Konica Minolta Cup Friday: Moromizato Makes a Move

The 3rd round of the JLPGA's 2nd major, the Konica Minolta Cup, is well underway, so it's about time I filled you all in on the happenings from what's now yesterday's round in Japan, eh? (Sorry, the course management system I've come to rely on for service work as well as teaching went down for 2 days--long story there--and I had a lot of catching up to do the last 24 hours.)

The big story from Friday's round is Shinobu Moromizato's 67. The low round of the tournament thus far, it vaulted her to 1st place, 2 shots ahead of yesterday's low-round title-holder, Ayako Uehara, thanks to the former's birdie on the 363-yeard par-4 17th and the latter's bogey. Nikki Campbell's 69 made her the 3rd and only other golfer to break 70 in the tournament, but she's 7 off the pace set by Moromizato. Only 8 players are within 5 shots of the lead, in fact. Here they are, along with the notables striving just to make the cut...and those who didn't:

1st/-5 Shinobu Moromizato (72-67)
2nd/-3 Ayako Uehara (68-73)
T3/-2 Maria Iida (72-70), Yukari Baba (71-71)
T5/-1 Chie Arimura (70-73), Yasuko Satoh (70-73)
T7/E Bo-Bae Song (73-71), Sakura Yokomine (72-72)
T9/+1 Tomoko Kusakabe (74-71), Na-Ri Lee (72-73)

T11/+2 Nikki Campbell (77-69), Mi-Jeong Jeon (76-70), Maiko Wakabayashi (75-71)
T19/+3 Yuko Saitoh (77-70), Momoko Ueda (76-71), Hyun-Ju Shin (75-72), Li-Ying Ye (72-75)
T30/+4 Midori Yoneyama (76-72), Julie Lu (75-73), So-Hee Kim (74-74), Mayu Hattori (73-75)
T40/+5 Eun-A Lim (78-71), Yuri Fudoh (77-72), Mie Nakata (75-74), Miki Saiki (71-78)
T50/+6 Miho Koga (78-72), Tamie Durdin (77-73), Ji-Hee Lee (75-75),
T59/+7 Erina Hara (81-70), Yun-Jye Wei (79-72), Ji-Woo Lee (78-73), Ah-Reum Hwang (77-74), Hiromi Mogi (77-74), Rikako Morita (76-75), Rui Kitada (73-78)

Great comeback by Hara, eh? It was too little, too late, though, for many of her peers, as well as for many young guns and living legends of the game:

T73/+8 Yuko Mitsuka (77-75), Woo-Soon Ko (77-75)
T81/+9 Saiki Fujita (79-74), Esther Lee (79-74)
T90/+10 Yuki Ichinose (82-72), Kumiko Kaneda (78-76)
T107/+12 Da-Ye Na (80-76), Sakurako Mori (79-77), Akane Iijima (76-80)
T114/+13 Ok-Hee Ku (79-77), Akiko Fukushima (81-76)
T123/+16 Mai Arai (85-75)
T128/+20 Ai-Yu Tu (86-78)

Ku and Tu are in their mid-50s and Ko is in her mid-40s, but they proved their presence in the field is more than honorary by hanging with the likes of Mitsuka and Fukushima. But now that all of them are out of the field, the question remains whether Shinobu Moromizato has what it takes to make a giant leap in the direction of their status in Asia with a strong weekend. She's shooting for career win #9 and major #3 on the JLPGA. Let's see if she can hold off the field!

[Update 1 (11:33 pm): Here's Happy Fan on the 1st round of this week's KLPGA event. It's looking like another showdown between their Big 3--So Yeon Ryu, Hee Kying Seo, and Sun Ju Ahn--is shaping up for the weekend.]