm): Hound Dog puts the number of tournaments this year and next in historical perspective. For the near term, he's dead right: just look at what happened between 2001 and 2002: a drop of 5 tournaments and nearly $5M in total purses. The LPGA hasn't been over 35 events since then (and the numbers on the LPGA.com stats page for that period may even include team events like the Women's World Cup, the Three-Tour Challenge, and the Lexus Cup). But when you look at the "glory years" of 1977-2001, the LPGA was never under 35 events, usually at 37 or more, and for a few stretches at 40 or more. For the first half of the Annika Era (1994-2000, let's say), they broke the 40-event barrier 6 of 8 times. So when you see them in danger of breaking the 30-event barrier in 2010, that's definitely a cause for concern. Still, I'll reserve judgment until I see how the JLPGA, KLPGA, and LET schedules look for 2009.]

[Update 2 (5:15 pm): Here's Ryan Ballengee's response.]

ADT Championship Preview/Predictions/Pairings

The ADT Championship is finally here! Be sure to check out the Hound Dog preview and the Average Golfer preview, along with the LPGA preview. And don't miss the pre-tournament interviews, where Morgan Pressel and Cristie Kerr give very detailed answers to a lot of tough questions.

The field, the format, the course, and especially the winner's share of the purse make this a very different tournament than any other. As I mentioned a few days ago, half the field is playing better than the other half heading into this week. But as Golf Observer's historical results make crystal clear, very few of the players who qualified this season have much experience with the format and even fewer have experienced much success in it, either in 2006 or 2007. If you don't believe me, check out my posts from last year and overview of '07 ADT blogging.

So while Lorena Ochoa and Paula Creamer are obvious picks in this week's PakPicker, who else to go with is another story entirely. The 4 Junior Mints in the field at least have some experience with the event, while the 6 Super Sophs have less and the 3 rookies none at all. How many of them will break through this season to the final 8? Let's just say that I'm not very optimistic for them.

1. Ochoa
2. Creamer
3. Shin
4. Tseng
5. Stanford
6. Hull
7. Kerr
8. Sorenstam
9. Jang
10. Lee Jee Young
11. Kim In-Kyung
12. Lee Seon-Hwa

Alts: Choi Na Yeon, Pettersen, Yoo

The pairings are kind of amazing: going off 1st are Shanshan Feng and Ji-Yai Shin, two of the hottest players in the world over the 2nd half of the season. Now, while the Sorenstam/Tseng and the Ochoa/Creamer pairings at the end of the morning are the obvious must-see players, the one that I think has the most entertainment value is the Christina Kim/Maria Hjorth pairing early in the day. Both are fearless players who are as capable of eagling as double bogeying any hole they play. Watch out for some real roller-coaster rounds from those 2 on Thursday and Friday.

Hopefully Verdant Garden's on-course reporting at Seoul Sisters.com will give us a lot of behind-the-scenes insight into the final event of the season!

Predicting the LPGA's 2009 Schedule

Sal Johnson reports some rumors about the LPGA's 2009 schedule that should interest Hound Dog, Ryan Ballengee, Bill Jempty, key LPGA online communities, and the rest of us who follow the LPGA closely. As Ryan points out, though, Jon Show's recent piece on the '09 schedule is the place to start.

Show doesn't foresee too many changes from the current schedule in 2009. He reports that the LPGA has committed to running the ex-Safeway International event in Phoenix the week before the Kraft Nabisco, that there's hope for the ex-Semgroup Championship in Tulsa which precedes the Michelob Ultra, and that the Wegmans in Rochester is looking for an extension. This is mostly consistent with what Johnson passes along, but Hound Dog puts the Wegmans (and the Farr) in prime time between the LPGA Championship and the U.S. Women's Open, which leads me to believe that a deal is close to bring the LPGA back to western NY.

So let's review the big picture and focus on the gaps. In 2008, the LPGA started with an Asian-Pacific swing, moved to the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico in the spring, bounced all over the eastern U.S. till the beginning of summer, when it then moved to the midwest, Europe and Canada/Oregon, and back to the south, before finishing up in the fall with a limited-field Asian-Pacific swing and elite events in Guadalajara and Palm Beach. 2009 looks to be fairly similar, minus the midwestern swing--with the Farr moving earlier, the State Farm moving even earlier (to replace the Ginn tribute in preceding the LPGA Championship), and the NW Arkansas event moving back to September--and with the bouncing around the east being a little less Tigger-esque. Unless the Safeway Classic were to move after the U.S. Women's Open and before Evian, the bouncing around will move to the fall, as it would have to come between the NW AK event and the southern swing. I'm assuming the fall Asian-Pacific swing will pretty much remain as it was this season.

Unfortunately for the LPGA, this means that the beginning of the 2009 schedule has the most gaps. With the Fields gone, it's possible for a new Asian stop to follow the SBS in mid-February and precede the Thailand event in late February and another one to follow the HSBC event in early March and precede the MasterCard Classic in Mexico in late March. But if not, there are two early-season dead weeks that will make the run-up to the first major as choppy as it was this year. Other dead weeks--following the Kraft Nabisco, following the Ginn Open, and preceding the Michelob Ultra--suggest that April is indeed the cruelest month. With the Stanford International most likely moving to Houston and becoming a season-ending event to replace the ADT Championship for 2009, the LPGA must be furiously searching for southern or mid-Atlantic events for that part of the spring. At the very least, a tune-up event before the Michelob Ultra is a must.

Apparently the LPGA will announce its schedule on Wednesday. I'm hoping they'll be able to bring some new life to those early-season dead weeks, as resurrection is out of the question for the Fields, the Corona, the Ginn Tribute, and the ADT. But I'm not holding my breath.

[Update 1 (4:19 pm): More leaks coming out today. The Tulsa World reports that the Tulsa event is dead in 2009, the LPGA confirms the Michelob Ultra is back, and Geoff Shackelford suggests that Show's source is spinning like a dervish.]

[Update 2 (11/19/08, 4:44 am): Show got mentioned by the New York Times!]

Lorena Ochoa Invitational Sunday: Stanford Prevails over Sorenstam and Lang

Whether you get your news from LPGA.com, Golf Channel, the AP, Average Golfer, or, as you should, Hound Dog, you probably know that Angela Stanford is the champion of the inaugural Lorena Ochoa Invitational. Congratulations to Angela for holding off a living legend and a Junior Mint who set the tournament record, moving into everyone's top 10 list, breaking the million-dollar barrier in season winnings, and putting herself among the favorites in next week's season-ending winner-takes-a-million ADT Championship.

Congratulations, too, to Nicole Castrale (72, -4, T14) and Meena Lee (66, -8, T4), who held onto the last pair of 2nd-half spots for the ADT, and to Sun Young Yoo (70, -8, T4), who leapfrogged Christina Kim and Sophie Gustafson to snatch the 1st wild card. Despite playing terribly the last 2 weeks, Kim is also in the ADT, thanks to stumbles by Gustafson and Jane Park this weekend--not to mention the clutch play of Stanford, who denied Brittany Lang her own storybook ending just as much as Sorenstam.

In addition to Lang's and Lee's fantastic final rounds, Seon Hwa Lee fired a 67 to get to -5 for the tournament, while Jeong Jang's 68 included a 31 on the front. I saw enough from them this week to consider them among the top contenders next week. Stanford, Sorenstam, Ji-Yai Shin, Hull, Jee Young Lee, Cristie Kerr, Paula Creamer, Lorena Ochoa, Ya Ni Tseng, Seon Hwa Lee, Jeong Jang, In-Kyung Kim, Na Yeon Choi, Song-Hee Kim, Suzann Pettersen, and Sun Young Yoo are the most likely ones to make it to Saturday. Who will be the 8 players competing for that million-dollar 1st prize on Sunday? The ADT is shaping up to be quite the season finale!

[Update 1 (2:34 am): Nice piece on Rafael Alarcon that efficiently tells the story of how Lorena learned golf from him over the years--and why she's the world #1.]

[Update 2 (9:39 am): Here's Hound Dog's epilogue.]

Ito-En Ladies Sunday: Can Anyone Catch Koga?

Miho Koga is on fire in the final round of the Ito-En Ladies. Riding a 6-hole birdie train between the 5th and the 10th, she's gotten to -14 as she heads to the 14th tee and has opened up a 4-shot lead on Ai Miyazato, Ji-Hee Lee, Yuko Mitsuka, and Bo-Bae Song. Lee and Miyazato have bogey-free rounds going and enough holes to make some more birdies, while Mitsuka has as many birdies (7) and bogeys (1) as the leader but only has the par-4 18th left to play and Song has made 5 birdies and no bogeys since the 8th hole but only has 2 holes to go. Shiho Oyama and Mayu Hattori are 5 back with about as many holes remaining, so could still put on the kind of charge that Miki Saiki made to finish at -9--a 31 on the back that featured 6 birdies in her last 8 holes.

All this will be moot, of course, if Koga keeps up her hot play. I wouldn't be sad to see her get her 3rd win of the season, but I would love to see Ai-chan chase her down. Stay tuned!

[Update 1 (1:37 am): Here's a neat little factoid on Koga's season thus far: she hasn't broken 67 all year, except for her very 1st round, a 63, and her latest one. So she's got a great chance to set a season scoring and career winning mark today: a 66 or better would pretty much assure her of her 1st 3-win season.]

[Update 2 (1:59 am): By the way, the guys are lighting up the course, too, with Ryo Ishikawka, Ryuji Imada, and Shingo Katayama, among many others, trying to chase down Shintaro Kai, who's -8 through 14 and -15 overall. Meanwhile, it's a free-for-all on the Asian Tour in the Singapore Masters, where Padraig Harrington and Jeev Milkha Singh have caught Chapchai Nirat at -8 and 7 other players are within 3 shots of the lead as they make the turn, including Ernie Els and Thomas Bjorn.]

[Update 3 (2:31 am): Still waiting for the scoreboard to update, so I'll just note that the 15th has given up an eagle already today and the 17th and 18th have seen a lot of bogeys and doubles, so anything can still happen (if it hasn't already!).]

[Update 4 (4:11 am): Koga did it! After what turned out to be her last birdie of the day on the 10th hole, she made 8 straight pars before bogeying the final hole. As Ai-chan was unable to continue her 2-hole birdie streak on the 14th and 15th that got her to -11 and Yuko Mitsuka's final-hole birdie that had earlier made her leader in the clubhouse at -11 was not enough to put all that much pressure on Koga and nobody else stepped up down the stretch, Koga was able to get her 3rd win of the season without breaking 67 for the 3rd time.

Here are the top 10 and notables:

T1/-13 Koga (70-66-67)
T2/-11 Mitsuka (72-68-65), Miyazato (70-67-68)
T4/-10 Song (69-69-68), Hattori (66-71-69), Oyama (64-72-70)
T7/-9 Saiki (72-69-66), Yuki Ichinose (72-66-69), Yun-Jye Wei (70-68-69)
T10/-8 Midori Yoneyama (75-66-67), Mie Nakata (70-69-69), Ji-Hee Lee (69-67-72)

T14/-7 Kaori Higo (69-71-69), Maiko Wakabayashi (68-72-69), Momoko Ueda (68-70-71), Yuri Fudoh (69-68-72)
T19/-6 Ayako Uehara (70-70-70), Erina Hara (68-70-72), Rui Kitada (73-64-73), Sakura Yokomine (68-69-73)
T24/-5 Akane Iijima (72-69-70), Hiroko Yamaguchi (71-68-72)
T27/-3 Ji-Woo Lee (70-72-71)
T33/-1 Hiromi Mogi (73-71-71), Esther Lee (73-70-72), Yukari Baba (72-71-72), Akiko Fukishima (69-69-77)
T37/E Mi-Jeong Jeon (74-69-73), Tamie Durdin (73-70-73), Chie Arimura (72-69-75), Eun-A Lim (71-70-75)
T41/+1 Yuki Sakurai (70-68-78)
T43/+2 Nikki Campbell (69-72-77)

Here's where the money list stands, heading into the final 2 events of the JLPGA season:

1. Ji-Hee Lee ￥114.26M
2. Miho Koga ￥95.85M
3. Akiko Fukushima ￥88.94M
4. Sakura Yokomine ￥85.50M
5. Yuri Fudoh ￥79.61M
6. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥78.60M
7. Shiho Oyama ￥75.04M
8. Yuko Mitsuka ￥73.17M
9. Eun-A Lim ￥68.89M
10. Ji-Yai Shin ￥65.41M [should be #23, ￥44.80M--see below]
11. Erina Hara ￥64.34M
12. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥64.20M
13. Ayako Uehara ￥61.42M
14. Shinobu Moromizato ￥58.39M
15. Bo-Bae Song ￥58.31M
16. Mayu Hattori ￥57.66M
17. Esther Lee ￥53.62M
18. Hiromi Mogi ￥51.52M
19. Akane Iijima ￥49.45M
20. Miki Saiki ￥49.09M
21. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥48.81M
22. Momoko Ueda ￥47.30M
23. Chie Arimura ￥46.16M
24. Ji-Woo Lee ￥43.33M
25. Hiroko Yamaguchi ￥42.40M
26. Yukari Baba ￥42.52M
27. Midori Yoneyama ￥36.59M
28. Rui Kitada ￥35.42M
29. Saiki Fujita ￥31.27M
30. Yun-Jye Wei ￥27.87M
31. Mie Nakata ￥27.85M
32. Nikki Campbell ￥27.04M
33. Yuko Saitoh ￥25.28M
34. So-Hee Kim ￥24.89M
35. Ai Miyazato ￥21.59M

The biggest leap up the list was not Koga's but Ji-Yai Shin's--apparently the JLPGA is counting her non-member win in her season winnings--don't tell me they're nt recruiting her for 2009!]

[Update 5 (4:15 am): By the way, Katayama won on the JGTO and Singh on the Asian Tour.]

[Update 6 (4:30 am): May as well complete my early-am Asian update: Hee Kyung Seo took the KLPGA/LET win away from Sun-Ju Ahn with a closing 66. The LPGA's H.J. Choi took T13, Veronica Zorzi was the best LET finisher at T15, while Anna Rawson (T17), Johanna Head (T24), Gwladys Nocera and Amy Yang (T28) were among the relatively few foreigners to crack the top 30. Looks like it's official: ranking the strength of women's tours in 2008 results in LPGA, JLPGA, KLPGA, and LET.]

[Update 7 (11/17/08, 2:27 am): Hmmm, Shin is back to #23 on the JLPGA money list at ￥44.80M--looks like some staffer got a little imaginative over in the home office!]

Lorena Ochoa Invitational Saturday: Stanford Opens the Door

Like Shiho Oyama on the JLPGA, 2nd-round leader Angela Stanford squandered a great opportunity to run away from the field yesterday in the LPGA's penultimate tournament of 2008, the Lorena Ochoa Invitational. On a day when leading challengers were dropping like flies--Ya Ni Tseng fired a 78, Meena Lee and Seon Hwa Lee 76s, Karen Stupples a 75--Stanford had to fight back for a 72 after starting with 2 bogeys in her 1st 5 holes. In so doing, she stayed just ahead of a new chase pack, lead by Annika Sorenstam (67) 1 shot back at -9, Katherine Hull (66) at -8, and Jee Young Lee (69) at -7. But, really, she's lucky to be ahead at all.

Sorenstam was -10 through 14 and on an incredible roll, with 5 birdies and an eagle to her name against only 1 bogey, but once again, the closing holes proved to be her undoing. Although she made 1 fewer bogey than Friday's 3 in her last 4 holes and 1 more birdie--her 2nd in 3 tries on the par-5 18th--her back-to-back bogeys on the 16th and 17th were her 2nd in 3 tries on each hole. That's not the kind of recent history you want in your head as you're coming down the stretch Sunday, hopefully in contention. Hull's 66 was bogey-free, at least, but it also represented her cooling off after a sizzling 31 on the front put her right smack dab in the middle of contention. Meanwhile, Jee Young Lee has been kind of hanging around, not making nearly as many birdies on Lorena's home course as her length and career birdie rate would lead you to expect.

If Stanford and her chase pack should play indifferently or badly later today, a trio of young guns are poised to take advantage. Sun Young Yoo shot her 3rd straight 70 to get within 4 shots of the lead--thanks mostly to a hole in 1 on the 13th that offset several closing mistakes. Brittany Lang returned to her sub-70 ways in a 69 marred only by a bogey on the long par-3 17th that brought her within 5 of the lead. In-Kyung Kim got to -5 for the tournament on the 7th hole, but parred her way out for a 70 that kept her even with Lang.

And let's still not count out some big names--from Cristie Kerr (69, -4, T8) to Paula Creamer (69, -2, T13), from Jeong Jang (71, -4, T8) to Lorena Ochoa (70, -2, T13)--who could get right back in this thing with a perfect final round. And if we're giving the big names credit for being able to go below 65, why not young guns like Tseng (-2, T13), Na Yeon Choi (72, -1, T21), Eun-Hee Ji (72, -1, T21), and Seon Hwa Lee (E, 23rd)?

Whether or not this turns into the free-for-all I envisioned after the 1st round, there'll still be plenty of drama on Sunday. Meena Lee (76, -2, T13) and Nicole Castrale (72, -4, T8) have left the door open for struggling Sophie Gustafson (73, +2, T25) and sinking Christina Kim (77, +5, T35) in the race for the last 2 2nd-half spots for the ADT Championship next week. But if Brittany Lang were to win (or, for that matter, fellow Junior Mint Teresa Lu, who's T8 at -4), or if Sun Young Yoo finishes strongly, 2 of them could lose their spots: if Lang wins and Yoo wins enough to also pass Kim and Gustafson on the season money list, they'll take the wild-card spots away from them, but if Yoo passes either Lee or Castrale on the 2nd-half money list, either Kim or Gustafson will just squeak in with the last wild card, provided Lang doesn't win.

While I would love to see Annika make a statement on Sunday, I'm hoping that Jee Young Lee will get over her final-round mental block and play the way she's capable of while in contention. She's so overdue for her 1st LPGA win as an LPGA member!

[Update 1 (12:45 am): LPGA.com doesn't share my enthusiasm for Jee Young! That's ok!]

[Update 2 (12:50 am): Neither does Golf Channel. I'm used to that by now.]

[Update 3 (12:55 am): Nice job by Bobbio at Average Golfer.]

[Update 4 (2:05 am): Randall Mell offers up a fittingly South Florida-centric preview of the ADT Championship. And here are the final-round pairings. I should note that Jane Park still has a chance for a wild-card spot if she can outplay her playing partner Sophie Gustafson by enough and move high enough up the leaderboard for it to make enough of a dollar difference....]

[Update 5 (9:19 am): Here's Hound Dog's recap!]

Ito-En Ladies Saturday: Oyama Opens the Door

1st-round leader Shiho Oyama followed up her 64 with a 72 today in the Ito-En Ladies JLPGA event in Chiba, opening the door for a host of players. Leading the way were Ji-Hee Lee and Miho Koga, who joined her at -8 with a 67 and a 66, respectively. But there are 14 players within 2 shots of the co-leaders heading into the final round. And when you take a look at the top 10 and notables, you'll agree that this is anyone's tournament heading into the final round.

T1/-8 Koga (70-66), Lee (69-67), Oyama (64-72)
T4/-7 Rui Kitada (73-64), Ai Miyazato (70-67), Yuri Fudoh (69-68), Tomoko Kusakabe (69-68), Sakura Yokomine (68-69), Mayu Hattori (66-71)
T10/-6 Yuki Ichinose (72-66), Yun-Jye Wei (70-68), Yuki Sakurai (70-68), Akiko Fukishima (69-69), Bo-Bae Song (69-69), So-Hee Kim (69-69), Momoko Ueda (68-70), Erina Hara (68-70)

T18/-5 Hiroko Yamaguchi (71-68), Mie Nakata (70-69)
T20/-4 Yuko Mitsuka (72-68), Ayako Uehara (70-70), Kaori Higo (69-71), Maiko Wakabayashi (68-72)
T25/-3 Midori Yoneyama (75-66), Chie Arimura (72-69), Akane Iijima (72-69), Miki Saiki (72-69), Eun-A Lim (71-70), Nikki Campbell (69-72),
T33/-2 Ji-Woo Lee (70-72)
T38/-1 Mi-Jeong Jeon (74-69), Esther Lee (73-70), Tamie Durdin (73-70), Yukari Baba (72-71)
T46/E Hiromi Mogi (73-71)

Missing the cut can't feel good for these players when 18-year-old Sakurako Mori made it on the dot:

T51/+1 Saiki Fujita (74-71)
94th/+9 Ritsuko Ryu (83-70)

With 32 players within 5 shots of the lead, anything can happen tomorrow. Should be an incredible finish!

Lorena Ochoa Invitational Friday: Can Stanford Extend Her Lead?

From the looks of the 2nd-round leaderboard for the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, the Guadalajara course Ochoa grew up playing has some teeth. Sure, Angela Stanford has made 7 birdies and only 1 bogey in her 1st 14 holes today to become the 1st player to get into double digits under par, but given that yesterday's trend of hot starts fizzling is continuing today, it's too soon to conclude the course is easy to go low on. Just ask Suzann Pettersen. She was -4 through 10 holes but bogeyed 3 of her final 6, including her last 2, to fall back to a 71 that brought her to +2 heading into the weekend. An 18th-hole double bogey--her only over-par hole of the day--kept Angela Park from shooting anything better than a 70, which brought her to -1 for the tournament. And even those who finished strongly--like Jane Park, whose eagle on the par-4 14th hole helped her fight back to E for the tournament--had dug themselves into such a deep hole earlier in the day that they couldn't make a big jump up the leaderboard.

While many people who played badly yesterday ended up doing better today--lead by Jeong Jang, whose bogey-free 68 lifted her to -3 and a tie for 11th so far--many people who played well yesterday were unable to sustain their momentum today. Christina Kim, Helen Alfredsson, Na Yeon Choi, Sophie Gustafson, and Hee-Won Han are all over par so far in their rounds. Seon Hwa Lee and Karen Stupples are stuck in neutral.

In fact, only 3 other players have a great shot at joining Stanford in the double under-70 club. Meena Lee has bounced back from back-to-back bogeys early in her round to make 5 birdies in her last 11 holes and with 2 holes to go has a chance to improve on her -7 standing. Nicole Castrale has gone birdie-par-birdie-eagle between the 7th and 10th holes to also leap to -7 for the tournament. And Ya Ni Tseng has just birdied the 14th hole to get to -3 on the day and -7 for the tournament.

How will the leaders handle the tough closing holes? Who will take advantage of their birdie opportunities? Should be an interesting hour!

[Update 1 (4:52 pm): If even Ochoa can bogey her last 2 holes to fall back to -1 on the day and E for the tournament, nobody can breathe easy until she's signed her scorecard today! When Juli Inkster is the only player besides Jang to have broken 70 so far today--her 69 brought her to -4 and T6 for now--you know that either the weather conditions or course set-up or both have ratcheded up the difficulty level. And right on cue, Meena Lee bogeyed the long par-3 17th to drop to -6 and put pressure on herself to match yesterday's 69 with a par on the par-5 18th.]

[Update 2 (5:01 pm): Now Castrale bogeyed the tough 15th hole.]

[Update 3 (5:03 pm): Annika, by the way, birdied 3 of her at 5 holes on the back to get to -3 for the day and -7 for the tournament, but she, too, proceeded to bogey the 15th and hasn't made another birdie yet. Whoops, she bogeyed the 17th, too, just now.]

[Update 4 (5:06 pm): Sophie Gustafson isn't helping her cause in the race for the ADT Championship. With Sun Young Yoo posting her 2nd straight 70 to sit comfortably at T6 right now, Gustafson has bogeyed 3 of her last 4 holes and now stands at +1 for the tournament heading into the 18th. Right now Gustafson is $4K ahead of Yoo in the race for the last wild card into the ADT. There's definitely more than a $4K gap between them right now.]

[Update 5 (5:07 pm): Tseng is bucking the trend right now. Her birdie on the 16th brings her within 2 shots of Stanford.]

[Update 6 (11/15/08, 11:38 am): Hound Dog's got the final results covered.]

[Update 7 (11/16/08, 12:48 am): Still catching up after 2 holiday celebrations for 2 of onechan's 3 "schools," here's some commentary on Ochoa and Stanford from Golf Channel.]

[Update 8 (1:16 am): Ah, these LPGA.com notes and interviews kept crashing the ancient Mac I was using at onechan's yochien in Buffalo yesterday morning.]

Ito-En Ladies Friday: Oyama 64, Hattori 66

With both Ai Miyazato and Momoko Ueda in the field for the JLPGA's third-to-last event of the 2008 season, there's plenty of drama this week in Chiba's Ito-En Ladies. But it was Shiho Oyama who took control in the 1st round with a bogey-free 64 that included a 30 on the back 9. Still, her lead is only 2 shots after Mayu Hattori responded with 3 birdies and no bogeys on each side. And with Sakura Yokomine firing a 32 on the front and Momoko Ueda and Erina Hara matching that feat on the back to join Maiko Wakabayashi at 68, not to mention a trio of leading money winners 5 shots back, Oyama has her work cut out for her this weekend. Her final-round meltdown last week, a 77 that dropped her from being in contention to ending up 13 shots behind winner Ji-Yai Shin, has to be providing extra motivation this one.

Here are the top 10 and notables:

1st/-8 Oyama (64)
2nd/-6 Hattori (66)
T3/-4 Ueda, Yokomine, Hara, Wakabayashi (68)
T7/-3 Ji-Hee Lee, Akiko Fukishima, Yuri Fudoh, Bo-Bae Song, Nikki Campbell, Kaori Higo, So-Hee Kim, Tomoko Kusakabe (69)

T15/-2 Ai Miyazato, Miho Koga, Ayako Uehara, Ji-Woo Lee, Mie Nakata, Yun-Jye Wei, Yuki Sakurai (70)
T23/-1 Eun-A Lim, Hiroko Yamaguchi (71)
T31/E Yuko Mitsuka, Chie Arimura, Akane Iijima, Miki Saiki, Yukari Baba, Yuki Ichinose (72)
T49/+1 Esther Lee, Hiromi Mogi, Rui Kitada, Tamie Durdin (73)

T59/+2 Mi-Jeong Jeon, Saiki Fujita (74)
T69/+3 Midori Yoneyama (75)
96th/+11 Ritsuko Ryu (83)

Jeon has been struggling of late; we'll see if she can fight her way back into the top 20 over the weekend or if she misses the cut. And we'll see if Miyazato, Koga, Lee, Fukushima, and Fudoh can join Ueda and Yokomine in trying to put some pressure on Oyama, or whether the 22-and-under crowd of Hattori, Hara, Wakabayashi, Song, and Sakurai will lead the charge.

Lorena Ochoa Invitational Thursday: Fast Starts, Strong Finishes

The leaderboard for the 1st round of the Lorena Ochoa Invitational has been fun to follow (all too intermittently) this afternoon. Karen Stupples birdied her 1st 3 holes to jump out to an early lead, and she got to -5 when she eagled the par-4 14th hole. Meanwhile, Jee Young Lee, who was -4 through 11 holes, and Christina Kim, who was -4 through her 1st 12 bogey-free holes, started to put pressure on Stupples. Starting later in the day, Laura Diaz birdied 3 of her 1st 5 holes, Meena Lee fired a bogey-free 32 on the front, and In-Kyung Kim was -4 through 16 bogey-free holes. Angela Stanford, Helen Alfredsson, and Annika Sorenstam got into the act even later in the day; the first two were -4 through 11 and the last -5 through 12 bogey-free holes. But a 72-hole tournament is not a race only for the swift.

As many of these players struggled over their closing holes--Stupples and Jee Young Lee bogeyed the 15th and ended up with a 68 and 69, respectively; Christina Kim bogeyed the 13th and 18th to fall back to a 70, while In-Kyung Kim ended up there thanks to a double bogey on the 17th; Meena Lee closed with a 37 for a relatively disappointing 69; Sorenstam and Stanford dropped to -3 with pairs of bogeys on the back; and Diaz and Alfredsson bogeyed the 17th to drop to -2 and -3, respectively--other players were making their moves late in their rounds. Sophie Gustafson's walk-off birdie gave her a bogey-free 69; Nicole Castrale birdied her last 2 holes for a bogey-free 68; Hee-Won Han closed with a 33 for a bogey-free 68; Brittany Lang birdied 4 of her closing 5 holes for a 68 of her own; Seon Hwa Lee made 5 birdies on the back, including on her last 2 holes, for her 68; and Na Yeon Choi finished birdie-eagle for her 69. And Ya Ni Tseng has a chance to join Alfredsson, Sorenstam, and Stanford in the under-70 club as they all play their final hole.

What this suggests to me is that the talent level is so close in this tournament that even those like Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, and Suzann Pettersen are not out of this thing despite being likely to finish over par. There are too many places for the leaders to make mistakes and too many birdie opportunities for those chasing them--on both sides--for the 1st round to mean all that much. Since no one was able to go super-low today, a couple of rounds in the high 60s or one round in the mid-60s could bring even Pettersen back into contention. This thing may be a 72-hole free-for-all!

[Update 1 (7:20 pm): Wow, with Tseng going -4 over her final 13 bogey-free holes for a 68, she caught Stanford and Sorenstam in a huge logjam at 68 and pulled 2 shots ahead of Alfredsson, who bogeyed her final 2 holes. Ain't golf weird?]

[Update 2 (8:30 pm): Here's Hound Dog's overview.]

[Update 3 (11/14/08, 12:42 pm): Here are LPGA.com's notes and interviews.]

[Updat3 4 (12:48 pm): Here's an ESPN.com pre-tournament interview I missed.]

[Update 5 (12:50 pm): And here's Golf Channel's 5-minute highlight reel.]

[Update 6 (1:31 pm): Just noticed that they shuffled the pairings for today's round. Very nice! Anyone know why Morgan Pressel isn't playing this week?]

The Politics of Astro Boy

Just a quick link to Bill Benzon's reading of Osamu Tezuka's Mighty Atom (a.k.a. Astro Boy) as an indirect response to and working through of ambivalence about the U.S. occupation of Japan. Given my own research interests and past blogging on anime politics, I ought to have a good response for Bill, but unfortunately I grew up in a place that was never in range of any TV stations that were actually airing Astro Boy and have not had the opportunity to reduce my cultural illiteracy since leaving there. Sorry, Bill!

Lorena Ochoa Invitational Preview/Predictions/Pairings

Except for a couple of sponsor's exemptions, the field at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational is fantastic. Besides the reunion of the top women's golfers in the world (minus Ji-Yai Shin), there's also the final field for next week's winner-takes-one-million-dollars ADT Championship to be determined. Nicole Castrale and Meena Lee will be trying to hold off Christina Kim, Sophie Gustafson, Sun Young Yoo, and Jane Park for the last two 2nd-half-money-list spots. Kim and Gustafson lead the race for the last 2 wild card spots, so even if they don't pass Castrale and Lee, all they have to do is stay ahead of Yoo and Park. But if Brittany Lang or Teresa Lu were to win, they could leapfrog these players and join the ADT field.

So who are my picks in this week's Pakpicker?

1. Ochoa
2. Creamer
3. Lee Jee Young
4. Hull
5. Lang
6. Stanford
7. Sorenstam
8. Kerr
9. Pettersen
10. Kung
11. Diaz
12. Tseng

Alts: Kim In-Kyung, Kim Song-Hee, Kim Christina

The pairings for this event are simply incredible. Personally, I'd be really torn as to which group to follow. Probably I'd try to position myself between the following pair of pairings:

Start Time: 11:32 AM
In-Kyung Kim
Jeong Jang
Jane Park

Start Time: 11:43 AM
Na Yeon Choi
Seon Hwa Lee
Laura Diaz

But that's just me. What say you?

Looking Ahead, Part 5: Where, Oh Where, Are the American Golfers?

Dave Andrews is the latest to ask this time-honored question of the LPGA. It's true that less than a third of the limited field in Lorena's invitational are Americans (and that's counting naturalized Americans Candie Kung and Angela Park!). It's also true that only 2 Americans are in the top 10 on the money list, 6 in the top 20, 9 in the top 30, 14 in the top 40, and 16 in the top 50--and that with the exception of Paula Creamer, American young guns are falling behind their international peers:

#2 Paula Creamer
#9 Cristie Kerr
#14 Angela Stanford
#16 Candie Kung
#17 Angela Park
#19 Laura Diaz
#23 Morgan Pressel
#25 Christina Kim
#29 Jane Park
#31 Brittany Lang
#32 Nicole Castrale
#36 Stacy Prammanasudh
#38 Juli Inkster
#39 Leta Lindley
#47 Kristy McPherson
#50 Allison Fouch

But I don't see any cause for alarm, and not just because Michelle Wie and Stacy Lewis are headlining Q-School. Here's why.

The College Kids Are All Right: Despite what I just wrote about Hannah Yun, there's nothing wrong with staying in school and finishing college. You give yourself more chances to make the Curtis Cup team, to play in the U.S. Women's Amateur and Public Links, and to enjoy golf as an amateur before it becomes your sunrise-to-sundown job. Look for Amanda Blumenherst, Tiffany Joh, and other top seniors to follow in Stacy Lewis's and Alison Walshe's footsteps, either by turning pro after graduation (the Lewis route) or going straight to Q-School (the Walshe route). Curtis Cupper Jennie Lee has already joined Walshe in securing Futures Tour status for 2009.

Plus, there's always the chance other top-ranked Americans on the NCAA will play a few Futures Tour events and join '09 regulars-to-be Jane Chin (#2 NCAA, T25 FT Q-School), Cindy LaCrosse (#12 NCAA, T15 FT), Mallory Hetzel (#26 NCAA, T25 FT), Natalie Sheary (#40 NCAA, T9 FT), Jessica Yadloczky (#50 NCAA, T12 FT), Ryann O'Toole (#57 NCAA, T32 FT), Lauren Doughtie (#58 NCAA, T7 FT), Taylore Karle (#75 NCAA, T32 FT), Nara Shin (#101 NCAA, T45 FT), and Lucy Nunn (#117 NCAA, T32 FT) there. It's true that very few NCAA stars are able to make the quantum leap to the top of the Futures Tour, much less excel on the LPGA, but the pipeline is wide open and the quality of play is improving every year. And with a battlefield promotion rule finally in effect for those who win 3 times in a season on the FT, you never know who will make the quantum leap sooner than expected.

And the High Schoolers?: Some top-ranked junior golfers may be joining Hannah Yun in trying to turn pro early: #14-ranked Victoria Kiser (3rd), #16-ranked Christine Song (T15), and #22-ranked Stephanie Kim (T32) all played well last week in the Futures Tour Q-School. Down the road we have #2 Alexis Thompson, #3 Kimberly Kim, #30 Kyung Kim, #46 Annie Park and a host of others with all kinds of potential and international experience.

International Players Are Going to Play More International Schedules: Yes, it's true that you don't see all that many under-22 Americans winning professional tournaments like you do in Korea and Japan, but it's precisely because of their success in their home countries that the LPGA will remain a mostly-American tour. Even if JLPGA winners Erina Hara, Chie Arimura, Mayu Hattori, and Maiko Wakabayashi try to follow amateur Mika Miyazato to the States in coming years--and none of them have been talking like they feel they're ready to do so anytime soon--and even if young KLPGA stars like Ha-Neul Kim, Hee Kyung Seo, So Yeon Ryu, Hye Yong Choi, and this week's rookie winner Hye Yoon Kim make like Na Yeon Choi, Eun-Hee Ji, and Hee Young Park, the better they do on the LPGA, the more pressure they will face to put together a transnational schedule. And that can take a toll on your game, as Inbee Park can attest. Unless you're an Annika Sorenstam-level talent, playing a mixed schedule is hard. To the extent that international players scale back their LPGA schedules to take advantage of international opportunities, that opens up more chances for American players on the LPGA.

To be fair to Andrews, he's asking for greatness from American young guns, not just keeping your head above water. How many of the Americans I just named can expect to be top 50 players any time soon, when even top JLPGA stars like Ai Miyazato and Momoko Ueda struggled to attain that status this season? But that's the great thing about golf: you never know. Sure, it looks like Ji-Yai Shin and Ya Ni Tseng are bound for greatness, and Amy Yang will be looking to join Vicky Hurst, Michelle Wie, Stacy Lewis, and a whole bunch of established young guns chasing them, but in golf everything depends on your next shot. Don't count out any of the American young guns who aren't household names just yet.

[Update 1 (11/13/08, 2:07 am): Daniel Wexler notes that Shin's rise up the world rankings has been done through a very international schedule. While I expect her to play many more LPGA events next year than the 10 she'll play this year, I don't see any reason for her to avoid the KLPGA and JLPGA, either. As she herself pointed out after her win in Japan, she can't make any decisions on her '09 schedule until the tours release their schedules. If I were Carolyn Bivens (now there's a scary thought!), I'd be consulting very closely with my JLPGA, KLPGA, and LET counterparts.]

[Update 2 (11/24/08, 6:48 pm): Ryan Herrington gives us some more names to look for, among them Jane Chin (a CA native and 5th-year senior).]

JeroWatch: Enka Otaku

CNN's Kyung Lah (she of Obama, Japan, election coverage fame) did an extended interview with Jero late last month. Definitely worth a watch, even if you haven't been following his career as closely as I have. His next music video will be animated, a nice follow-up to a video game commercial he was recently featured in.

Looking Ahead, Part 4: The Hannah Yun Saga

Dave Andrews covers the latest twist in the Hannah Yun saga. But he writes as if this is the 1st time Yun has left the University of Florida program. Regular readers of Golfweek, Waggle Room, Seoul Sisters.com, and this little ol' blog have heard it all before. This time, however, Yun has an underwhelming 2008 Futures Tour performance under her belt to go with a disappointing fall on the NCAA in which she dropped to #218 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index (even Cheyenne Woods is #98!).

With the Futures Tour's Q-School complete, the ball is now in their court:

Her results on the Duramed Futures Tour have guaranteed her playing status for the 2009 season.

In another surprising move, Hannah filed a formal request with the tour to be allowed to play as a professional next year. She will need a special exemption for that to happen because she will not turn 17 until April 2009 and does not meet the tour's minimum age requirement.

If the decision were up to me, I would actually be inclined to accept her request. She's certainly burned her bridges at Florida--particularly with the timing of her announcement and departure--and most likely in the entire NCAA. Depending on when her birthday falls in April, we're only talking about letting her play 1-5 events as a pro prematurely. Despite her current slump, she could well be the next Vicky Hurst. She's got nothing else on her calendar next March. Why not give her a shot at her dream and a dose of reality all at once?

Even if she turns out to be the next Esther Choe instead, she's young enough to devote a few years to toiling in the minor leagues and still return to college roughly the same age as other 2nd-semester sophomores if her efforts aren't (literally) paying off. In fact, she could try playing in Korea, Japan, and/or Europe after the Futures Tour. If she can handle the grind and the pressure of playing golf for a living, she could garner the kinds of international experiences study-abroad program officers only dream of for their students. What's wrong with returning to college in your mid-20s, anyway, particularly if you can pay your way?

Looking Ahead, Part 3: Futures Tour Q-School

The Futures Tour Q-School ended last Friday, with many of its top finishers heading to the LPGA's Q-School in 3 weeks, including medalist Hannah Jun (-12) and Curtis Cupper Alison Walshe (-4).

I was sad to see Fukuoka native Ai Origake balloon to a 78 on Thursday and miss the 54-hole cut by 1 shot. On the bright side, it looks like free-falling former-can't-miss-prospect Esther Choe (+7, T45) will have exempt status on the Futures Tour in 2009. The same can't be said for Violeta Retamoza or Jeanne Cho-Hunicke, but at least they have one more chance for a miracle to strike during the 1st week of December. LPGA rookies Anna Grzebien (-2, T12), Candy Hannemann (+8, T53), Liz Janangelo (+1, T21), and Taylor Leon (E, T19) at least have some insurance should things not go so well then, as does Junior Mint Virada Nirapathpongporn (-1, T15).

Those who do remain on the Futures Tour in 2009 will have some good competition, as 4 of the top 6 finishers, 9 of the top 18, and 18 of the top 40 were amateurs. NCAA standouts Pernilla Lindberg (-11, 2nd) and Jennie Lee (+2, T25) are only a few of the names we'll all get to know better from these ranks next season. With only 4 of the top 40 on the 2008 FT money list not competing in the LPGA's Final Qualifying School (not counting #1-#5, who will already be LPGA members in 2009), the odds are that a good number of them will be competing mostly on the FT next season, as well. For as little money as they'll be competing for, it's a good thing that the FT has added two new tournaments to their 2009 schedule.

[Update 1 (11/13/08, 2:13 am): Beth Ann Baldry has more from FT Q-School.]

Mizuno Classic Sunday: Shin Wins Big

Hound Dog has Ji-Yai Shin's 6-shot victory over Mayu Hattori in the Mizuno Classic covered from almost every possible angle, so consider this an effort to add a few footnotes to his pithy and almost-perfect post.

Rounds of the Week

Congrats to Shinobu Moromizato for shooting the low round of the day and the week--a 65 that included 6 birdies and an eagle and, in the process, outdid Sandra Gal's bogey-free 66.

The Race for the ADT Championship

Neither Christina Kim nor Hee Young Park helped their causes, even though Morgan Pressel and Meena Lee opened the door for them. Park and Ai Miyazato are alternates for Lorena's tournament, but as it's unlikely anyone will WD, their LPGA seasons are effectively over. It's going to come down to Nicole Castrale and Meena Lee trying to hold off Christina Kim, Sophie Gustafson, Sun Young Yoo, and Jane Park next week for the last two 2nd-half-money-list spots. Kim and Gustafson lead the wild card race, as well, but Yoo is only a few thousand dollars behind the latter on the money list, while Park is less than $18K behind. Brittany Lang basically needs to win next week to get into the ADT (either by displacing Lee for the last 2nd-half spot or leapfrogging past 3 of those ahead of her on the money list); even if Teresa Lu were to win, she'd need some help from those ahead of her on the money list to play the following week.

Mixed Performances from JLPGA Notables

The JLPGA's finest didn't play like it this week, but a look down the notables list shows how strong the JLPGA is:

2nd/-9 Hattori (67-69-71)
3rd/-8 Eun-A Lim (68-70-70)
T4/-7 Yun-Jye Wei (71-68-70)
T7/-6 Yuri Fudoh (71-70-69), Bo-Bae Song (70-71-69), Miki Saiki (67-73-70)

T11/-5 Yuko Mitsuka (69-71-71), Erina Hara (71-67-73)
T16/-4 Sakura Yokomine (71-71-70)
T23/-2 Shiho Oyama (69-68-77), Shinobu Moromizato (73-76-65), Esther Lee (72-69-73), Hiromi Mogi (71-72-71)
T31/-1 Ji-Hee Lee (74-69-72)
T35/E Momoko Ueda (70-74-72), Akiko Fukushima (74-72-70), Saiki Fujita (71-70-75), Rui Kitada (75-70-71)
T44/+1 Ayako Uehara (71-72-74), Midori Yoneyama (73-75-69), Nikki Campbell (72-73-72)
T51/+2 Ai Miyazato (71-73-74), Miho Koga (73-70-75), Maiko Wakabayashi (71-76-71), Ji-Woo Lee (72-74-72), Hiroko Yamaguchi (74-71-73)
T63/+4 Mi-Jeong Jeon (73-71-76), Akane Iijima (73-73-74)
T69/+5 Chie Arimura (74-71-76)
T75/+7 Yukari Baba (71-74-78)
T77/+9 Kaori Higo (71-79-75)

When you consider how badly top LPGA stars blew up this week, from Morgan Pressel (+5) to Ya Ni Tseng, Inbee Park, and Karrie Webb (+4), or played indifferently, from Christina Kim and Na Yeon Choi (E) to Mi Hyun Kim (-1) and In-Kyung Kim (-2), or played well but got dusted by Shin anyway, from Candie Kung, Ji Young Oh, and Jin Joo Hong (-5) to Allison Fouch (-6), Il Mi Chung (-7), and Jee Young Lee (-7), it's pretty clear that the JLPGA held up better than the KLPGA did this season against the LPGA's stars. The Kyoraku Cup should be quite interesting!

Money List

Here's the new JLPGA money list:

1. Ji-Hee Lee ￥112.99M
2. Akiko Fukushima ￥88.45M
3. Sakura Yokomine ￥84.84M
4. Miho Koga ￥83.26M
5. Yuri Fudoh ￥78.69M
6. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥78.17M
7. Shiho Oyama ￥71.56M
8. Eun-A Lim ￥68.61M
9. Yuko Mitsuka ￥67.68M
10. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥64.20M
11. Erina Hara ￥63.69M
12. Ayako Uehara ￥60.73M
13. Shinobu Moromizato ￥57.18M
14. Bo-Bae Song ￥54.87M
15. Mayu Hattori ￥54.39M
16. Esther Lee ￥53.15M
17. Hiromi Mogi ￥51.04M
18. Akane Iijima ￥48.83M
19. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥47.84M
20. Miki Saiki ￥47.04M
21. Momoko Ueda ￥46.34M
22. Chie Arimura ￥45.73M
23. Ji-Yai Shin ￥45.18M
24. Ji-Woo Lee ￥42.75M
25. Hiroko Yamaguchi ￥41.77M
26. Yukari Baba ￥41.02M
27. Midori Yoneyama ￥35.30M
28. Rui Kitada ￥34.74M
29. Saiki Fujita ￥30.54M
30. Nikki Campbell ￥26.69M

With only 3 events remaining in the JLPGA's 2008 schedule and the last of them being the last of their majors, it'll be interesting to see how many events Ai-chan (currently #45 on the money list) will play. This "just playing the JLPGA majors and big-time events" doesn't seem to be working out.

[Update 1 (7:57 pm): On the other hand, as Hound Dog points out, the limited schedule Ji-Yai Shin has been playing on the LPGA (and JLPGA) has been working out just fine. Wonder if she can win the ADT!]

[Update 2 (11/10/08, 8:28 am): Some interesting remarks from the champion in her post-win interview:

Q. You said you are going to play the LPGA Tour next year. Do you have some tournaments that you think you are going to play in Japan?

JI-YAI SHIN: I really like this tournament in Japan. Everyone is very friendly when I come here, so I do really want to play more tournaments in Japan. I don't know how many, because the LPGA schedule, we don't know yet. So, maybe after looking at the LPGA schedule and the JLPGA schedule, I will be able to see what tournaments I can play.

I'd like playing in Japan, too, if I were to finish 1-2-2-2-1 in the tournaments I entered there! But I suspect Shin will try to get as many KLPGA and JLPGA majors onto her schedule as possible in 2009, even if it hurts her in the Rookie of the Year race on the LPGA.]

[Update 3 (11/13/08, 12:48 pm): Busy on this end, so missed The Florida Masochist's take on Shin's win.]

Mizuno Classic Saturday: Get Moving or Get Back

Moving Day lived up to its name at the Mizuno Classic. A 32 on the back for a bogey-free 66 leapfrogged Ji-Yai Shin 2 shots ahead of 1st-round leader Mayu Hattori, who broke 70 for the 2nd stright time thanks to a 33 on the back. Jee Young Lee was the only LPGA star to keep pace with her JLPGA peers; her birdie on the 18th was good enough for a 68 that brought into a tie for 3rd with Shiho Oyama. Erina Hara's bogey-free 67 pulled her even with Eun-A Lim at -6. Nice 67, too, by Allison Fouch to get to -4 and T9. More later!

[Update 1 (11/9/08, 8:28 am): Here's Hound Dog's recap. LPGA.com's notes and interviews page gets a lot wrong about Ji-Yai Shin (her KLPGA record this season, for one thing), but it does reveal 2 things about her worth noting: she's very comfortable playing in Japan and loves Japanese food.]

Mizuno Classic Friday: The JLPGA Kids Are All Right

Mayu Hattori picked up where she left off last week with a bogey-free 67 in the 1st round of the Mizuno Classic, but winning 2 JLPGA events in a row is going to be quite the challenge for this 20-year-old. Two of her peers are in a great position to tear up their Q-School tickets: Miki Saiki made 6 birdies on her way to her own 67, while a final-hole bogey dropped Shiho Oyama into a tie for 5th, 2 shots behind the co-leaders. But watch out for a couple of Korean standouts on the JLPGA who shot matching 68s: Eun-A Lim has already won this season on tour, while Ji-Yai Shin has won on every tour.

The LPGA stars had better pick up their game if they want to be in contention on the back 9 Sunday. Sure, 7 of them joined Yuko Mitsuka in matching Oyama's 69--among them Jee Young Lee, Shanshan Feng, and Ji Young Oh--but Jin Joo Hong failed to capitalize on an eagle and only Jimin Kang avoided making a bogey or worse. Defending champion Momoko Ueda and Rookie of the Year contender Na Yeon Choi each made 5 birdies, but could only manage 70s (1 behind fellow rookies Feng and Sandra Gal), while Mi Hyun Kim got matched by the JLPGA's Bo-Bae Song and Teresa Lu by Yuko Saitoh.

Still, with the leaderboard as bunched as it is--40 players are under par, while 54 are within 5 shots of the lead--only a few players really hurt their chances for victory today. But what disappointments for Morgan Pressel (75), Ji-Hee Lee, Akiko Fukushima, and Inbee Park (74), and Ya Ni Tseng, Miho Koga, Candie Kung, and Mi-Jeong Jeon (73)! Fortunately, with no cut, anyone can still finish respectably with a good weekend. And a great weekend can launch someone from back in the pack to victory if the lead pack falters. That means it's too soon to count out Karrie Webb, Christina Kim, In-Kyung Kim, Esther Lee, and Ji-Woo Lee at E, or Yuri Fudoh, Ai Miyazato, Sakura Yokomine, Hee Young Park, Erina Hara, or Ayako Uehara at -1. Still, while it's great that Ai-chan and Christina made eagles on an otherwise dreary day, they and their peers have to get it in gear if they don't want to be left in the dust.

[Update 1 (9:42 am): Hound Dog is even more optimistic than I am about the chances of the people at the bottom of the leaderboard to storm back. He also has a good catch from the post-round interviews.]

[Update 2 (9:52 am): Here are the 2nd-round pairings. Shanshan Feng said in interviews she hoped to be paired with a Japanese player, but the way the scores broke down, she's playing with Jee Young Lee and Lindsey Wright. Nice to Momoko Ueda, Na Yeon Choi, and Teresa Lu paired, as well as Ai Miyazato, Sakura Yokomine, and Becky Morgan. The final 2 pairings aren't half bad, either:

Start Time: 10:35 AM
Ji-Yai Shin
Shiho Oyama
Yuko Mitsuka

Start Time: 10:45 AM
Mayu Hattori
Miki Saiki
Eun-A Lim

On the back, Christina Kim and In-Kyung Kim join Kristy McPherson, while some of the top JLPGA players will be finishing about the same time as the leaders--not quite what Ji-Hee Lee, Akiko Fukushima, Miho Koga, and Mi-Jeong Jeon envisioned, I'm sure.]

The Aussie Invasion

Thanks to Aussie Golfer for an overview of how the LPGA's Australian contingent is doing this season. (And let's not forget Koreans who have made Australia their home for a time like Amy Yang and Haeji Kang who will be going to Q-School with Aussies Sarah Oh, Anna Rawson, Michelle Ellis, Sarah Kemp, and Kristie Smith!)

Wonder if the New York Times will do an article investigating their adjustment to life on tour? How about calling it "From Down Under to Top of the World"? And including plenty of references to Crocodile Dundee, Men at Work, kangaroos, koalas, and vegimite sandwiches? Because that would be teh awesome! Thanks so much!

オバマmania

You don't need to understand Japanese to appreciate this NHK report on Obama City and Obama onsen (in Nagasaki):



This one from February has English subtitles:



As always, Japan Probe is the place to go for further background. Here's James's takes on a commercial that has been called racist; on a Japanese Obama lookalike; with more video on celebrations in Japan; on Jero's reaction to Obama's win....

Maybe we can expect a win from Oyama (Shiho) this week in the Mizuno Classic!

Mizuno Classic Preview/Pairings/Predictions

Momoko Ueda returns to the Mizuno Classic to defend her title against a strong field. The event has a long history, but it has only been played at the current course for the past 2 seasons. Karrie Webb was the 1st to post a victory at Kashikojima--and break Annika Sorenstam's 5-year winning streak in Japan.

Those competing in this week's Pakpicker over at Seoul Sisters.com may wish to consult my September Best Off the LPGA JLPGA rankings, Hound Dog's current JLPGA ranking, the current JLPGA money list (for those who don't like clicking on names, head to my last JLPGA post for the top 30), and my hot-off-the-presses Best of the LPGA ranking.

At least that's what I did in putting together these predictions:

1. Tseng
2. Shin Ji-Yai
3. Ueda
4. Lee Jee Young
5. Lee Ji-Hee
6. Fudoh
7. Kim Christina
8. Miyazato
9. Yokomine
10. Choi Na Yeon
11. Kim In-Kyung
12. Koga

Alts: Oyama, Fukushima, Webb

The pairings are simply amazing for JLPGA fans. As I did for last week's event, I'll list them by tee and relative strength.

1st Tee

Start Time: 10:00 AM
In-Kyung Kim
Yani Tseng
Ji-Hee Lee

Start Time: 9:40 AM
Candie Kung
Mi Hyun Kim
Christina Kim

Start Time: 9:20 AM
Karrie Webb
Kristy McPherson
Ai Miyazato

Start Time: 9:30 AM
Morgan Pressel
Louise Friberg
Momoko Ueda

Start Time: 8:00 AM
Mi-Jeong Jeon
Shiho Oyama
So-Hee Kim

Start Time: 9:00 AM
Miho Koga
Shinobu Moromizato
Janice Moodie

In addition, Sakura Yokomine is going off at 9:10 am, Akiko Fukushima at 9:50 am, and Yuko Mitsuka at 8:20 am.

10th Tee

Start Time: 9:40 AM
Na Yeon Choi
Hee Young Park
Young Kim

Start Time: 9:30 AM
Jee Young Lee
Teresa Lu
Rachel Hetherington

Start Time: 9:50 AM
Lindsey Wright
Minea Blomqvist
Ji Young Oh

Start Time: 8:50 AM
Yuri Fudoh
Miki Saiki
Kim Hall

Start Time: 10:00 AM
Catriona Matthew
Meena Lee
Carin Koch

Start Time: 9:20 AM
Jin Joo Hong
Shanshan Feng
Wendy Ward

It's a bit strange that the tournament organizers didn't aggregate their big names more: Ji-Yai Shin goes off at 8:20 am, Erina Hara at 8:30 am, Ayako Uehara at 9:00 am, and Bo-Bae Song at 8:00 am. Why there were so many LPGA-only pairings is beyond me.

Moira Dunn is the 1st alternate, so I assume she's in Japan waiting to see if she'll get to play. If my faves Ai-chan, Momo-chan, or In-Kyung Kim can't win this week, I'd really love to see someone like Sakura Yokomine, Miho Koga, Ayako Uehara, Yuko Mitsuka, or Erina Hara do it, as I think they'd be top 50 players on the LPGA in '09(and Miyazato, Ueda, and probably Oyama and Saiki could use the company in the U.S. next season). At the same time, I wouldn't mind seeing one of the JLPGA's Korean contingent like Ji-Hee Lee, Mi-Jeong Jeon, Bo-Bae Song, Eun-A Lim, Esther Lee, or Ji-Woo Lee punch their ticket to the LPGA this week. But above all I'd love to see a better showing from the JLPGA's finest than we saw from the top KLPGA stars last week.

[Update 1 (12:52 am): Here's Hound Dog's tournament preview.]

Change

Finally!

The Best of the LPGA: October 2008 Edition

Here's a pre-Mizuno Classic update of my last Best of the LPGA ranking. As always, my system combines the most recent results from the Rolex Rankings, the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, the LPGA Official Money List, and Hound Dog's Top 30.

Once again, the world #1 is a no-brainer:

1. Lorena Ochoa: #1 money ($2.74M), #1 RR (17.70), #1 GSPI (67.85), #1 HD. Still the only player on the LPGA for whom a top 10 is only a so-so finish, she finally broke through for win #7 in '08. I think she'll get 1 more before the season is out.

The lead chase pack is now both closing on Ochoa and growing:

2. Paula Creamer: #2 money ($1.79M), #5 RR (8.61), #2 GSPI (68.95), #2 HD. Meet the new #2! Although she's right behind Annika in many key stats, she's well ahead in top 10s and top 10 rate, but even more important, she's got 1 more win than Sorenstam--and it's a biggie, against the elite field at the Samsung. But watch out, Paula. The chase pack is getting crowded.
3. Annika Sorenstam: #4 money ($1.64M), #3 RR (9.65), #6 GSPI (69.42), #3 HD. Her come-from-behind win in the new LET China event last week suggests she still has some gas left in the tank for the LPGA's home stretch. But how much? She's not in the Mizuno Classic field, so she'll get a little rest before Lorena's invitational and the ADT Championship. Will it be enough?
4. Ya Ni Tseng: #3 money ($1.73M), #2 RR (9.86), #7 GSPI (69.52), #4 HD. Ya Ni's playing in the last 3 events of the season, so has the best chance to leapfrog to #2. She's a hair behind Paula and Annika in all the key stats except birdie rate, where she's the only player besides Lorena to be averaging over 4 per round. With 5 silvers and 2 bronzes this season, I wouldn't be surprised if she put herself in contention in all 3 events.
5. Suzann Pettersen: #6 money ($1.15M), #4 RR (8.65), #5 GSPI (69.21), #7 HD. I have to admit that she has impressed me this season. To break the million-dollar barrier for the 2nd year in a row with 5 fewer wins than the previous season is quite an accomplishment. Until she blew up in Korea, she had an 8-tournament top 20 streak going that included a silver, a bronze, and 3 other top 10s. I can't fault her for skipping Japan, but it is going to make it difficult for her to make up further ground on thse ahead of her in her last 2 events.
6. Cristie Kerr: #9 money ($1.08M), #6 RR (6.35), #3 GSPI (69.17), #5 HD. She got her 5th straight million-dollar season with her win at the Safeway Classic and 7 top 10s from the European Swing to the Asian, so I can't blame her for skipping Korea and Japan.

The next pair has fallen a bit further behind the lead chase pack:

7. Na Yeon Choi: #10 money ($1.07M), #28 RR (3.53), #8 GSPI (69.69), #6 HD. She missed some great opportunities to make up ground on Tseng in the best Rookie of the Year race of the decade. But like Tseng she's playing in all 3 final events on the LPGA, so she could conceivably make up that 273-point deficit. Whatever the result, for 2 rookies to cross the million-dollar rubicon is simply amazing. Hats off to Tseng and Choi!
8. Seon Hwa Lee: #7 money ($1.15M), #10 RR (4.70), #18 GSPI (70.59), #9 HD. You can never call a 2-win season disappointing, but as I'm still waiting for that Mostly Harmless reverse jinx to kick in, I'll continue complaining about Lee's late underachievements and add to my list her decision to skip the Mizuno Classic. Hopefully the rest will do the '06 ROY and top Junior Mint some good. I'd love to see her get 1 more win this season!

But the rest of the chase pack has fallen even further behind and can be found in the top 10 in only 2 of the 4 systems (and/or in the top 20 in all):

9. Helen Alfredsson: #5 money ($1.41M), #7 RR (6.22), #59 GSPI (71.68), #20 HD. She continues to shock me with her ability to manufacture great play out of almost nowhere and close the deal when in contention. I can't believe she has as many wins as Seon Hwa Lee in 2008. She has my vote for Comeback Player of the Year (if I had one, that is).
10. Inbee Park: #8 money ($1.12M), #20 RR (4.13), #34 GSPI (71.07), #10 HD. Finally showing some signs of life of late, she's been suffering from that ol' sophomore jinx at the worst possible time for it. Fortunately there are no cuts on the Asian Swing. Career-wise, I rank her #3 in her rookie class, #6 among the Super Sophs and Junior Mints, and at least #8 in her generation (the classes of 2008-2008), but for the season she's #1, #2, and #4, so there's still hope for her in her last 3 events of 2008.
11. Karrie Webb: #20 money ($751.5K), #9 RR (5.08), #10 GSPI (69.96), #16 HD. I don't understand her decision to play in Japan but skip the rest of the Asian Swing, particularly when she's running out of time to salvage her season. I guess she wanted to minimize her international travel or enjoy the Hawaii-to-Tokyo flight--whatever her reasoning, at least she's playing the last 3 events of the season.
12. Jeong Jang: #11 money ($1.02M), #15 RR (4.46), #9 GSPI (69.91), #12 HD. Let's see, last time I wrote, "Expect her to have surgery in the off-season. But also look for her to break the million-dollar mark this season. That's how tough she is." Latter prediction: check. Former? We'll see. Here's hoping that whatever she chooses to do about her injured wrist, her recovery is smoother than Mi Hyun Kim's has been from knee surgery.
13. Angela Stanford: #14 money ($917.0K), #11 RR (4.66), #17 GSPI (70.57), #13 HD. Last time I guessed that "she's got a 50-50 chance of turning it around in the final third of the year." Guess what? She's got a chance to break the million-dollar barrier this season! No wonder she's jumped 20 spots since last ranking!
14. Eun-Hee Ji: #15 money ($882.9K), #17 RR (4.27), #14 GSPI (70.47), #11 HD. Last time I praised her end-of-year prospects by noting that "She reminds me of Seon Hwa Lee." Unfortunately, she's imitated Lee in underachievement down the stretch, capped off by a bitterly disappointing Asian Swing and a DQ in Korea for accepting a ride on a cart at the wrong place and time. Although I hate to see her skip the Mizuno, maybe it's the right call. Still, she needs 2 great finishes or her 2nd win of the season to break the million-dollar barrier. Can she do it?
15. Hee-Won Han: #18 money ($798.6K), #19 RR (4.19), #12 GSPI (70.26), #15 HD. Got a nice T3 in Korea, but has struggled otherwise recently. Probably a good idea for this new mom to skip Japan and focus on her last 2 events of a great comeback season.

Surprisingly, there's only 1 player with top 20s in 3 of the 4 systems.

16. Song-Hee Kim: #13 money ($963.2K), #36 RR (2.99), #13 GSPI (70.46), #14 HD. Squandered her momentum heading into the Asian Swing, so it's probably a good thing she's skipping the Mizuno.

There's a handful of golfers with 2 top 20s:

17. Karen Stupples: #22 money ($700.5K), #23 RR (3.73), #11 GSPI (70.09), #18 HD. Another new mom making a great comeback, she's also taking time off this week to prepare for the 2 final events of the season.
18. Angela Park: #16 money ($849.1K), #21 RR (3.99), #29 GSPI (70.92), #19 HD. Yikes, her sophomore slump from the spring is back with a vengeance. The way she's played on the Asian-Pacific Swing, it's no wonder she's cutting it short by skipping the Mizuno. Still, she's definitely in the last 2 events of the season, so anything can happen.
19. Laura Diaz: #19 money ($791.9K), #22 RR (3.96), #15 GSPI (70.51), #26 HD. With a 2-tournament top 3 streak going and well-rested from skipping Korea and Japan, she's on pace to pass the other moms ahead of her next ranking.
20. Candie Kung: #17 money ($836.6K), #27 RR (3.56), #20 GSPI (70.63), #28 HD. With a silver in Alabama and a gold in Korea, she definitely recharged her batteries during the LPGA's summer break. I like her decision to strike while the iron is hot and play all 3 final events. Right now she's one of my favorites to win the ADT!

And of course there are a lot with 1 top 20:

21. Katherine Hull: #12 money ($991.7K), #32 RR (3.30), #37 GSPI (71.23), #22 HD. Color me impressed. Not only does she have a fantastic chance to break the million-dollar barrier, but I would also list her among the favorites to win the ADT.
22. In-Kyung Kim: #21 money ($722.6K), #25 RR (3.65), #30 GSPI (70.92), #17 HD. Last time I encouraged one of my favorite players with the following: "She still has a chance to turn this year around. It's go time for the former #2 in her class." Well, she's got 8 straight top 20s, a win at the Longs Drugs, and an entry into the last 3 events of the season, so I'd say she responded well to my exhortations.
23. Maria Hjorth: #30 money ($569.2K), #13 RR (4.52), #21 GSPI (70.63), #25 HD. She's riding a 5-tournament top 30 streak, which is really consistent for her, but given the 4 events she's skipped in that stretch (including the entire Asian Swing), don't expect too much from her in her last 2.
24. Morgan Pressel: #23 money ($700.0K), #16 RR (4.35), #39 GSPI (71.24), #37 HD (as of September). Her surprise win in Kapalua salvaged what would otherwise have been a rebuilding year. Should be playing in all 3 final events, so still could turn a good season into a very good one.
25. Jee Young Lee: #24 money ($683.5K), #18 RR (4.20), #22 GSPI (70.67), #24 HD. Got a little top 10 streak going--can she keep it up in Japan? And beyond? She's super-due for that pesky 1st LPGA win as a LPGA member....
26. Juli Inkster: #38 money ($441.5K), #24 RR (3.68), #19 GSPI (70.59), #29 HD. Lorena's invitational will be her swan song for 2008, unless she can win it.
27. Mi Hyun Kim: #41 money ($428.7K), #26 RR (3.59), #16 GSPI (70.55), #30 HD. Thanks to a slow recovery from knee surgery last winter, her December wedding will be the highlight of her year. The Mizuno Classic will be her last event of the season unless she has a fantastic finish in it or Lorena decides to invite her to play next week in Mexico.
28. Momoko Ueda: #46 money ($406.0K), #14 RR (4.51), #25 GSPI (70.83), #36 HD (in September). The Mizuno will be her last LPGA event of what has to count as a rather disappointing rookie season on that tour--it looks like she'll finish only 4th in the ROY race. Still, with 2 JLPGA wins and the chance to get more in their last 4 events, she could end the year there as the #1-ranked player in my system, despite her limited schedule. Hound Dog has her at #8 right now; I'm updating my JLPGA rankings next week.

Right behind them is a trio with 3 top 30s:

29. Christina Kim: #25 money ($649.7K), #38 RR (2.84), #23 GSPI (70.73), #23 HD. With 2 T7s in a row, she's heading into the Mizuno Classic with a lot of momentum and motivation--a spot in the ADT Championship is at stake. I expect to see her in the last 3 events of the season, which would make it 7 in a row for her.
30. Ji Young Oh: #28 money ($633.0K), #56 RR (1.95), #27 GSPI (70.84), #21 HD. With a respectable Asian Swing to date and a chance for an upgrade this week in Japan, I'm starting to wonder if this Super Soph is for real. A good finish in the Mizuno virtually guarantees her a spot in the ADT!
31. Jane Park: #29 money ($623.3K), #46 RR (2.49), #28 GSPI (70.92), #27 H.D. I really thought this Super Soph was poised for a great stretch run. But if she doesn't get into Lorena's invitational, her season is done.

Another trio have 1 top 30:

32. Sophie Gustafson: #26 money ($639.0K), #33 RR (3.19), #48 GSPI (71.48), n.r. HD (#29 in September). Inexplicably sitting out the Mizuno after her T3 in Korea vaulted her into the ADT qualification race. She'll need a good finish in Lorena's invitational to join her Class of '98 rival Hjorth at the ADT and maintain her slim lead in career winnings.
33. Sun Young Yoo: #27 money ($635.0K), #63 RR (1.80), #40 GSPI (71.25), n.r. HD (#24 in September). I have no idea why this Junior Mint is sitting out the Mizuno when she's on the bubble in both the 2nd-half (#12) and wild card (#2) races to qualify for the ADT. Why rely on the kindness of fellow competitors when a million-dollar 1st prize is at stake in 2 weeks??
34. Se Ri Pak: #50 money ($366.1K), #30 RR (3.36), #94 GSPI (72.52), #51 HD (in September). Unless she gets a courtesy invite to Lorena's invitational, this Hall of Famer has only the Lexis and Kyoraku Cups to look forward to in '08.

And here are the best of the rest:

35. Stacy Prammanasudh: #35 money ($470.6K), #35 RR (3.01), #43 GSPI (71.37), n.r. HD (#25 in September). Neither the Southern Swing nor the Asian-Pacific Swing was kind to her. Unless she gets into Lorena's invitational, her 2008 is over. [Update (11/6/08, 8:45 am): She's first alternate.]
36. Nicole Castrale: #32 money ($516.3K), #31 RR (3.33), #45 GSPI (71.40), #35 HD (in September). Her top 10 in China may well be enough to vault her into the ADT Championship. Meena Lee can drop her to the last 2nd-half slot with a good finish at the Mizuno, but everyone else behind her will need a great finish there and/or at Lorena's invitational to knock her out.
37. Catriona Matthew: #40 money ($430.3K), #34 RR (3.12), #35 GSPI (71.11), #40 HD (in September). Needs a miracle at the Mizuno to keep her season alive.
38. Brittany Lang: #31 money ($542.5K), #49 RR (2.21), #33 GSPI (71.05), #46 H.D (in September). With 4 straight top 10s on the Asian-Pacific Swing, I have no clue why she's skipping the Mizuno, particularly when it could well have been her last chance to qualify for the ADT. Has she already received an invitation to Lorena's event? If not, her season is over.
39. Meena Lee: #33 money ($497.0K), #61 RR (1.82), #38 GSPI (71.24), #43 HD (in September). Needs a good finish at the Mizuno to make it difficult for anyone playing in Lorena's invitational to pass her in the 2nd-half money list. [Update (11/6/08, 8:48 am): She's listed in Lorena's invitational's field, so is still in the running to stay inside the bubble for the ADT.]
40. Lindsey Wright: #42 money ($415.1K), #48 RR (2.26), #31 GSPI (71.01), #34 HD (in September). Needs a miracle at the Mizuno.
41. Teresa Lu: #34 money ($495.1K), #59 RR (1.87), #36 GSPI (71.16), #39 HD (in September). Needs a miracle at the Mizuno. [Update (11/6/08, 8:48 am): She's listed in Lorena's invitational's field, so is still in the running to qualify for the ADT.]
42. Hee Young Park: #36 money ($470.5K), #55 RR (1.95), #41 GSPI (71.26), #47 H.D. (in September). Needs a miracle at the Mizuno.
43. Ai Miyazato: #45 money ($406.6K), #40 RR (2.78), #46 GSPI (71.44), #50 HD (in September). Needs a miracle at the Mizuno.
44. Minea Blomqvist: #43 money ($411.5K), #64 RR (1.78), #63 GSPI (71.72), #41 HD (in September). Needs a miracle at the Mizuno.
45. Giulia Sergas: #44 money ($407.7K), #69 RR (1.68), #47 GSPI (71.48), #48 HD (in September). Needs a miracle at the Mizuno.
46. Kristy McPherson: #47 money ($403.0K), #72 RR (1.55), #60 GSPI (71.71), #44 HD (in September). Needs a miracle at the Mizuno.
47. Leta Lindley: #39 money ($439.2K), #77 RR (1.44), #73 GSPI (71.97), #42 HD (in September). Her 2008 is over. And a pretty darn good season it was.
48. Jimin Kang: #51 money ($357.9K), #81 RR (1.42), #50 GSPI (71.54), #45 HD (in September). Needs a miracle at the Mizuno.
49. Natalie Gulbis: #56 money ($266.2K), #37 RR (2.86), #64 GSPI (71.75), #58 HD (in September). Unless she can win Lorena's invitational, it will be her last event of '08. [Update (11/6/08, 8:45 am): Waitasec--looks like she turned down the invitation.]

The Politics of Miyazaki

Daniel Thomas MacInnes of Conversations on Ghibli has done the animation world a great service in posting and commenting on a Japanese documentary on Hayao Miyazaki's North American promotion tour for Princess Mononoke at the end of the last millennium. But as good as his focus on the business marketing context of the Ghibli-Disney relationship's beginning is, it's his penultimate paragraph that's the most significant part of his piece, for it touches on something the Full Metal Archivist was picking up on throughout the documentary:

Still, as an artist and dedicated Ghibl Freak, I am endlessly annoyed by all these stupid questions from the suits, the expectation that Miyazaki dumb his work down to the level of...I dunno, the average George W. Bush voter. Why does everything in this country be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator? Why does everybody have to be so mindless, so sloven, so stupid? Thank God there will be no President Sarah Palin in 2009. But in this swamp, that possibility is always lurking nearby, just like November snow in Minnesota.

In fact, Thomas shouldn't have backed off on his self-described "rant" or chalked it up to his health or mood in his final paragraph. Pay attention to Miyazaki's emotional response to the questions asked by most American film critics: he's angry and tense, not just nervous or anxious. The assumptions behind the questions are pissing him off, and because of that, his answers are quite revealing. But the conception of politics Miyazaki is drawing on is much broader than only electioneering and lowest-common denominator media culture, ranging from the interaction between creative artists, their works, and their audiences (particularly children) to the politics and pedagogies of form. No time to elaborate on this now, but will be happy to in comments.

BTW, the FMA fears Ponyo will be his last film. Here's the theme song:



For more on the characters and themes (in Japanese), head over here. MacInnes is the source for those of us limited to English.

Hana Bank/KOLON Championship Sunday: Candie Kung Does It!

Hound Dog's final-round recap and the LPGA.com notes and interviews from the Hana Bank/KOLON Championship announce the news: Candie Kung has won for the 1st time since her 3-win season in 2003. Congratulations to Kung, whose resurgence I had hoped for but not predicted back in January. More later.

[Update 1 (8:54 am): The #2 rivalry on the LPGA just heated up. With Kung's win this season matching Natalie Gulbis's in 2007, and Gulbis's injuries limiting her schedule almost as much this season as Kung's did last one, Kung's $250K+ lead on the road to the $4M mark in career earnings should motivate Gulbis when she returns to the LPGA in 2009.]

[Update 2 (11/3/08, 1:16 am): The Florida Masochist congratulates Kung and points out an odd moment in the post-round interview.]

[Update 3 (1:25 am): Ryan Ballengee remarks on Kung's resurgence.]

[Update 4 (3:10 am): Here's Hound Dog's epilogue.]

Hisako Higuchi IDC Otsuka Ladies Sunday: Mayu Hattori Gets 1st Career Win

This June, 20-year-old Chie Arimura got her 1st career win against the likes of Yuri Fudoh and Shiho Oyama, so even though she hadn't been playing all that well since mid-summer, she was the clear favorite heading into the final round of the Hisako Higuchi IDC Otsuka Ladies event on the JLPGA. But 20-year-old Mayu Hattori and Maiko Wakabayashi, along with 22-year-old Esther Lee, gave her a serious run for her money. In the end, it came down to the final hole, a 485-yard par 5. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

All 4 players birdied the 1st hole, but where Wakabayashi and Hattori made a birdie and a bogey over the rest of the front, Lee's birdie on the 9th brought her to -6 and into a tie for 1st with Arimura, 2 ahead of the chase pair. Wakabayashi made 6 pars in a row to begin the back, while the other leaders struggled. Arimura dropped to -5 with a bogey on the long par 4 10th. Lee bogeyed the 11th, another long par 4, to join her, right after Hattori's bogey there dropped her to -3. At this point, Ji-Woo Lee, playing in the next-to-last group with Wakabayashi, surfaced with a birdie that brought her to -4, joining Rui Kitada, who had been hanging at -4 for most of the day while her playing partner Hattori rode the roller coaster. Hattori joined them with a birdie on the short par 4 13th, but when Arimura also birdied it to return to -6 and Esther Lee bogeyed the 14th and 15th to drop to -3, it seemed like Arimura was in control, particularly when Kitada tripled the 14th and Ji-Woo Lee made back-to-back bogeys on the 15th and 16th in the groups ahead of her. However, Hattori's back-to-back birdies on the 16th and 17th brought her into a tie with Arimura, and when Wakabayashi birdied the long par 5 16th, she pulled within 1 of the lead, as well. Esther Lee also birdied 16 to get back within 2 shots of Arimura and Hattori, who closed out her round with a par on the short par 5 final hole. Wakabayashi, meanwhile, bogeyed the 17th and could only manage a par on the 18th.

So coming into the final hole Esther Lee needed an eagle to have a hope of joining Hattori at -6, while Arimura needed a birdie for the win and a par to force a playoff. Lee birdied to finish at -5, but Arimura could only manage a double bogey. The Kyodo News story isn't out yet, so I don't know how Arimura handed Hattori the win just yet. But the fact remains that Hattori joins fellow young Japanese stars Erina Hara, Arimura, and Wakabayashi in the winner's circle in 2008.

Here are the final results for the top 10 and notables who made the cut:

1st/-6 Hattori (70-71-69)
2nd/-5 Esther Lee (73-67-71)
T3/-4 Wakabayashi (72-69-71), Arimura (72-66-74)
T5/-3 Sakura Yokomine (71-72-70), Shinobu Moromizato (71-71-71), Yayoi Arasaki (70-72-71), Natsu Nagai (72-70-71), Michie Ohba (71-69-73)
T10/-2 Ayako Uehara (72-73-69), Yuko Mitsuka (69-75-70), Ji-Woo Lee (72-69-73), Mie Nakata (72-69-73)

T14/-1 Rui Kitada (71-70-74)
T17/E Miho Koga (71-77-68)
T20/+1 Yun-Jye Wei (71-75-72), Nikki Campbell (73-73-72)
T26/+2 Erina Hara (70-76-72)
T28/+3 Saiki Fujita (74-74-71), Mi-Jeong Jeon (73-72-74)
T36/+4 Midori Yoneyama (76-71-73), Hiromi Mogi (72-73-75)
T42/+5 Tamie Durdin (72-76-73)
T46/+7 Yuki Ichinose (72-77-74)

And here's the new money list:

1. Ji-Hee Lee ￥112.00M
2. Akiko Fukushima ￥87.70M
3. Sakura Yokomine ￥83.06M
4. Miho Koga ￥82.84M
5. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥77.86M
6. Yuri Fudoh ￥75.37M
7. Shiho Oyama ￥70.31M
8. Yuko Mitsuka ￥65.38M
9. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥64.20M
10. Erina Hara ￥61.39M
11. Ayako Uehara ￥60.18M
12. Eun-A Lim ￥59.40M
13. Shinobu Moromizato ￥55.92M
14. Esther Lee ￥51.89M
15. Bo-Bae Song ￥51.55M
16. Hiromi Mogi ￥49.79M
17. Akane Iijima ￥48.52M
18. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥47.42M
19. Momoko Ueda ￥45.58M
20. Chie Arimura ￥45.45M
21. Miki Saiki ￥43.72M
22. Ji-Woo Lee ￥42.33M
23. Mayu Hattori ￥41.69M
24. Hiroko Yamaguchi ￥41.35M
25. Yukari Baba ￥40.76M
26. Midori Yoneyama ￥34.76M
27. Rui Kitada ￥33.98M
28. Saiki Fujita ￥29.78M
29. Nikki Campbell ￥26.14M
30. Mie Nakata ￥26.02M

[Update 1 (7:54 am): Here's the Kyodo story.]

Hana Bank/KOLON Championship Saturday: Generation Gap

In the middle of the 1st round of the Hana Bank/KOLON Championship, I suggested that the results symbolized the kind of changing of the guard among the top Korean players in the world that we've been seeing all season on the LPGA. No more automatic top 10s for the likes of Se Ri Pak, Mi Hyun Kim, Jeong Jang, and Hee-Won Han. Long live the likes of Ji-Yai Shin, Hee Kyung Seo, In-Kyung Kim, and Amy Yang, etc., etc. Let's take a closer look at the emerging Korean generation gap:

The Old Guard
Se Ri Pak (71-72, -1, T11)
Mi Hyun Kim (70-73, -1, T11)
Jeong Jang (70-71, -3, T4)
Hee-Won Han (71-69, -4, T2)

The Young Guns
Ji-Yai Shin (70-75, +1, T24)
Seon Hwa Lee (74-76, +6, T52)
Angela Park (79-71, +6, T52)
Na Yeon Choi (74-75, +5, T47)
Inbee Park (71-78, +5, T47)
Jee Young Lee (74-69, -1, T11)
In-Kyung Kim (70-69, -5, 1st)
Ha-Neul Kim (73-71, E, T18)
Hee Kyung Seo (71-70, -3, T4)
Amy Yang (68-73, -3, T4)

With so many more young-gun than old-guard players, the chances for both good and bad finishes go up. But it sure will be interesting to see who among both groups will be in contention on the back 9 tomorrow. Same goes for the non-Korean players in the field--whether Christina Kim, Katherine Hull, Brittany Lang, and Morgan Pressel or Karen Stupples, Candie Kung, and Sophie Gustafson will give themselves a chance to win.

[Update 1 (4:48 pm): Here's Hound Dog's report.]

[Update 2 (4:54 pm): Here are the 2nd-round interviews from LPGA.com.]

Hisako Higuchi IDC Otsuka Ladies Saturday: Revenge of the B-List

Chie Arimura had once been one of the hottest golfers on the JLPGA, following up on her win at the Promise Ladies over Yuri Fudoh and Shiho Oyama with 2 more top 5s in an early-summer run of 8 straight top 20s. But since then she's been one of the coldest on tour, not finishing as many tournaments as she's finished (1 WD and 5 missed cuts in her last 12 starts) and not getting a top 10 in her last 9 tries, a top 20 (or top 30) in her last 8, a top 40 in her last 5, or even a made cut in her last 3.

So today's 66, which was jumpstarted by an eagle on the 385-yard par-4 7th hole and capped off by 3 birdies between the 13th and 16th holes, was the biggest surprise of the Hisako Higuchi IDC Otsuka Ladies event, hands down. Thanks to several other smaller-order surprises--namely the bad to indifferent play of the JLPGA's finest--the 20-year-old Arimura is in great position to notch her 2nd career win. All she needs to do is maintain her 2-shot lead on 22-year-old Esther Lee, who's looking for her 1st JLPGA victory, and veteran Michie Ohba, who hasn't won on tour since 2001; hold off a host of hungry peers 3 shots back, including fellow 20-year-olds Mayu Hattori, who's also looking for her 1st win on tour, and Maiko Wakabayashi, who's looking for her 2nd win in the last 4 weeks; and hope that big names like Shinobu Moromizato (4 back) and Sakura Yokomine (5 back) don't make big Sunday charges.

Here are the top 10 and notables:

1st/-6 Arimura (72-66)
T2/-4 Lee (73-67), Ohba (71-69)
T4/-3 Wakabayashi (72-69), Mie Nakata (72-69), Ji-Woo Lee (72-69), Rui Kitada (71-70), Hattori (70-71)
T9/-2 Natsu Nagai (72-70), Moromizato (71-71), Yayoi Arasaki (70-72)

Ohba made a great recovery from a 3-bogey-in-5-hole stretch on the front with 4 birdies in her last 10 holes, while Esther Lee made 7 birdies on the day. Hattori recovered nicely from a double bogey and 2 bogeys in her 1st 6 holes on the back with birdies in 2 of her last 3 holes, while Wakabayashi made 4 birdies in her 1st 14 holes. Nakata was actually -4 at the turn, but back-to-back bogeys on the 14th and 15th holes dropped her back in the pack.

T12/-1 Yokomine (71-72)
T15/E Yuko Mitsuka (69-75)
T20/+1 Mi-Jeong Jeon (73-72), Ayako Uehara (72-73), Hiromi Mogi (72-73)
T26/+2 Nikki Campbell (73-73), Yun-Jye Wei (71-75), Erina Hara (70-76)
T35/+3 Midori Yoneyama (76-71)
T38/+4 Saiki Fujita (74-74), Tamie Durdin (72-76), Miho Koga (71-77)
T49/+5 Yuki Ichinose (72-77)

Yokomine had gotten to -3 at the turn, but 3 bogeys in her 1st 6 holes on the back sabotaged her chances for her 1st win of 2008.

T59/+6 Hiroko Yamaguchi (74-76)
T67/+8 Yukari Baba (76-76)
T84/+12 Ritsuko Ryu (78-78)
WD Akane Iijima (77)

It was a double bogey on the 14th that did Yamaguchi in--that, and her inability to find 1 birdie in her last 4 holes.

So, with the JLPGA's stars either sitting this one out or perhaps wishing they had, it's a great opportunity for the tour's B-listers and young guns to make a name for themselves in a tournament named after a legend in Japanese golf.