Sunday, June 14, 2009

Suntory Ladies Open: Moromizato Gets 2nd Big Win of 2009

Shinobu Moromizato and Li-Ying Ye finished 72 holes of the Suntory Ladies Open at -12, after final rounds of 68 and 66, respectively, put them 3 shots ahead of Rui Kitada and 4 ahead of Sakura Yokomine. 2 holes later, Moromizato was the winner. I wish I could tell you more than the Kyodo news piece I linked to, but that trip to the JR Railway Museum I mentioned before took all day, so I didn't get to see any of the tournament's final round. All I know is how they ended up:

1st/-12 Shinobu Moromizato (69-70-69-68) [won in playoff]
2nd/-12 Li-Ying Ye (74-68-68-66)
3rd/-9 Rui Kitada (72-68-70-69)
4th/-8 Sakura Yokomine (71-71-70-68)
5th/-6 Hiromi Mogi (73-68-69-72)
T6/-5 Yuko Mitsuka (71-73-70-69), Tamie Durdin (75-67-72-69)
T8/-4 Yuri Fudoh (72-73-72-67), Noboku Kizawa (73-70-70-71), Na-Ri Lee (72-71-69-72), Saiki Fujita (73-67-72-72), Ha-Na Jang (68-71-73-72), Chie Arimura (73-68-68-75), Maiko Wakabayashi (72-68-67-77)

Fudoh beat yesterday's leader Wakabayashi by 10 shots today, but it was too little, too late to climb into the top 5. It's about the same story for Kitada's and Yokomine's closing 32s--too little, too late to catch the leaders.

T15/-3 Mai Arai (73-72-69-71)
T17/-2 Ah-Reum Hwang (76-70-71-69), Akiko Fukushima (73-71-72-70), Ai Miyazato (75-70-70-71), Kumiko Kaneda (73-71-71-71), Nikki Campbell (70-69-74-73), Ji-Hee Lee (73-71-68-74), Bo-Bae Song (74-69-69-74), Rikako Morita (69-70-71-76)
25th/-1 Yuki Ichinose (67-76-73-71)
T26/E Akane Iijima (74-69-72-73)
T30/+1 Ayako Uehara (69-75-71-74)
T36/+2 Eun-A Lim (75-70-73-72), Mie Nakata (73-71-71-75), Yuki Sakurai (74-72-68-76), Mi-Jeong Jeon (70-73-70-77)
T43/+3 Yukari Baba (68-76-76-71), Miho Koga (75-70-72-74), Na Zhang (70-69-75-77)
T50/+5 Mayu Hattori (75-70-77-71)
53rd/+6 Hiroko Yamaguchi (74-72-73-75)

So there you have it. Ai-chan's visit to Kobe wasn't a total waste, but it does highlight how tough the competition on the JLPGA has gotten. She got beaten or tied by 3 rookies who have frankly been having terrible seasons to date. She wasn't alone in struggling, as witnessed by her tying Lee and Fukushima and beating Jeon and Koga, but in my mind this was still a disappointing performance and a sub-par finish.

Here's how the top of the JLPGA money list now looks:

1. Sakura Yokomine ¥59.38M
2. Shinobu Moromizato ¥57.48M
3. Yuko Mitsuka ¥50.11M
4. Mi-Jeong Jeon ¥40.44M
5. Chie Arimura ¥31.71M
6. Yuko Saitoh ¥28.89M
7. Ji-Hee Lee ¥28.04M
8. Ah-Reum Hwang ¥27.36M
9. Ayako Uehara ¥26.48M
10. Eun-A Lim ¥24.47M
11. Tamie Durdin ¥24.18M
12. Erina Hara ¥23.80M
13. Akiko Fukushima ¥21.83M
14. Miho Koga ¥18.65M
15. Yuri Fudoh ¥18.38M
16. Rui Kitada ¥18.04M
17. Ji-Woo Lee ¥17.44M
18. Yukari Baba ¥16.91M
19. Li-Ying Ye ¥16.80M
20. Maiko Wakabayashi ¥15.21M
21. Bo-Bae Song ¥13.30M
22. Hiromi Mogi ¥13.21M
23. Julie Lu ¥11.75M
24. Mie Nakata ¥11.19M
25. Akane Iijima ¥11.19M
26. Hyun-Ju Shin ¥10.69M
27. Midori Yoneyama ¥10.05M
28. Miki Saiki ¥10.02M
29. Nikki Campbell ¥9.69M
30. Kaori Aoyama ¥9.65M

The visiting LPGAers now stand at #32 (Ji-Yai Shin, ¥8.47M in 3 events), #62 (Ai Miyazato, ¥3.16M in 2 events), #77 (Momoko Ueda, ¥2.29M in 2 events), and #132 (Shiho Oyama, 1 missed cut). Not too impressive.

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