Women's British Open Friday: Hanging On

Conditions appear to be no easier at the Women's British Open today than yesterday, at least going by the early scoring. Song-Hee Kim bogeyed the 4th and 5th to fall back to E for the tournament through 25 holes. Maria Hjorth followed up yesterday's walkoff double with 3 bogeys in her 1st 6 holes and only a birdie on the 7th has brought her back to +2 for the tournament. Perhaps her tweeted observation that the wind is the opposite of yesterday's has something to do with the early difficulties she and many other players are running into.

Still, there are some who have gotten off to good starts, among them Kim and Hjorth's playing partner, Becky Morgan, who birdied 3 of her 1st 4 holes and has climbed back to +5 for the tournament. Ya Ni Tseng birdied 2 of her 1st 3 holes and joins Kim at E through 25. Brittany Lang is now -3 over her last 16 holes (going back to #15 in her 1st round) and +7 through 30. And Gwladys Nocera is -4 over her last 9 holes (never mind what she was before). More later.

[Update 1 (6:00 am): Mark Garrod follows up his late-night story with an early-morning report. At least if the wind stays the same the back should play easier. Morgan Pressel claims it's a more difficult, if lighter, wind. Song-Hee Kim would agree--she went from a 32 on the front yesterday to a 38 today. Hjorth fell almost as hard, from 34 to 38. Conversely, Moira Dunn went 43-36 today to break 80 for the 1st (and last) time this week. Shiho Oyama could use a similar comeback if she wants to make the cut; her 2nd triple of the tournament, this time on the par-5 6th, helped bring her to +10 through 32 holes. If she can stay there through 36, I think she'll be playing on the weekend. After a 40 on the front, Juli Inkster is +11 with 6 holes left to play. She'll need to make a run to help justify Beth Daniel's most likely captain's pick for the US Solheim Cup team.]

[Update 2 (6:09 am): Jane Park needs to win to make the team, and if she can make a birdie coming home, she'll be the leader in the clubhouse for a long time to come. She's +3 through 34 holes, tied with Michelle Wie (who's +3 through 30). Lang shot a 34 on the front and has added 2 more birdies on the back; she's now -4 over her last 18 holes and riding an 11-hole bogey-free streak (tied for 3rd-longest in the tournament thus far). Too bad the same can't be said for Paula Creamer, who's riding a 28-hole birdieless streak and is +6 for the tournament. Nicole Castrale will need to make a charge over her last 9 holes today to avoid her 2nd-straight missed cut heading into the Solheim Cup. And Natalie Gulbis (+8 through 28) needs to hang on to give herself a chance to get any more points and make it more difficult for anyone to take that 10th and last guaranteed spot away from her.]

[Update 2 (6:11 am): Tseng is impressing me. She came back from yesterday's back-9 birdieless 40 with a front-side bogey-free 32--both against the wind--so is poised to improve on her -1 total for the tournament thus far.]

[Update 3 (6:13 am): Catriona Matthew, who's fighting for a spot on the European Solheim Cup team, just went eagle-eagle (the latter a hole in one!) to fight back to -2 on her day and E for the tournament. Wow!]

[Update 4 (6:36 am): Park birdied 18 for a great 72 that leaves her at +2 heading into the weekend. Kim stopped the bleeding with a birdie on 10 that brings her back to E for the tournament. Creamer finally made her 1st birdie of the tournament on the 11th hole. Maybe she can pull off what Candie Kung did at the U.S. Women's Open after not making a birdie for so long in the early going there.]

[Update 5 (6:54 am): Lang's bogey-free streak ended at 13 holes and she had to settle for a 70 today, but an 11-shot comeback is nothing to sneeze at. A 78 by Suzann Pettersen that leaves her at +10 for the tournament puts her on my expected bubble, though.]

[Update 6 (6:58 am): A solid 73 by resurgent Senior Standout Sun Young Yoo means she'll live to play another weekend; at +8, she's a lock to make the cut.]

[Update 7 (6:59 am): Matthew is on fire--she followed up her pair of eagles with a birdie to join Tseng at -1 for the tournament.]

[Update 8 (7:32 am): If LPGA.com is to be believed, Matthew is now -7 through 7 holes on the back, -5 on her day, and -3 for the tournament!]

[Update 9 (7:49 am): Warren Ellis's FreakAngels is worth a read. Set in post-apocalyptic London, it's pretty compelling weekly webcomic psi-fi. I bring it up b/c of the mind-over-matter feats of Song-Hee Kim, now, too. She's -4 over her last 8 holes of bogey-free golf and tied with Matthew at -3 overall. And not to be outdone, Guilia Sergas has birdied 4 of her last 5 holes and has a 15-hole bogey-free streak going--the longest of the tournament--to jump to -2 through 33 holes. Jane Park won't be leader in the clubhouse for much longer!]

[Update 10 (7:54 am): Just realized that Tseng had had a share of the lead until she broke her 13-hole bogey-free streak with a double on the 14th. She can become the 3rd player in the field to break 70 with 2 pars or better on her last 2 holes--barring a disaster from Matthew, who finally bogeyed a hole, the 17th, to drop to -4 on her day. Sergas, meanwhile, birdied the 16th--her 4th in a row--to tie Kim for the lead. Yuko Mitsuka and Ai Miyazato have early birdies, Mitsuka on the 4th and Ai-sama on the 1st (I'm trying that out over Ai-sempai, which I fear makes me sound like a teenager).]

[Update 11 (8:00 am): 3 birdies in her last 4 holes gave Karrie Webb a 71 that keeps her in the hunt at +4. A walkoff double dropped Wie a shot behind her. A double on the previous hole dropped Momoko Ueda a shot behind her. Inkster, Gulbis, Helen Alfredsson, and Janice Moodie all joined Pettersen on my expected bubble at +10 (T94 right now). People had better take advantage of the relatively good weather while it lasts!]

[Update 12 (8:02 am): My bad--Sergas has a 17-hole bogey-free streak going, going back to the 17th yesterday, which she doubled. She's playing it now.]

[Update 13 (8:03 am): Wow, Matthew birdied 18 for a 30 that brings her back to -3 for the tournament. Wonder if Sergas can beat that?]

[Update 14 (8:04 am): Kim bogeyed 14--her 4th of the day--to fall back to E on her round and -2 overall.]

[Update 15 (8:06 am): Creamer birdied 2 of her last 4 holes to shoot her 2nd straight 74. Not out of it at all.]

[Update 16 (8:07 am): Speaking of +4, that's what Hjorth now is on her day and for the tournament as she plays 18. And Ji-Yai Shin got back there with a birdie on 1.]

[Update 17 (8:59 am): Girls woke up! Let's catch up. Sergas parred out for a bogey-free 67, tying her with Matthew and putting her 2 shots up on Kim, who bogeyed out. A bogey on 17 forced Tseng to accept a 70, which puts her 3 back of the co-leaders. Young Kim is the latest player to go on a tear; she's -4 over her last 12 holes of bogey-free golf and +3 for the tournament, tied with Shin, who's now -2 on her day. Cristie Kerr is -1 through 5 and Kristy McPherson +1 through 6 to join them. Christina Kim bogeyed her 1st to join Ai-sama at +2. Mitsuka doubled 6 and bogeyed 8 to drop to +1 for the tournament; Angela Stanford went birdie-bogey-triple in her 1st 3 holes to join her. And those are the players at the top of the leaderboard on the course right now.]

[Update 18 (9:05 am): Becky Morgan bogeyed 3 of her last 5 holes to settle for a 71 and join Lang at +7. Hjorth ended up with a 76, tied with Webb and Creamer at +4. Joining Wie at +5 is fellow rookie M.J. Hur, who shot a solid 73 and takes an 8-hole bogey-free streak into Saturday. Young Kim's own bogey-free streak came to an end on the 14th. Let's see if she can get it going again. Sandra Gal just got off a 6-hole bogey train that has dropped her all the way back to +4 overall.]

[Update 19 (9:12 am): Nicole Castrale shot a 77 that ensures she'll miss her 2nd-straight cut. But at least she beat Nocera, who ended up settling for a 74 today. Paula Marti's 2nd-straight 83 kept Nocera out of DFL, though. Right now the projected cut line includes the top 67 golfers at +7 or better. Is it top 60 and ties at the WBO? Or is it lower of top 70 and 10 shots within the lead?]

[Update 20 (9:48 am): Off to story time! It's daddy day, and once the Full Metal Archivist brings the Super-Prius back from work at Buffalo, we're heading out to Grandpa and Grandma's house tonight and the Syracuse Futures tour event tomorrow. Onechan and imoto are pumped! I'm pumped to see Se Ri Pak go -3 over her last 8 holes of bogey-free golf and fight back to +3 for the tournament. And to see Mitsuka birdie 9 to get back to E through 27. Must be a bottleneck on the par 5s right now--Ai-sama's score hasn't been updated in a long time.]

[Update 21 (1:30 pm): Done with lunch, now a little down time before we nap. Lots to catch up on before then. A nice 71 by Mitsuka--her 2nd straight thanks to a -3 finish over her last 10 holes--puts her 1 out of the lead. 2 birdies in her last 4 holes allowed Christina Kim to tie Tseng at E through 36. A great 69 by Marianne Skarpnord--fueled by a bogey-free 32 on the back--gives her a 12-hole bogey-free streak heading into moving day and ties her at +1 with Sophie Gustafson, who recovered from an opening double to post a 71. Ai-sama bogeyed the 9th to offset her 1st hole birdie, then birdied 3 of her next 4 before tripling the par-4 14th. But she birdied the par-5 15th and parred out for a 71 that ties her with Jane Park at +2, still in the thick of things at T11 right now. 71s by Pak and Kerr allowed them to catch Shinobu Moromizato at +3 overall, but Kerr won't be happy going 33-38 on a day like today. 71s by Webb and Shin allowed them to catch Mika Miyazato and Inbee Park (along with Creamer, McPherson, and Hjorth) at +4. Young Kim had to settle for a 71, too, thanks to her walkoff double, so she climbs to +5 (which is where Gal ended up and Pressel stayed). A flawless 70 (well, except for that 6th-hole double) lifted In-Kyung Kim to +7, tied with Lang, Morgan, Lu and Na Yeon Choi (who fired a 71 of her own). Lorena Ochoa, Jeong Jang, and Laura Diaz will make the cut at +8, as will Yuri Fudoh and Anna Nordqvist at +9. The question now is, will it go as high as +10? Right now there are 74 players at +9 or better, but how many will be at +10 or better at the end of the day?]

[Update 22 (1:33 pm): Hee Young Park (-1 through 27) and Kyeong Bae (E through 31) continue to impress in recent majors. I'll be curious to see if Meena Lee and Vicky Hurst (both +2 on their round as they play the back and +4 overall) will be able to climb back into contention.]

[Update 23 (1:57 pm): Everyone at +10 must be hoping Carmen Alonso (+8 through 11) and Vicki Laing (+7 through 13) join them. Otherwise there will be 70 or 71 players ahead of them and they won't be playing on the weekend.]

[Update 24 (1:58 pm): Unless, that is, Allison Hanna-Williams (who's won on the Futures Tour this year) and Samantha Head (Johanna Mundy's sister) fall way back from +6 through 12.]

[Update 25 (2:00 pm): Oh, and that only works if nobody tied at +10 or behind that bunch gets back to +9 or better.]

[Update 26 (2:03 pm): Alonso parred 18. That leaves 3 who need to move way back and 0 who can move up. Odds are against Inkster, Gulbis, Pettersen, Alfredsson, Moodie, Wright, Kemp, Simon, Oh, Ahn, and Kang.]

[Update 27 (2:09 pm): Sad to see Seon Hwa Lee needing a miracle to make the cut. Stacy Lewis will have to make a serious move over her last 6 holes, too, to do so. Jee Young Lee, Melissa Reid, and Karen Stupples are already done. (Lee is 1 of 9 players not even to break 80 once this week.) OK, too depressing. Nap time!]

[Update 28 (3:07 pm): Girls won't nap. Bae shot 71, joining Tseng and Kim at E. Park hanging tough at -1 overall through 14. Vicky Hurst stumbled to a 75, now +5 for the tournament. Laing +9 on 18. Hanna-Williams and Head still +6 with 2 to play. Lewis got to +10 but a double at 17 did her in. Pat Hurst can make the cut with a -1 finish over her last 3 holes (she's at +10). 11 players have now failed to break 80 either day.]

[Update 29 (3:12 pm): Bogey at 15 makes Park +2 over her last 9 holes, E overall. Lee still +3 overall with 2 to play. If Hanna-Williams triples 18, Laing bogeys it, and Pat Hurst fails to get to -9, everyone at -10 is in for the weekend.]

[Update 30 (3:27 pm): Some fun stats at the WBO. Well, fun if you're not playing in it.

# of players under par both days: 1 (Yuko Mitsuka)--unless Hee Young Park goes -2 over her last 2 holes.

# of players under 75 both days: 14 13 (unless Park and Meena Lee blow up down the stretch) [I still don't think anyone will make it through all 4 rounds--and look in the next update, Park couldn't do it this round]

# of players over 80 both days: 11 (this number could still go higher [but didn't])

Scoring was definitely lower today, so maybe with both kinds of winds the players will be ready for anything on the weekend, but so far, wow, Royal Lytham is winning!]

[Update 31 (5:27 pm): Yikes. Hee Young Park bogeyed 3 of her last 4 holes to fall to +2 for the tournament, now tied for 10th with Ai-sama, Jane Park, and Angela Stanford. That makes 13 players within 5 shots of the lead heading into moving day. And 9 of them are due to not break 75 tomorrow or Sunday. The cut line ended lower than I expected, at +9. Ouch.]

[Update 32 (5:30 pm): Here's Hound Dog!]

Women's British Open Thursday: Hanging in There

The winds are only in the 20 mph range at Royal Lytham and St. Annes, so we may see some decent scoring from a handful of players at the Women's British Open. The JLPGA's Yuko Mitsuka has picked up where she left off last week, offsetting her 3 front-side bogeys with 3 birdies and an eagle on the par-5 7th, but back-to-back bogeys on 14 and 15 dropped her back to E on the day until she birdied the par-4 17th to secure her 71. The only player on the course right now with a great chance to beat her today is Angela Stanford, who has played 13 holes of bogey-free golf, including an eagle on the 7th and a birdie in the par-4 13th.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Stanford and Mitsuka are the only 2 players under par at the end of the day. My favorite to win this thing, In-Kyung Kim, took an 11 on the par-5 6th and bogeyed the 7th to add insult to injury for an opening 42, then proceeded to shoot a 39 on the back. She'll need a round near or under par tomorrow just to have a hope of making the cut. Jeong Jang, who knows a little something about winning at the WBO, shot a birdieless 79. Ji-Yai Shin, the defending champion, opened with 2 consecutive bogeys and closed with a pair of walkoff doubles for her 77.

So I'm pleased as punch that Mika Miyazato's roller coaster ride ended with her only taking a 76 (of her 7 bogeys, 6 came in back-to-back pairs evenly spaced over her 1st 12 holes), that despite taking a double on the par-3 12th Morgan Pressel is only +1 with 2 to play, and that Ai Miyazato has fought back from 3 straight opening bogeys (and 6 in her 1st 14 holes) to get back to +2 with 3 holes to go.

[Update 1 (7:33 am): Darn it, Morgan followed up her birdie on 16 with a bogey on 17 to drop back to +2. Her playing partner, the JLPGA's Shinobu Moromizato, also bogeyed it to join her and Kristy McPherson there. Ai-sempai (yes, I'm sticking with Mika Miyazato's formulation) parred 16 while her playing partner Lorena Ochoa birdied it to fight back to +2 (Ochoa bogeyed 4 and 6, then birdied 7, 8, and 10, then went double-bogey-bogey on 12 through 14, so she's riding a roller coaster of her own today). I'd say par is 74 today.]

[Update 2 (7:36 am): Looks like Stanford's 14-hole bogey-free streak may have come to an end. The leaderboard has her at -2 through 15, even though her scorecard hasn't yet been updated on LPGA.com.]

[Update 3 (7:37 am): Yeah, I'm using LPGA.com, even though they don't have any performance stats, because both the WBO's and the LET's live-scoring options are deeply disappointing.]

[Update 4 (7:45 am): On the other hand, the WBO twitter feed is teh awesome. And I'm not just saying that b/c I want them to retweet my link to this post. Well, not only.]

[Update 5 (7:47 am): Whut the..?! McPherson and Moromizato finished with 74s, but Pressel tripled 18 for a 77?! Not seeing confirmation of her terrible finish on her scorecard yet. Let's stay calm.]

[Update 6 (8:15 am): Darn it, Ai-sempai and Lorena bogeyed 18 for 75s. Stanford needs to par it to match Mitsuka's 71.]

[Update 7 (8:45 am): Great birdie on 18 for Stanford. Nobody's going to beat that 70 today, but Hee Young Park's giving it the old college try after a 33 on the front. Tough day for my picks, though. Cristie Kerr parred her 1st 8 holes and birdied the par-3 9th, but then went double-par-bogey-bogey-bogey to open the back and couldn't make any birdies down the stretch. Still, a 76 won't prevent her from winning if she can put together 3 good rounds to finish the tournament. The same holes tripped up U.S. Women's Open champion Eun-Hee Ji--she had shot a 35 on the front, but went bogey-bogey-double-par-bogey on the way to her 76.]

[Update 8 (11:46 am): One of my picks is doing well: Song-Hee Kim just fired a bogey-free 32 on the front. Hee Young Park rocketed her way to a great 71. Looks like she's figuring out how to play steady golf in majors. Also under par so far are 3 other volatile players: Ya Ni Tseng (-1 through 10), Michelle Wie (-1 through 11), and Maria Hjorth (who birdied 3 of her last 4 holes on the front for a 34). We'll see if they prove me wrong over the course of 72 holes.]

[Update 9 (11:49 am): Solid 73s today from Christina Kim and Kyeong Bae, 74s by Sophie Gustafson, Vicky Hurst, and Meena Lee, and 75s by Stacy Prammanasudh and Katherine Hull. If they can fight their way back to par over the next 2 days, they'll be in contention on Sunday.]

[Update 10 (11:50 am): But things can change in a heartbeat out there. Shiho Oyama birdied her 1st hole and was only +2 through 13, but she just tripled the 14th.]

[Update 11 (11:52 am): The JLPGA's Mi-Jeong Jeon would have had a solid round, too, were it not for a quad on the 4th. You gotta figure over 72 holes everyone's going to have at least a couple of doubles or worse. It's how you bounce back from disasters that will determine whether you can make the cut and contend this week.]

[Update 12 (11:54 am): Even 1 bad 9 doesn't necessarily kill you, but Stacy Lewis and Sun Young Yoo, who both went 35-44, will need to put 2 good ones together tomorrow if they want to play on the weekend.]

[Update 13 (11:55 am): Seon Hwa Lee's Dr. Jekyll (35 on the front) and Mr. Hyde (47 on the back) performance may be too painful to recover from, though. We'll see.]

[Update 14 (11:57 am): Brittany Lang, another one of my picks, was +10 through 14, but she just birdied 16. Let's see if she can break 80 and build some kind of positive momentum for Friday.]

[Update 15 (11:58 am): 3 doubles kept my buddy Moira Dunn from breaking 80, but if she can keep from going double digits over par after 36, she'll probably make it to the weekend.]

[Update 16 (12:01 pm): 80 by Pat Hurst and 81 by Wendy Ward ought to mean the end of their Solheim Cup hopes, but maybe not if they can find a way to make the cut tomorrow. Having more luck in their bids to make their respective teams are Catriona Matthew (now -1, thanks to an eagle on 7 and a birdie on 13 that offset her 3 bogeys near them) and Jane Park (who bogeyed 17 for a 74).]

[Update 17 (12:02 pm): Song-Hee Kim is now -4 after a birdie on 13. The longest bogey-free streak I know of is Stanford's at 14....]

[Update 18 (12:06 pm): Good news. LPGA.com is adding performance stats after players finish their rounds. So far Hull (26 putts) and Gustafson (27) had the hottest flat sticks in the field. More after lunch!]

[Update 19 (1:51 pm): Wow, leave for a little and a lot happens. Hjorth is now -2 as she plays the 18th. Kim has dropped back to -1, having ended her bogey-free streak on the 14th hole and added 2 more for good measure. Wie was +2 over her last 7 to finish with a 73. Matthew finished double bogey-bogey for her 74. Lang held on for her 81. Momoko Ueda had an up-and-down 74, with 2 birdies in her last 3 holes offsetting 4 in her 1st 6 on the back, while Paula Creamer opened with a birdieless 74. Suzann Pettersen went 35-41, but the real breakdown occurred after she got it to -2 through 7. She bogeyed 8 and 9, doubled 14, and bogeyed 17 and 18. But she still finished 1 shot better than Karrie Webb (35-42), 2 better than Juli Inkster (35-43), 3 better than Natalie Gulbis (37-42), and 4 better than Yuri Fudoh (34-46).]

[Update 20 (1:54 pm): We could see half the field failing to break 80 today. Less than 30 players will break 75. I'll bet everyone in the field fails to break 75 at least once this week.]

[Update 21 (2:06 pm): Tseng was -2 through 8 holes of bogey-free golf, but since then has played 8 holes of birdieless golf at +3 as she heads into the holes that tripped up Pressel badly.]

[Update 22 (2:14 pm): Hjorth doubled 18 to shoot the 1st 72 of the day. Kim birdied it to tie Stanford for the lead at -2. Tseng bogeyed it to join the big group at +2 (T13 right now). Forget what I said about 74 being par. Probably 76 is.]

[Update 23 (2:16 pm): Will Sandra Gal, now -3 and bogey-free through 11 after making consecutive birdies to start the back, be the home holes' next victim?]

[Update 24 (2:18 pm): Like clockwork, Gal ends her bogey-free streak on the 12th. By my count, it was the 3rd-longest of the day.]

[Update 25 (3:50 pm): Yikes, another one of my picks will be struggling to make the cut tomorrow. Na Yeon Choi fired a birdieless 80.]

[Update 26 (3:52 pm): By contrast, Se Ri Pak's 2-birdie 76 isn't looking all that terrible.]

[Update 27 (3:57 pm): Looks like the key to playing Royal Lytham when the wind is blowing the way it did today is to take advantage of the 1st 7 holes (and if you're lucky, the entire front 9), then try to survive the last 11. But the winds will probably be different each day....]

[Update 28 (3:59 pm): I've been waiting for Katie Futcher to make a McPherson-like quantum leap this season; wouldn't it be cool if it came this week? She was bogey-free over her 1st 10 holes and is +1 on the 18th.]

[Update 29 (4:05 pm): Gal goes birdie-bogey-birdie as the sun goes down--can she break 70 before play is called for darkness? Would hate to have to start on 18!]

[Update 30 (4:07 pm): Case in point: Futcher doubled 18 for a 40 on the back that dropped her to +3 overall.]

[Update 31 (4:23 pm): Gal did it! She was the only player to break 70 all day! With 1 group left on the course, here's Jamie's take on the very early action over at Crosscourt Birdies. Amazing what a difference the back makes!]

[Update 32 (4:36 pm): OK, the final group got in, so that makes it 1 player under 70, 5 under par, 23 under 75, and 87 under 80. Tough, tough day. Wonder what tomorrow will bring. Initial reactions: very happy to see Kyeong Bae and Meena Lee continuing their good play of late; would love to see Stanford win, with everything she's been going through lately; would love to see Christina Kim, Michelle Wie, Vicky Hurst, and Jane Park keep playing well (they should play on a lot of Solheim Cup teams together over their careers!); would love to see Mitsuka and Moromizato of the JLPGA continue to play as well or better than Ai-sempai and Ueda, both for the competition-to-come in late summer on their tour and in hopes they consider (re)joining the LPGA next year.]

[Update 33 (5:15 pm): Every player in the field this week has a great story, even if few make it into the press tent for post-round interviews. Lisa Mickey discovers Haeji Kang's: she started the season choosing Monday qualifying on the LPGA over the Futures Tour, came in 4th at the Wegmans, and qualified for the WBO. If she can put it together tomorrow, she still has a chance to make the cut after today's 80. Like Amy Yang, who ballooned to an 83, she comes to the LPGA from Korea by way of Australia.]

[Update 34 (8:04 pm): Hound Dog's 1st round overview surveys the carnage. If Carnoustie is Carnasty, what's a good nickname for Royal Lytham? Only thing I can think of is that the players will need some Royal Lithium after 72 holes on it. I'm sure you can top that! What is Saint Anne the patron saint of?]

[Update 35 (7/31/09, 5:31 am): Here's Jamie's take on the 1st round.]

Women's British Open Preview/Predictions/Pairings

It's major time again on the LPGA! And some of my favorite golfers are playing great heading into the Women's British Open. If you've read Hound Dog's tournament preview and Hot 20, you'll know what you need to know, but check out his critique of the majors mystique for a classic HD growl at conventional wisdom.

And if you're interested in the debate he's trying to start there, head on over to about.com for Brent Kelley's argument that Michelle Wie is a no-brainer as a captain's pick for the US Solheim Cup team (assuming she doesn't win this week) and that captain Beth Daniel should be choosing between Stacy Lewis and Meaghan Francella for her 2nd pick (should nobody knock Natalie Gulbis out of the 10th and last guaranteed spot on the team this week). Me, I agree Wie deserves a spot, but I think Ron Sirak is right that the next pick is going to be Juli Inkster. I'm fine with that, even if Wendy Ward has been playing better than her and Pat Hurst (who hasn't done much of anything since winning early this season). Unless someone displaces Gulbis at #10 (and I'm rooting for Jane Park to do it), I don't think this week's results will matter much in Daniel's decision-making. With the style of course and weather so different from what the players will be facing in mid-August, it's hard to see even a standalone terrible result from one of the contenders for the captain's picks being all that significant.

OK, enough about the Solheim Cup. Most of the best players in the world aren't eligible to play in it, anyway. But more on that later. The question that's uppermost in my mind is what combination of accuracy and persistence will allow a player to come close to par this week? I can't imagine playing a course with that many bunkers--and that much trouble on the right on just about every hole--in the kinds of winds they're going to be getting this week. And if it rains as much as some players are expecting it to.... Yikes! Plus, the cold. Urgh!

OK, focus! When you're checking out Golf Observer's historical stats for the WBO, keep in mind that the ladies played Royal Lytham and St. Annes in 1998, 2003, and 2006. So perhaps there's some advantage for those in the field with more experience at links golf? But Lorena Ochoa noted in her pre-tournament interview that the course is much lusher and softer than it was in 2006. So your picks this week are as good as mine, or the Golfweek gang's, or the rest of the PakPickers.

1. Kim In-Kyung
2. Creamer
3. Kerr
4. Shin Ji-Yai
5. Miyazato Ai
6. Choi Na Yeon
7. Ji Eun-Hee
8. Kim Song-Hee
9. McPherson
10. Lang
11. Ochoa
12. Kung

Alts: Oyama; Ueda; Moromizato

Yup, I'm predicting an Ai-chan bounce from the Japanese contingent in the field, despite the fact that I'd normally expect them to play better the hotter it is.

The 1st-round draw (or pairings, as we're wont to call them this side of the Atlantic) are as interesting as you'd expect for a major. Ochoa sounds as pleased as I am that she'll be playing with Ai Miyazato for the 1st 2 rounds:

Q. Ai, a good friend of yours, can you give your reaction to her finally winning a tournament?

LORENA OCHOA: I was very super happy for her. I almost cried, we were watching her on TV on Sunday afternoon, and I got very emotional. She's been a good friend and I know how hard she works, how much pressure she has from the media back in her country.

And I just saw the news that I am going to play with her for the first two rounds, I'm happy about that. It's always nice to feel comfortable out there and to have somebody that you like. So I wish her the best and congratulations again.

They go off with Karen Stupples at 7:47 am. I think Ochoa's going to be inspired by Ai-chan's win, herself, and play more like the golfer who was -10 over the middle of the Evian Masters than the one who struggled out of the gates and down the stretch.

My other favorite pairings include In-Kyung Kim, Tania Elosegui, and Mika Miyazato at 6:52 am, because it gives Elosegui a taste of what playing full-time on the LPGA would be like; Jeong Jang, Stacy Prammanasudh, and Yuko Mitsuka right after them for the same reason, although Mitsuka would be playing with 2 LPGA regulars trying to forge comebacks rather than come fully into their own; and, well, I could go on and and about how great each pairing is and why, but I think one example should suffice for general awesomeness: Natalie Gulbis, Michelle Wie, and Momoko Ueda at 12:32 pm. As the great Stan Lee would say, 'nuff said.

[Update 1 (8:48 pm): Here's Jamie's WBO preview from Crosscourt Birdies. Glad that I can finally read what he's been posting the last few days--his site redesign and my browsers weren't cooperating until now!]

[Update 2 (9:09 pm): Hound Dog summarizes the race to make the Solheim Cup teams (and supports Sirak's and my conclusions through much more detailed and thoughtful reasoning).]

The Things I Do for My Readers

Hound Dog's regulars already know about the Mirassou wine LPGA sweepstakes, but for any of mine who aren't one of them, here's the set-up to my punch line:

One winner and a guest will receive the California wine and golf getaway of a lifetime, including round-trip air transportation to San Francisco, hotel accommodations, VIP passes to the CVS/Pharmacy LPGA Challenge tournament, a meet-and-greet with an LPGA player, and more. Plus, the winners will also dine California-style at a special dinner with wine expert David Mirassou. Visit http://www.mirassou.com/golf/sweepstakes.asp to enter now through July 31.

Since courtgolf and Tim Maitland have both publicly questioned my Ai Miyazato fanboy standing, I went ahead and entered this contest. So I'm counting on all of you not to. At least until after July 31st. I mean, the Full Metal Archivist and I are taking the girls to Skate Canada to watch Daisuke Takahashi's comeback attempt around Thanksgiving, but how cool would it be for us to escape from them enjoy a romantic getaway the last week of September? We deserve an Ai-chan/Dai-chan double shot, right? Right?!

This post was brought to you the Mostly Harmless Ai Miyazato Half Week organizing committee.

News Flash: Ai-chan Moves the Needle, Too

Let's just go ahead and declare this the Ai Miyazato Half-Week at Mostly Harmless. Beth Ann Baldry will be forgiven her tired "rock star" reference because I'm still so happy about Ai-chan's win at Evian. I'll bet Marsha Evans and company at LPGA HQ are pretty happy, too, at least after seeing Jon Show and Dick Friedman pass along last week's web traffic figures at LPGA.com!

[Update 1 (3:33 pm): Nice to see that the Rolex Rankings caught up this week to Hound Dog's and mine--Ai-chan jumped 14 spots to #13!]

Ai Miyazato's Mid-Year Status Report and Prospects

Now that I'm done celebrating Ai Miyazato's first LPGA win, I'm ready to take a look back at the last 6 months since I surveyed her prospects this season and look ahead to the next 4 months.

Obviously, at #4 on the money list with $921.4K already this season, she's doing better than I expected, winnings-wise. I picked her to finish #16 in the post-season rankings, which roughly translates to an expectation she would win between $750K and $1M. But now she's on track to break the $1M barrier in season winnings for the 1st time in her LPGA career. If she does it, she'll most likely pass World Golf Hall of Famer Ayako Okamoto in career winnings on tour and could well become the 2nd player in her rookie class and generation to cross the $3M rubicon (after Seon Hwa Lee).

The reason I'm hopeful she'll accomplish these feats is that all her key performance stats indicate she's playing at least as well as she was from 2004 until her injury in the middle of the 2007 season, when she took the golfing world by storm. Her current scoring average of 70.62 is very close to her career low of 70.59 in the 2005 JLPGA season and her 3.76 birdies per round rate slightly exceeds the 3.71 she averaged in 2006 on the LPGA. It all starts with her driving. She's averaging 256.5 yards off the tee and hitting the fairway 75.2% of the time this season, so it's no surprise that she's hitting 70.5% of her greens in regulation. The difference lately has been her putting. Her putts per green in regulation rate has been creeping downward all season, and now it's at 1.767, the lowest of her LPGA career (and it could go much further down--she putted the lights out in Japan in 2006, averaging 1.728 PPGIR). At Evian, she hit 76.4% of her greens, made 24 birdies, and averaged only 27.25 putts per round. Her overall putting average this season, 29.16, may sound high compared to her lows of 27.36 in 2007 and 28.04 in 2008, but she was hitting many fewer greens in regulation those years. The more apt comparison is to 2006, when she hit 69.3% of her greens in regulation and averaged 29.59 putts per round. When your ballstriking and putting are so solid, it stands to reason you'd go under par a lot (65.5% of the time, 6th on tour) and break 70 quite often (20 times, tied for 8th on tour; she needs 4 more to set her personal record on the LPGA). To put her improvement since her mid-2007 injury in perspective, she's breaking 70 far more often this season than she went under par in 2007. So it's not just in wins and winnings that this has already been the best season of her career. She's become a steadier and more explosive player than ever before on the LPGA.

Looking over her performance chart this season, several other things stand out. She's finished outside the top 20 only once in her last 9 events, when she couldn't go low enough at the Farr to keep pace with the leaders. But she was playing well enough to win the Corning, State Farm, and U.S. Women's Open. Looking ahead, I'm encouraged by the fact that she's broken 70 in 3 of 4 rounds in 4 of her last 6 events. And that she's gone under par on 6 straight Sundays and broken 70 in her last 2. She's getting comfortable putting herself in contention and performing under pressure late on Sunday afternoons again, against an even higher level of competition than before. It's not just her skills that have improved, it's also that she's mentally tougher, better at turning mediocre rounds solid, solid rounds good, and good rounds great. Right now, I would rank her with In-Kyung Kim, Eun-Hee Ji, and Angela Stanford as the players closest to the LPGA's Big 6 of Lorena Ochoa, Cristie Kerr, Paula Creamer, Ji-Yai Shin, and Ya Ni Tseng. She's not just riding a hot streak--she's worked hard to get her game back to this level and she's capable of taking it to the next one. If she gets used to putting 3 or 4 good rounds together per week, the sky's the limit.

Given that Ai-chan already knows how to win in bunches from her JLPGA years, I'm not ruling out more wins this season. I don't expect her to make the adjustment from mountain golf to links golf well enough to win the Women's British Open, but I do expect her to contend again--and to win on the JLPGA when she decides to tee it up there in August. In fact, I expect her to stay in Japan through the Konica Minolta Cup (the JLPGA's 2nd major), jet to California for the late-September Samsung and CVS events on the LPGA, return to the JLPGA for the Japan Women's Open in early October, and not rejoin the LPGA until they come to Asia in late October, perhaps even as late as the Mizuno Classic in early November. She could play the last 2 LPGA events and still make the Ricoh Cup (the JLPGA's last major) at the end of the month. Which means we may see Ai-chan only 6 more times on the LPGA and only 3 more times in the States. But she could play as many as 12 more times on the JLPGA. She's 75th on their money list right now, and if Momoko Ueda, Shiho Oyama, Mika Miyazato, and Ji-Yai Shin decide to play schedules at all similar to hers, it would be very interesting to see how high she and they could rise on it. Sakura Yokomine (who's passed up all opportunities to play outside Japan this season), Shinobu Moromizato, Mi-Jeong Jeon, Yuko Mitsuka, Ji-Hee Lee, Chie Arimura, Miho Koga, Erina Hara, Yuri Fudoh, Akiko Fukushima, Ayako Uehara and the rest of the JLPGA's finest will not make things easy for them.

Bottom line, though, Ai-chan has given herself a chance to do something truly special this season. She's never won on the LPGA and the JLPGA in the same year. There are still 1 LPGA major and 3 JLPGA majors for the taking. As she said in her post-round interview, "my dream has almost come true." Here's hoping she makes it happen over the rest of this season and beyond.

[Update 1 (7/28/09, 8:38 am): Here are Brian Heard and Hound Dog on Ai-chan's win and other matters.]

[Update 2 (9:09 am): And here's Stephanie Wei.]

Orender to LPGA: Not Interested

Or rather, it's WNBA boss Donna Orender telling the media to tell the LPGA she has no interest in taking over from Carolyn Bivens and Marsha Evans. I'll have more to say about the commissioner search after the Women's British Open.

More Disappointment for Kimberly Kim

She lost the U.S. Girls 6&5 to Amy Anderson. Still, making it to 2 match-play finals for national championships will feel good in retrospect. If she can lose her teenage angst at the University of Denver, she could become a great one on the LPGA.

Futures Tour Update

Misun Cho got her 2nd win of the season and moved up to 2nd on the Futures Tour money list yesterday in New Hampshire. As Jamie at Crosscourt Birdies notes, Cho is now in the race for the 1st-ever battlefield promotion in Futures Tour history. 1 more win for Jean Reynolds, Mina Harigae, or Cho gets them automatic entry into any full-field LPGA event of their choice.

Whitney Wade had to settle for T2 thanks to a back-9 collapse, 1 shot behind Cho along with Paola Moreno (who closed with a 65), Gerina Mendoza, and Ashley Knoll. I was psyched to see Pernilla Lindberg finish with a 64 to tie Harigae and Samantha Richdale at -8, along with solid tournaments from Jennie Lee and Angela Oh (T14), Reynolds and Song Yi Choi (T26), and Hannah Yun (T29), but I was sad to see that Tiffany Joh and Onnarin Sattayabanphot missed the cut by a stroke, Hannah Jun and Jane Chin missed it by 2, and Pornanong Phatlum missed it by 3.

Playing in soaking wet conditions is never easy. Hopefully the weather will be better this week in Syracuse. I'm taking onechan and imoto there at the end of the week to see the folks and hang out at Drumlins as much as possible. The only player I wanted to meet who won't be there is Harigae. It's going to be tough to decide who to follow!

Ai-chan, Omedetou Gozaimasu

Having hit my allotted 73 updates in today's Evian Masters not-quite-live-blog (the number of holes it took for Ai Miyazato to secure her 1st LPGA win), I hereby christen this the official Mostly Harmless Ai Miyazato Celebration Post. The Constructivist family has already celebrated in traditional American/Japanese fashion: we went to McDonalds for lunch and then cleaned the house (everyone except imoto, that is, who's declared herself a nudist and therefore exempt from okadazuke and soji shimas duties). Congratulations to Ai-chan and thanks to The Florida Masochist, Hound Dog, The Squire, and the Seoul Sisters crew for getting the party started in our absence.

OK, time for some highlights from Japan, including a live interview with Ai-chan from Evian at the end of the clip:



For reference, here's what the tournament organizers (in charming French) and Golf Channel (in patronizing English) focused on.

Here's an interview from right after the awards ceremony, with Ai-chan still wiping tears from her eyes:



Next, a slideshow from youtube's biggest Ai-chan fan:



And a few words from Ai-chan herself. Will try to get a translation from the Full Metal Archivist after the girls fall asleep.

[Update 1 (7/27/09, 4:30 am): Boiling down a long post to its essentials, Ai-chan says she's happy, excited, and above all grateful for all the support she's received over the years. Among all the usual suspects, she thanks the Japanese players at Evian by name. Three parts of the post stood out to the Full Metal Archivist, one near the start where she notes how calm she felt all week, another in the middle where she says that now all her struggles and the experience she gained from them haven't been wasted, and the last at the end where she says this is a new starting line for her career. It seems that both she and I agree that there's no reason she can't sustain this level of play for a long while. I'll try to get a translation of Mika Miyazato's post later. Playing in a scramble today, weather permitting.]

[Update 2 (4:39 am): In the meantime, here's the LPGA.com notes and interviews page. Didn't know Gustafson's birdie attempt in the playoff was resting in a ball mark.]

[Update 3 (7:21 am): Nice of the SI Guys to spare a few seconds for the LPGA this week.]

[Update 4 (7:34 am): By contrast, here's the top sports recap show in Japan:



Can't wait to see the frenzy for the WBO!]

[Update 5 (7:36 am): Here's what it was like watching it live in Japan:



Ironic that I'd have seen more of the tournament if I were still visiting family there than being here without being able to afford TV!]

[Update 6 (7/29/09, 5:18 pm): Momoko Ueda's post (so far only in Japanese) is almost as cute as Mika Miyazato's, but she can't refer to Ai as "Ai-sempai" like Mika-chan. Think it's time for everyone to start referring to Ai-chan as Ai-sempai now!]

[Update 7 (8/26/09, 10:56 am): Momoko Ueda's team finally got around to translating her congratulations to Ai-sama into English!]

Evian Masters Sunday: Race to the Finish

As the 4th-round set-up from Evian Masters TV helps remind us, there's a lot at stake today for the 9 players within 3 shots of the lead and 15 within 5 shots at the Evian Masters.

Let's start with the co-leaders at -12. Playing in the final pairing, In-Kyung Kim is looking to become the 1st Korean winner in the history of the tournament and make a case for her inclusion among Lorena Ochoa's top challengers. Her playing partner Sophie Gustafson is looking to put her name alongside the prestigious European winners of the event and mark her return from her final-round collapse last June when she had a chance to run away with the Ginn Tribute. Meanwhile, Becky Brewerton is playing for her 2nd win in a row on the LET, one that would give her the membership on the LPGA that she failed to attain in last year's Q-School.

Playing with Brewerton and only 1 behind her is Cristie Kerr, who's let 2 wins at majors slip between her fingers this season, but has put herself in a position to join likely Solheim Cup teammates Juli Inkster, Paula Creamer, and Natalie Gulbis as this decade's odd-year-winners of the tournament. In the group ahead of them is my favorite player in the field Ai Miyazato, still looking for her 1st LPGA win and 1st win anywhere since 2006, which would put her alongside Hiromi Kobayashi as Evian champions. Playing alongside her and 2 back is Hall of Famer Karrie Webb, who's looking for her 2nd Evian win, which would be her 2nd win of the season and 37th of her career.

Helen Alfredsson is only 3 back and looking for her 4th win at Evian. She's playing with Paula Creamer, who's looking for her 2nd win at Evian and 1st of 2009. Like In-Kyung Kim, former KLPGA star Na Yeon Choi (3 back) is looking to become the 1st Korean winner at Evian, while current JLPGA star Yuko Mitsuka (4 back) hopes to become the 2nd Japanese winner, which would get her the same ticket to LPGA membership that Momoko Ueda got by winning the Mizuno Classic in 2007.

Needing to make an early charge are Hall of Famer Se Ri Pak--the only active Hall of Famer who hasn't yet won at Evian--and Brittany Lang, who like Miyazato and Choi is still looking for that 1st LPGA victory. Also at -7 are Wendy Ward and Stacy Lewis, fighting to displace Natalie Gulbis from the last automatic spot on the US Solheim Cup team, and Junior Mints Song-Hee Kim and Ji Young Oh, the former looking for her 1st LPGA win and the latter looking for her 3rd.

With this many players in the hunt, the winner is going to have to go low. And there ate certainly opportunities to do just that, judging from the early rounds. Jane Park bounced back from yesterday's 80 with a tournament-low 30 on the back for a 66. Angela Stanford shot a 33 on the front and still hasn't made a bogey today as she heads into the short closing trio of holes. Juli Inkster shot a 34 on the front and is looking to make a statement to US Solheim Cup captain Beth Daniel over her final 4 holes. And Brittany Lincicome impresses once again in a big event with 3 birdies in her 1st 6 holes.

But it's not just the Americans making noise early. Katherine Hull bounced back from her 4th-straight bogey on the par-4 2nd hole with 6 birdies between the 6th and 16th and could match Park's 66 with another on 18. Laura Davies made 5 birdies on the front on the way to her 32 there and is looking to make more on her last 2 holes. Shiho Oyama is -5 through 13, having birdied 4 of her last 5 holes, while Hee Kyung Seo, who has dual KLPGA and LET membership this year, has birdied her 1st 2 on the back to climb to -4 through 11. And Lindsey Wright birdied her 1st 3 holes and is -4 through 6.

Should be a great round! Refresh this page regularly, as I'll be updating it while my kids remain asleep--and hopefully until we find out who wins the race to the finish.

[Update 1 (6:06 am): Davies birdied 17 to get to -5 on her day; with her length, an eagle isn't out of the question on 18. Guilia Sergas is -3 through 15 and playing bogey-free golf.]

[Update 2 (6:12 am): Chie Arimura, last week's winner on the JLPGA, shot a 33 on the front and just bounced back from a bogey on 11 with a birdie on 12 (the hole that her compatriots up the leaderboard, Miyazato and Mitsuka, both doubled earlier in the tournament). Lincicome and Wright are both -4 through 7 now. Hull, meanwhile, couldn't birdie 17 or 18, so had to settle for a 67. Ya Ni Tseng got a moral victory, at least, by eagling the 18th to get back to E today and +5 for the tournament. Better luck next week, Ya Ni!]

[Update 3 (6:14 am): Jeong Jang also got a walkoff eagle. She's coming off wrist surgery, so that -3 finish over her last 4 holes is quite encouraging. Go, JJ!]

[Update 4 (6:21 am): No fireworks for Stanford; she finished where she started the back, at -3. And Davies bogeyed 18 for a 68. But don't look now, Lorena Ochoa is off to her 1st fast start this week. She's -2 through 5, -5 for the tournament, and -10 over her last 39 holes.]

[Update 5 (6:31 am): Bogeys on 14 for Arimura and Seo. But a birdie on 15 brings Johanna Westerberg to -3 on the day and a chance to make a late push up the leaderboard.]

[Update 6 (6:41 am): Wright birdied 9 for a 31 on the front. Lincicome doubled it for a 34. Sergas ended up with a 69. Meena Lee has birdied 2 of the 1st 4 holes to get to -8. Yuko Mitsuka birdied 1 to get to -9. And Na Yeon Choi did the same to get to -10.]

[Update 7 (6:59 am): Oyama birdied 18 to match Park's 66. She's the leader in the clubhouse at -5 for the tournament. Choi bogeyed 2 to fall back to -9. Paula Creamer birdied 1 to take her place at -10. Meena Lee is now -3 through 5 and -9 for the tournament. Lincicome bounced back with a birdie on 11.]

[Update 8 (7:02 am): Miyazato and Webb parred 1 to remain at -11 and -10, respectively. Creamer bogeyed 2 to join Lee, Choi, and Alfredsson at -9. Mitsuka bogeyed 3 to join Stacy Lewis and Song-Hee Kim at -8.]

[Update 9 (7:08 am): Webb has hit 51 of 55 greens thus far. Maria Hjorth is -3 through 10. Good to see her making a charge. Ochoa birdied 9 for bogey-free 33 on the front to join her at -6 for the tournament. Momoko Ueda heads into the 9th having birdied 3 in a row to join them.]

[Update 10 (7:10 am): Ai-chan birdied the tough 2nd hole to join Brewerton, Gustafson, and Kim at -12. They now have a 2-shot lead on Kerr, who bogeyed the 1st. Webb's bogey on 2 makes it 6 players at -9.]

[Update 11 (7:12 am): Westerberg ended up with a 68. Ji-Yai Shin birdied 10 to get to -3 on her day and -6 for the tournament. There are now 23 players within 6 shots of the lead.]

[Update 12 (7:15 am): Michelle Wie eagled the 9th to get to -5 for the tournament. She's caught Wendy Ward, who's +2 on her day.]

[Update 13 (7:19 am): Kim and Gustafson opened their Sundays with pars. But Brewerton bogeyed 2 to fall back to -11. So far nobody's broken the -12 barrier!]

[Update 14 (7:21 am): Seo ended up with a 69. There's a real logjam on the 12th. Scores for Lincicome and Wright haven't been updated in forever.]

[Update 15 (7:27 am): The players are as tiny as they were last year on Evian Masters Live TV, but I suppose I'll have to watch the leaders come in. Girls still asleep. Ueda makes it 4 in a row on the 9th, joining Wright and Lewis at -7.]

[Update 16 (7:31 am): The JLPGA's finest are out in force today. A bogey-free 34 brings Ji-Hee Lee to -5 on the tournament and Mi-Jeong Jeon is hanging tough a hole behind her and a shot ahead of her. Arimura birdied her last 2 holes for a 68 that brought her even with Seo and Westerberg at -3.]

[Update 17 (7:33 am): Meena Lee is now -4 through 10 and only 2 shots back. She's the only player in the lead chase pack making an early charge.]

[Update 18 (7:36 am): Erina Hara just birdied 13 to get to -3 for the tournament. The Japanese media must be going nuts.]

[Update 19 (7:37 am): Ueda makes it 5 in a row on the 10th. She's only 4 back now!]

[Update 20 (7:38 am): Mitsuka birdied 6 to get within 2 of the lead! Is this a JLPGA event??]

[Update 21 (7:42 am): Seriously, Jeon just birdied 9 for a 34 that gets her to -7. Your move, Ai-chan!]

[Update 22 (7:45 am): Imoto is up and drawing at the kitchen table. Took her and onechan to the driving range yesterday. Imoto swings like a hockey player, onechan like a baseball player. It was more fun than miniature golf, where the girls just wanted to throw their balls in the ponds and fish them out. Back to the action, Brewerton is on a 3-hole bogey train, her longest of the tournament. She's bounced back from back-to-back bogeys before, so let's see how tough she is today.]

[Update 23 (7:48 am): Ueda is now only 3 back and has a tournament-best 6-hole birdie train chugging along.]

[Update 24 (7:52 am): Ai Miyazato and In-Kyung Kim are now alone at the top after a Gustafson bogey on 4. Sorry, Inky, but I'm rooting for Ai-chan.]

[Update 25 (7:54 am): There are still 11 players within 3 shots of the lead. But an Ochoa double on 12--that hole again!--dropped her back to -4.]

[Update 26 (7:57 am): Meena Lee is now -5 on her round, too. So here's how the leaderbard looks right now:

-12 Ai-chan, Inky
-11 Lee, Kerr, Gustafson
-9 Ueda, Mitsuka, Alfredsson, Creamer, Webb, Brewerton

Wow!]

[Update 27 (8:00 am): Darn it, Ai-chan just bogeyed the par-4 6th. Onechan will be happy to hear that Webb birdied it. She's rooting for Webb and Creamer; we'll see whose player wins!]

[Update 28 (8:02 am): Ueda's birdie train ends on 12. Mitsuka bogeyed 7 to join her at -9. Shin is now -4 on the day and -7 overall. And Gustafson birdied 5 to tie Kim for the lead at -12.]

[Update 29 (8:03 am): Creamer joins Webb at -10 with a birdie on 7.]

[Update 30 (8:04 am): Evian Masters Live TV moves around and zooms in, so I probably won't be doing what I did last year and confusing Choi, Alfredsson, and Angela Park--who, by the way, is definitely not retiring.]

[Update 31 (8:07 am): Natalie Gulbis is -2 with 4 to go--she needs to make a move to get some Solheim Cup points and make it harder to knck her out of the #10 spot.]

[Update 32 (8:11 am): Some weird glitches on Wright's and Lincicome's scorecards right now.]

[Update 33 (8:33 am): Onechan woke up and kicked me off the computer I was on. I'm now on the backup laptop we got fixed in Akihabara in June. So it's fitting that Yuko Mitsuka birdied 4 of her last 6 holes on the front for a 32 that has brought her into a tie for the lead a -12 with Gustafson, Inky, Kerr, and...yes...Ai-chan, who birdied the par-3 8th for the 3rd time this week.]

[Update 34 (8:38 am): Ueda bogeyed the 13th to fall back to -4 on her day. Wright shot a 38 on the back for a 69 that ties her with Oyama and Karine Icher (who als shot a 69 today) at -5. Lincicome ended up with a 70 that puts her at -4. Hjorth can become the new leader in the clubhouse with a par or better on 18.]

[Update 35 (8:44 am): Anna Nordqvist has birdied 3 of her 1st 4 holes on the back to get to -8. She's only 4 back now. But Meena Lee bogeyed the 12th and 13th, just like yesterday, to fall back to -3 on her day and -9 for the tournament. Still only 3 back.]

[Update 36 (8:46 am): It's a bitter back for Ochoa, with a bogey to follow up on her 2nd double of the side. All of a sudden she's +2 on her day. So much for building momentum heading into the WBO.]

[Update 37 (8:51 am): Hjorth parred 18 for a 69 that brings her to -6. She's the leader in the clubhouse for the moment. Just saw Shin make a nice lag putt on 18. Hopefully it was for eagle. If she does birdie that hole, she'll tie Hjorth.]

[Update 38 (8:54 am): Ai-chan is the 1st to break the -12 barrier! Here's a leaderboard update:

-13 Ai-chan
-12 Mitsuka, Kerr, Gustafson
-11 Brewerton, Inky
-10 Lee, Choi, Alfredsson, Creamer, Webb

Wow!]

[Update 39 (8:56 am): Ueda needs to regroup after another bogey on the par-5 15th. Let's see if she can birdie 17 and 18!]

[Update 40 (9:02 am): Creamer and Webb have joined Inky and Brewerton at -11. Shin did birdie 18 for a 69 that makes her co-leader-in-the-clubhouse with Hjorth at -6. But Ji-Hee Lee can pass them with a par or better on 18.]

[Update 41 (9:05 am): Gustafson is the next to break the -12 barrier. Meena Lee just birdied 14 and 15 to get back to -5 on her day and -11 overall.]

[Update 42 (9:08 am): But Ai-chan birdied 11--her 3rd in her last 4 holes--to take the lead alone at -14. The 12th will be key for her. Ji-Hee Lee birdied 18 for a bogey-free 67 that brings her to -8. Momo-chan can catch her with a birdie on 18 and Jeon has 2 holes left in which to pass her.]

[Update 43 (9:11 am): Wie birdied 3 of her last 4 holes to offset her 3 earler bogeys on the back and finish with a 70. She's T21 at -5 right now, 2 shots ahead of Gulbis (T30). Ward is +3 through 14 and -4 for the tournament. She still has time to make a statement.]

[Update 44 (9:18 am): Ueda made a nice 2-putt on 18. Unfortunately it was only for par. Her 69--and -7 overall total--has to feel disappointing after that ride on the birdie train for 6 holes, but breaking 70 in 3 of her 4 rounds this week is a great confidence-builder heading into the WBO.]

[Update 45 (9:21 am): Kerr and Mitsuka have joined Gustafson at -13, 1 behind Ai-chan. Time is running out for Meena Lee. She'll need to go birdie-eagle on 17 and 18 for a 64 that would get her to -14 in order to have a chance to win.]

[Update 46 (9:26 am): Lee birdied 17! Wow! Jeon absolutely stuck her approach on 18--and tapped it in. Her 2nd-straight 68 makes her the leader in the clubhouse at 9. Ji had a 6-footer for what I hope is a birdie--and canned it. Nope, it was for par. Still, a top 30 after winning the U.S. Women's Open is just fine.]

[Update 47 (9:30 am): Time for a leaderboard update. Let's limit it to those double digits under par.

-14 Ai-chan (through 12)
-13 Mitsuka (through 13), Kerr (through 11), Gustafson (through 11)
-12 Lee (through 17)
-11 Brewerton (through 11), Inky (through 11), Creamer (through 13), Webb (through 12)
-10 Choi (through 13)

Gambare, Ai-chan!]

[Update 48 (9:34 am): Kerr bogeyed 12 to fall back to -12. Choi bogeyed 14 and is now -9, tied with Jeon and Alfredsson. Meena Lee is trying to chip in from just off the back of the green. No, looks like she putted it--good speed, but it just slid by the hole on the right.]

[Update 49 (9:38 am): Turns out Lee's missed putt was for eagle. Her birdie at 18 gives her the low round of the tournament, a 65 that makes her the leader in the clubhouse at -13. But Gustafson just joined Ai-chan at -14 with a birdie on the 12th. With Mitsuka's bogey on 14, she and Kerr are 1 behind Lee and 2 behind the co-leaders.]

[Update 50 (9:39 am): Inky's birdie at 12 also pulls her within 2 of the lead.]

[Update 51 (9:48 am): Song-Hee Kim just made a nice 11-footer on the 18th for a walkoff eagle that ties her with Jeon at T10 (-9). Ward and Lewis are playing 18 now.]

[Update 52 (9:52 am): Ward stuck her approach to 5 feet and Lewis has a long eagle (?) attempt from just off the left side of the green. Oops, she was too aggressive and her chip went into the fringe behind the hole on the back right. But she quickly stepped up to the 10-footer and slammed it home. Ward calmly followed up with a perfect putt.]

[Update 53 (9:56 am): Ward's was for her 2nd birdie in a row, after 3 straight bogeys. Don't know what Daniel will make of that, or her T27 finish. Lewis's putt also gave her her 2nd birdie in a row and brought her back to E on the day and -7 for the tournament. She's tied with Ueda and Nordqvist at T16.]

[Update 53 (10:00 am): A Gustafson bogey on 13 means it's time for another leaderboard update.

-14 Ai-chan (through 14)
-13 Lee (65), Gustafson (through 13)
-12 Kerr (through 13), Inky (through 13)
-11 Mitsuka (through 15), Creamer (through 15), Webb (through 14), Brewerton (through 13)
-10 Alfredsson (through 15)

We should start seeing more birdies now as the leaders enter the 15th through 18th holes.]

[Update 54 (10:05 am): With Pak and Lang on 18 the lead groups are playing slow! Oh no, the live tv feed froze while Pak was contemplatng her chip from just past pin high on the left back of the green!]

[Update 55 (10:09 am): Phew, the feed is back--but just in time for nobody to be there for a few holes.]

[Update 56 (10:15 am): Oh, no! Ai-chan bogeyed the 15th for the 2nd time this week. She's tied for the lead now with Gustafson and Lee. Choi and Mitsuka are playing 18, trying to get back to double digit under par.]

[Update 57 (10:18 am): Choi faded a hybrid or fairway metal in from the right rough to the left side of the green, just off the fringe about pin high. She has 20 feet or so for eagle, I believe.]

[Update 58 (10:24 am): Pak and Lang finished at -8, btw, tied for 13th now that Brewerton bogeyed 15 to go to +4 on her round. Choi's decided to chip. She raised her arms as it tracked toward the pin, but hit it and bounced out somehow. She tapped in for what I believe is a birdie. Mitsuka made her 3-footer. They both join Webb at -10. Creamer's only at -11 headig into 18. She'll need to make an eagle to give herself a chance.]

[Update 59 (10:28 am): Creamer split the fairway and was just past the new fairways bunker. It looked like she went for the green with a long iron, but the camera couldn't follow her shot. Alfredsson put her mid-iron approach to the back-middle of the green. Less than 15 feet for an eagle that would get her to -11.]

[Update 60 (10:36 am): Alfredsson sank her eagle putt and saluted the crowd with a high fist pump. Creamer missed a tap-in for birdie. Here's how the leaderboard looks as Ai-chan plays 18:

-13 Lee (65), Ai-chan (through 17), Gustafson (through 15)
-12 Kerr (through 16)
-11 Alfredsson (70), Creamer (70), Webb (through 17), Inky (through 15)
-10 Mitsuka (70), Choi (71)

Come on, Ai-chan!]

[Update 61 (10:45 am): Ai-chan had to lay up. She waited for Karrie to hit her 3rd shot, waved back the Japanese TV crew, and calmly put a wedge about 10 feet from the cup on about the same line as Alfredsson's eagle attempt. It all comes down to this for her. Gustafson parred 16, so Ai-chan needs this putt to put any pressure on her. Kerr is -12 heading into 18. Inky's -11 heading into 17. Webb's pitch from the lettuce to the left of the green rolled right by the cup and came to rest about 8 feet away. She'll need that to stay at -11. I counted 8 "Silence!" signs that went up around the green as Ai-chan stepped up to her putt. And she made it!!!!!]

[Update 62 (10:48 am): Webb made hers, too. She's T5 with Alfredsson and Creamer, but Inky has a chance pass her with a birdie or better and Kerr needs an eagle to catch Ai-chan.]

[Update 63 (10:54 am): Things are falling into place for Ai-chan. Gustafson failed to birdie 17, so she needs a birdie to catch Ai-chan and an eagle to beat her. Kerr either hit a monster drive or had to lay up way back. Let's hope it's the latter, because she stuck her approach to the length of Creamer's missed tap-in.]

[Update 64 (10:58 am): Brewerton babied what I'm guessing was her 30-foot eagle attempt. Kerr's putt is a little longer than Creamer's, actually. She's really grinding over it. Big fist pump when she made it. But it was only for birdie.]

[Update 65 (11:00 am): Can Gustafson win this outright? She has the length to go for 18 in 2.]

[Update 66 (11:04 am): She's in the middle of the green, putting a little bit up and then down the ridge over 25 feet from the hole, so I assume she did hit it in 2. Inky left her chip from the left side of the green 6 feet above the hole. Gustafson's putt died on the lip. She tapped in for...par!!! Ai-chan wins! Ai-chan wins!!!!!!!!!!]

[Update 67 (11:11 am): Dammit, LPGA.com. You can't keep doing this to me. Gustafson did birdie 18. There's a playoff!!!! Here's how the leaderboard looks after 72 holes.

-14 Ai-chan (69), Gustafson (70)
-13 Lee (65), Kerr (70)
-11 Alfredsson (70), Creamer (70), Webb (71)
-10 Mitsuka (70), Choi (71), Inky (74)

Gambare, Ai-chan!]

[Update 68 (11:13 am): The carts are taking the players and their caddies back to the 18th tee. If Gustafson can put her drive anywhere in play anywhere that gives her a shot at the green in 2, she'll have a big advantage.]

[Update 69 (11:23 am): Man, if I had thought to have my twitter feed open, I wouldn't have had to deal with that little whiplash back there. Ai-chan split the fairway on her drive and looks like she's thinking about going for the green in 2. She hit a fairway wood, it looked like, but where the hell dd it end up? Twitter says bunker--behind the green, I assume. Gustafson had a good lay-up. She has a great look from less than 80 yards. But she didn't put the ball in an easy spot for her birdie putt. Looks like she's to the right of the pin, a little short of it on or near the fringe.]

[Update 70 (11:25 am): Ai-chan's sand shot from just past pin high right of the green didn't land soft and skidded 5 feet by, but she has a better angle than Gustafson for birdie.]

[Update 71 (11:29 am): Gustafson yanked hers from the start. Ai-chan's putt was really only 3 and a half feet--and she canned it. Then the tears started flowing and the hugging began. Mitsuka snuck through the sea of cameras to give her a quick one before she left the green.]

[Update 72 (11:30 am): Now it can be said for real: "Ai-chan wins! Ai-chan wins!!!!!!!!!!"]

[Update 73 (5:22 pm): Appreciate the linkage and congrats out there. To the good people at Golf Babes, the only thing I can say is domo arigato (and I've found that somen noodles work better than udon). To Hound Dog, arigato gozaimasu (but onechan is actually sad for Karrie Webb and Paula Creamer).]

Evian Masters Saturday: Who Will Make a Move?

I hope Marsha Evans, David Higdon, and the rest of the LPGA leadership are paying close attention to the ways the organizers of the Evian Masters have welcomed the international contingent in the field. Of course, when you watch highlights on Evian Masters TV, you find out how the French players did as well as the leaders, but you also get features like the one on the lengths taken to make the Asian players feel at home. The LPGA could learn a lot from how this event is run and promoted. A tournament doesn't have to be as well-funded as this one to have the kind of web presence it does.

Unlike in most American tournaments, they reshuffle the pairings after every round. With the field down to 74 now, they are actually going off in pairs today. There are definitely some surprises among those at the bottom of the leaderboard. Caroline Rominger is outplaying Mika Miyazato, Maria Verchenova is outplaying Ya Ni Tseng, and Guilia Sergas is outplaying Melissa Reid. But probably the biggest surprise of all is that nobody is making a huge move on a front side that can be had. Shi Hyun Ahn's 33 (which must be seen to be believed, featuring a double bogey-eagle turnaround) and Catriona Matthew's 34 are the only early scores worth writing home about, while Amy Yang's 3 birdies in her 1st 6 holes, Hee-Won Han's 2 in her 1st 4, and Eun-Hee Ji's 2 in her 1st 3 are the only exciting starts. There are far more disasters than even solid starts to report on, but I'll refrain from adding insult to injury. I don't know if the course is playing tougher because of all the rain this week, or what, but so far we're not having much of a moving day.

What this suggests is that the leaders are going to have to be sharp. It may be easier to move backward than forward today. We'll see!

[Update 1 (5:16 am): OK, Momoko Ueda has birdied both par 3s on the front to go -2 on her round and for the tournament. She's the 9th golfer playing right now to get there. Ji leads those on the course 1 stroke lower, good enough for T22 right now. Someone at this level is going to need to get into the mid-60s today to have a hope of being in contention tomorrow, unless all 9 players at -7 or better completely collapse.]

[Update 2 (5:25 am): All right, Suzann Pettersen has birdied 2 in a row to join Ji and Hee Young Park at -3 for the tournament.]

[Update 3 (5:30 am): Ah, count on Morgan Pressel for the weather report. Expect the scores to heat up as the temperatures do.]

[Update 4 (5:34 am): OK, Yang held steady for her 34. Han birdied 8 to get back to -2 on her day and for the tournament. But Pettersen continues to mirror Han's start--she just bogeyed 5, just like Han did.]

[Update 5 (5:39 am): Hope everyone is following the Evian Masters's twitter feed and that other tournament organizers are taking note of how to live-micro-blog an event.]

[Update 6 (5:41 am): All right, Lorena Ochoa just got off her 6-hole par train with a birdie on the 7th. She's finally under par for the tournament--only took her 43 holes to get there!]

[Update 7 (5:44 am): Tseng is still playing badly, but at least Verchenova isn't outplaying her anymore! Still, she needs to eagle 18 just to shoot a 72 today.]

[Update 8 (5:48 am): Well, Momo-chan got both the par 3s but neither of the par 5s on the front. Her 34 allows Ahn to hold onto low 9 of the day by herself. Let's see how Han does on the 9th.]

[Update 9 (5:49 am): Right now there are 6 players at -3, chasing Jin Joo Hong, who birdied the 2nd to get to -4, and Karen Stupples, who parred the 1st to stay there.]

[Update 10 (5:51 am): Her 4th birdie of the day on the 13th hole gets Johanna Westerberg to -2 for her round and -1 for the tournament. If she hadn't doubled the 1st, she'd have the best round of the day going. As it is, it's still tied for 2nd-best behind Ahn.]

[Update 11 (5:55 am): Ji Young Oh is now -4 on the tournament after her 1st birdie of the day on the par-4 3rd. A double on 14 brings Ahn back to -1 on her day, too. Looks like it's going to be tough to sustain good momentum today.]

[Update 12 (5:56 am): The 1st scores of the day are in and they're not pretty: Rominger 75, Mika Miyazato 77. Ouch.]

[Update 13 (5:57 am): Next: Tseng 74, Verchenova 77. Yeesh.]

[Update 14 (5:59 am): Jin Joo Hong makes it 2 birdies in a row and is the 1st player to reach -5 today.]

[Update 15 (6:09 am): I finally decided to check the LET Order of Merit, because I couldn't believe Hound Dog's recent claims that Gwladys Nocera leads it. So with her MC Nocera will fall from her #6 spot if Jade Schaeffer (+6 through 53 holes) and/or Westerberg (E through 50) can play well enough to pass her. But she won't lose much ground to #2 Marianne Skarpnord (+9 through 53) or #4 Melissa Reid (77 today, +8 overall), who will be playing together in tomorrow's 1st pairing unless Jane Park can't make a birdie or 2 in her last 3 holes. So that leaves #1 Diana Luna, #3 Tania Elosegui, and #5 Becky Brewerton with the best chances to make big moves up the LET money list this week.]

[Update 16 (6:29 am): Checking around the golfoblogosphere, Jeff Skinner not unexpectedly plays the nationalist card he claims not to want to play and calls on Creamer, Kerr, and Pressel to save the LPGA by beating the furriners. Whatevah. I'm more interested in revisiting Hound Dog's claim that the LET is the weakest by far of the major tours. Consider this: of the top 10 in scoring average on tour, only 4 are LET regulars and only 1--Melissa Reid--is under 70.50 (there are 8 on the LPGA and 22 with better scoring averages than Becky Brewerton, who's the 4th-best LETer). You'd think it would get better in the next 10, and it does, but there are still 3 LET irregulars in that bunch. You get out of the top 20 and nobody's averaging 72 or better, whereas you have to get to #39 on the LPGA before that happens. Yes, the JLPGA only has 12 players with scoring averages under 72, but they have fewer players than the LET does and of those going lowest only 1--Ai Miyazato--isn't a regular on tour.]

[Update 17 (6:32 am): Man, Sergas's 72 would still be the low score of the day were it not for Matthew's bogey free 69 (she's T37 right now). The player with the best chance to beat her is the JLPGA's Ji-Hee Lee, who could shoot a 31 on the back with a birdie on 18.]

[Update 18 (6:33 am): Han is -4 through 12, so she has a chance to go low, too.]

[Update 19 (6:43 am): Count Yang in, too, after her 2nd birdie in her last 3 holes. She has a tough par 5 and 3 short ones to go to improve on her -4 start to her day.]

[Update 20 (6:44 am): Ji birdied 8 and 9 to match Ahn's opening 33--hang on, LPGA.com now has Ahn for a 35 on the front! So that means that Ji has low front right now.]

[Update 21 (6:51 am): Yikes, Jane Park's 80 suggests that either her back problems are not behind her or her game hasn't recovered yet. She's officially out of the Solheim Cup captain's pick race. Laura Diaz's and Stacy Prammanasudh's MCs and generally terrible seasons should put them out of the running, too. Inkster's 73 is respectable enough to keep the Hall of Famer a front-runner for the 1st pick. It's up to Wendy Ward and Pat Hurst to displace Natalie Gulbis from the #10 spot or to seriously outplay Michelle Wie this weekend and next week. Let's see if they can do it.]

[Update 22 (6:53 am): Oh, and Stacy Lewis needs a win this week and a great finish at the Women's British Open to put herself in the conversation. She's parred her 1st 2 holes today. Let's see if she can get something going.]

[Update 23 (6:54 am): Ji-Hee Lee parred 18 for a 68. It's low round of the day so far, but Yang just needs to birdie 17 or 18 to surpass her.]

[Update 24 (6:59 am): All right, so how are those in the lead chase pack actually starting out today? Early on, Pressel, Stupples, and Alfredsson are +2; Pak, Webb, Icher, Hjorth, and McPherson are +1; Kerr, Creamer, Lewis, and Ward are E; Lang, Hong, Oh, Nordqvist, and Gustafson are -1; and Meena Lee is -2 (1 off the lead).]

[Update 25 (7:06 am): What the scoring patterns suggest thus far is that a low round will be worth even more today than on most moving days. If only a few people move in the right direction in a big way, they'll be able to pass a lot of people. Sometimes just holding steady is a victory. Sun Young Yoo got off to a horrible birdie-double-bogey-bogey-par-bogey start, but since then has fought back to E on her day with 5 more birdies and only 1 more bogey. With the 3 short holes left to play, she can still end up with 1 of the best rounds of the day!]

[Update 26 (7:10 am): Yuko Mitsuka parred her 1st hole. She'd better bring it today if she wants to keep her lead on the other top JLPGA stars in the field. Lee's 68 brings her to -4 on the tournament, while Mi-Jeong Jeon is at -5 after making birdies on 4 of her last 6 holes. With 5 holes to play, she has a great chance to post one of the best rounds of the day.]

[Update 27 (7:16 am): Wow, Yang also couldn't break 68. Let's see if Ueda, Han, or Jeon can. If Ueda does it, she'll have birdied her last 2 in a row and 3 of her last 5. Han will need to make up for her recent bogey quickly to do so.]

[Update 28 (7:18 am): Don't look now, but Lorena's -7 over her last 30 holes and she's played bogey-free golf to do it. She may be turning it around just in time for the WBO.]

[Update 29 (7:54 am): Oh no! Disaster for Ai Miyazato! She started par-bogey-bogey-triple!! Time to regroup, Ai-chan!]

[Update 30 (7:57 am): Still nobody going low. Ueda shot 68, Ochoa 69 (9 birdies and 1 bogey in her last 34 holes). So if Na Yeon Choi can build on her 2-hole birdie train (ongoing), she can put some serious distance between herself and the field. But Brewerton bounced back to the field when she hit -11, so anything can happen.]

[Update 31 (8:17 am): OK, maybe the leaders are leaders for a reason. Sophie Gustafson just eagled the par-5 7th to go to -3 on her day and -10 for the tournament. Paula Creamer birdied it to go -2 and -9, respectively. Cristie Kerr has birdied 2 of her last 3 holes to move to -2 and -8, respectively. The 5th 68 today, from the JLPGA's Mi-Jeong Jeon (which brings her to -5 for the tournament), is definitely in jeopardy for low round of the day standing. Ji has a chance to beat it with a birdie on 18, but I seem to recall saying that before...]

[Update 32 (8:22 am): I'm encouraged on Ai-chan's behalf that Seon Hwa Lee was -2 over her last 14 holes after tripling the same hole she did, the par-4 4th. But even more so by the fact that she didn't triple the 4th! LPGA.com almost gave me a heart attack! With her birdie on the par-4 6th, she fights back to +1 on her round and -8 for the tournament!]

[Update 33 (8:26 am): Ji Young Oh has birdied 3 of her 1st 4 holes on the back to finally offset her late-front-9 pair of bogeys and climb to -3 on her day and -6 for the tournament. And Becky Brewerton is back to double digits under par for the tournament.]

[Update 34 (8:44 am): Ji couldn't do it, either! That makes it 6 68s tied for low round of the day. Natalie Gulbis's 71 is looking pretty good today, by the way. Pat Hurst is +3 through 14 and E for the tournament and Wendy Ward is E through 11 to stay at -5 overall. Michelle Wie's 70 only puts her 1-up on Natalie heading into the final round. Ward and Wie are going to have to do something special tomorrow to make up any serious ground on Gulbis for the #10 spot on the US Solheim Cup team.]

[Update 35 (8:48 am): Ji-Yai Shin twice got to -3 for the tournament and both times fell back a shot. She'll need to finish very strong on 17 and 18 to have a hope of making a final-round charge meaningful. I'm talking birdie-eagle. Suzann Pettersen missed her chance with 3 bogeys in the middle of her round today. Lots of big names just playing for position tomorrow.]

[Update 36 (8:51 am): Speaking of position, Brewerton has taken the top spot from Choi. Ai-chan and Yuko Mitsuka have joined Creamer at -9, the former with her 2nd birdie in her last 3 holes and the latter with her 2nd in a row.]

[Update 37 (8:54 am): A double at 5 and a bogey at 10 have offset Stacy Lewis's 3 birdies on the front. She's back at -6, in danger of dropping out of the lead chase pack.]

[Update 38 (9:02 am): Karrie Webb is showing why she's a Hall of Famer. After a double on 3 dropped her back to -5 for the tournament, she's made 4 birdies and only 1 bogey to get to -8, just 3 shots off the lead, tied with Mitsuka (who bogeyed 9) and Kerr. Creamer's birdie to get to -10 leaves Ai-chan alone in 5th right now at -9.]

[Update 39 (9:05 am): A birdie n the par-3 8th--there sure have been a lot of them today!--brings In-Kyung Kim back to E on her day and -8 for the tournament. We now have 9 players within 3 shots of the lead and 14 players within 5.]

[Update 40 (9:07 am): Choi's 34 on the front makes it 2 players who have hit -11, bounced back, and bounced back from the bounceback.]

[Update 41 (9:09 am): Inky's 2nd birdie in a row brings her to -9 with Ai-chan. 2 of my favorite golfers are back in the thick of things!]

[Update 42 (9:13 am): Gustafson's -4 on her round today and tied for the lead at -11. Ai-chan is now -10. Great 35 after that +2 start!]

[Update 43 (9:17 am): Now Mitsuka is back to -9 after a birdie on 10. The birdies are coming fast and furious, finally.]

[Update 44 (9:19 am): Inky makes a it 3 in a row and joins Paula and Ai-chan at -10!]

[Update 45 (9:21 am): Time for Stacy Lewis, Se Ri Pak, and Meena Lee at -6 and Helen Alfredsson and Song-Hee Kim at -7 to get on their horses. The train is leaving the station!]

[Update 46 (9:25 am): Ji Young Oh made 6 birdies but 4 bogeys today and ends up at -5. That's going to be too far back to win. Brewerton is -12 and nobody among the leaders is backing down or backing up.]

[Update 47 (9:28 am): OK, well, Ai-chan bogeyed 10 to fall back to E on the day and -9 for the tournament. She had a weak finish Thursday and a strong one Friday. Let's see how many shots she can make up on the leaders today.]

[Update 48 (9:31 am): Man, many of my picks in this week's PakPicker are really letting me down. Precision players like Ji-Yai Shin (-3), Natalie Gulbis (-2), Morgan Pressel (-2 through 52 holes), and Kristy McPherson (-2 through 51) are not living up to their hot play of late. Seon Hwa Lee is barely hanging in there at E, and Mika Miyazato is out of it at +8. Guess I should have trusted Ji to shake off her celebration's aftereffects quickly.]

[Update 49 (9:34 am): Cristie Kerr is now -9 after her birdie on the par-3 14th. That makes it 8 players within 3 shots of the lead and 12 within 5.]

[Update 50 (9:37 am): Waitasec--Oh only made 3 bogeys, it turns out. Her 69 brings her to -6. Lang could become the co-leader-in-the-clubhouse at -6 if she can break the curse on 18 and actually birdie it.]

[Update 51 (9:40 am): Choi bogeyed 11 to fall back to -10. Song-Hee Kim bogeyed 12 to fall back to -6. Mitsuka doubled 12--just like Ai-chan did on Thursday--to fall back to -7. So it's even more amazing that Lang birdied 18 to join Oh at -6. If other leaders falter, a low- or mid-60s round tomorrow by either one of them culd win it for them.]

[Update 52 (9:42 am): Hold on! Brittany Lang actually shot the 7th 68 of the day and moved to -7 overall. She's right in it!]

[Update 53 (9:46 am): Ward has made 3 birdies and 3 bogeys today. As she enters the final holes she could put some distance between herself, Gulbis, and Wie by joining Lang at -7.]

[Update 54 (9:47 am): Oh, man! I wish LPGA.com would make up its mind. Now Lang is back to 69/-6. Did she bogey 16 or didn't she??]

[Update 55 (9:49 am): About time to get ready to leave for onechan's violin lessons. Webb has joined Miyazato and Kerr at -9.]

[Update 56 (4:55 pm): Wow, missed a lot, didn't I? Gustafson and Kerr made the biggest moves with their 67s, but 68s by In-Kyung Kim, Karrie Webb, and Helen Alfredsson bring the total to 10 on the day (yes, Lang's was actually a 68, after all!). Ai-chan had a chance to finish the day in the lead, but bogeyed 18 instead of birdieing it. Here's Hound Dog's 3rd-round overview, which goes into a lot of detail on the GC coverage.]

[Update 57 (5:36 pm): As Hound Dog points out, we're all set up for a Sunday free-for-all. There are 15 players within 5 shots of the lead, 9 within 3, and only 3 players who have broken 70 every round (Brewerton, Inky, Webb). I always like someone who didn't go low on moving day but is close to the lead for the win. That means that my pick Ai-chan and Hound Dog's pick Creamer are in a great position to go low tomorrow. I stand by my prediction of a -16 to -21 winning score. Nobody's going to back into a win with this many players in the hunt. That means we'd need so see something extraordinary from those more than 3 back. I'm talking 64 or lower, with more needed the further back you are. If you can't get to -15, you won't put any pressure on the last 5 twosomes.]

[Update 58 (5:45 pm): By my system, Na Yeon Choi, Yuko Mitsuka, and Ward, Pak, Lewis, and Song-Hee Kim are also threats to go low tomorrow.]

Evian Masters Friday: Can Mitsuka Keep It Going?

For the 1st 13 holes of the Evian Masters, the JLPGA's 3rd-ranked golfer, Yuko Mitsuka, was one of the coldest golfers in the tournament, having made 3 bogeys and no birdies in that stretch. But over her next 13 holes, she's been the hottest player in the field, with an eagle, 6 birdies, and no bogeys. Playing the par-4 9th now, she has a chance to open her 2nd round with a 31 and join Na Yeon Choi for the lead at -6.

[Update 1 (7:01 am): Song-Hee Kim also has a chance for a 31 on the front that would bring her to -6 for the tournament; all she needs to do is make her 5th consecutive birdie of the day on the 9th hole. This is what makes the 1st 2 rounds of the Evian so exciting, as players seek to distance themselves from the field. It's the kind of course where you can go very low, but also struggle greatly. Just ask the 4 Americans who are going to miss the cut: Solheim Cuppers Christina Kim (75-76) and Nicole Castrale (76-72) and those struggling to displace Natalie Gulbis from the last automatic qualifying spot or get a captain's pick Stacy Prammanasudh (74-76) and Laura Diaz (+8 on the tournament through 17).]

[Update 2 (7:09 am): Speaking of missing the cut, world #2 Ya Ni Tseng is going to need some help if she is to avoid this fate. She made 4 birdies in her last 8 holes of bogey-free golf (finally!) to fight back to E on the day and +3 for the tournament, but with 71 players at +2 or better and 8 players already safely on the right side of the cut line at T59 (including Juli Inkster, Angela Stanford, Katherine Hull, Jane Park, and the LET's Marianne Skarpnord), she needs at least 2 of maybe a dozen players near her to fall back to her level. And she can't afford for any of the 5 tied with or just behind her to pass her.]

[Update 3 (7:18 am): The problem for Tseng is that a lot of players can make late charges to get on the right side of the cut line. Amy Yang went -3 over her last 6 holes to shoot a 71 that brought her back to +1 for the tournament. Lorena Ochoa went -5 over her last 16 (after making back-to-back bogeys to start her round that had brought her all the way to +5 on the tournament). Lindsey Wright shot a bogey-free 68 to move to -2, where she was joined by Shiho Oyama, whose 68 came from 5 birdies--3 in her last 6 holes.]

[Update 4 (7:29 am): Back to the top of the leaderboard, I'm happy to report that Mitsuka and Kim both birdied the 9th for their 31s (the low 9s of the tournament thus far). Joining them at -5 on the day and -6 for the tournament is Sophie Gustafson who's having her 1st good tournament in what feels like forever. But 1st-round co-leader Becky Brewerton just birdied the 2nd and 3rd to take the lead at -7. Se Ri Pak would be tied with her were it not for yesterday's late triple bogey--she's gone -5 over her last 14 holes to fight back to -4 for the tournament. Also off to good starts are Ai Miyazato and Meena Lee, who are -2 through 5 and -5 for the tournament. But don't look now--defending champion Helen Alfredsson is also at -5 after posting a bogey-free 33 on the front.]

[Update 5 (7:33 am): Whoops, Pak's 2nd bogey of the day just dropped her back into a tie at -3 with Kristy McPherson, who's got a great chance to turn a solid bogey-free round into a great one if she can get hot on her last 4 holes. She'll need to do it if she wants to catch Stacy Lewis, who shot a 33 on the front and seems to have gotten over yesterday's difficulties with her putting.]

[Update 6 (7:36 am): U.S. Women's Open champion Eun-Hee Ji birdied 18 for a solid 69 that brings her to -2 on the tournament, tied with Wright and Oyama.]

[Update 7 (8:18 am): Girls woke up! Turns out it was Hee Young Park who shot the 69 to join Wright and Oyama at -2--she birdied her last 4 holes to do it, too. Ji shot a 70 and is at -1, with Suzann Pettersen, Michelle Wie, and Tania Elosegui. Also moving from flirting with the cut line to positioned for moving day was Ji-Yai Shin, who bounced back from a double on the 6th with 3 birdies over her last 10 holes to finish at -2 for the day and the tournament.]

[Update 8 (8:46 am): Wow, a lot can happen during breakfast! Brewerton's eagle on the par-5 7th brings her to -5 on her day and -10 for the tournament. Lewis has birdied 3 of her last 4 holes to get to -6 on the day and -7 for the tournament. Mitsuka is still -6 for the tournament with 3 holes to go--so far she's parred every hole on the back, but she went birdie-par-eagle here yesterday. Miyazato is -3 through 10 and tied with Mitsuka. Pak finished with a 67, McPherson with a 68. The cut line has moved back to +3 for now, but who knows where it will end up?]

[Update 9 (8:50 am): Actually, it's unlikely it'll move to +4, and even more unlikely that Emma Zackrisson and Lisa Hall will finish with a flurry of eagles to move it back to +2.]

[Update 10 (8:56 am): Don't look now, but Cristie Kerr is making a move. She's played 13 holes of bogey-free golf today and at -4 for her round is now at -6 for the tournament. Disappointing finish for Gustafson, though; after getting to -8 for the tournament with a birdie on the 16th, she bogeyed 17 and only parred 18 for a 66. Ai-chan joins her and Lewis at -7 with her 2nd birdie in a row on the back at #11. Over her 1st 11 holes yesterday and today, she's made 9 birdies and no bogeys. Let's see if she can close out her round today stronger than she did yesterday in the rain.]

[Update 11 (9:02 am): Looks like the Americans are on the comeback trail. Paula Creamer is -2 through 13 and tied with McPherson and Wendy Ward (E through 11 today) right now at -4. Despite an early double, Brittany Lang shot her 2nd-straight under-par round and sits at -3. Morgan Pressel's bogey-free streak ended at 22 holes, but she just made her 3rd birdie of the day to offset her back-to-back bogeys early on the front and stands at -3 for the tournament through 13. Brittany Lincicome shot her 2nd straight 71, while Pat Hurst and Michelle Redman have good chances to pass her over their final few holes.]

[Update 12 (9:08 am): Anna Nordqvist is making a charge today, too. She's -4 over her last 10 holes and in great position to improve on her -5 total for the tournament. And Meena Lee is hanging tough; her 4th birdie of the day, on #11, brings her to -7 for the tournament. Yesterday's co-leaders Na Yeon Choi (-1 through 8) and In-Kyung Kim (E through 8) had better get it going if they don't want to be left completely in the dust today.]

[Update 13 (9:10 am): Hey, Choi and Kim both birdied 9, making up a stroke on Brewerton, who had to settle for a 31 on the front (1 better than yesterday's start and tied with Song-Hee Kim and Yuko Mitsuka for low 9 of the tournament).]

[Update 14 (9:17 am): Choi just made it 2 birdies in a row to break the logjam at -7 and move into solo 2nd.]

[Update 15 (9:20 am): Mitsuka broke her 8-hole par streak with a birdie on the 18th for a 66, tied with Song-Hee Kim, who failed to make it 3 birdies in a row to close out her round but also tied Gustafson at -7 for the tournament and co-leader in the clubhouse. But Ai-chan was the next player to pass them; she's birdied 3 of her last 4 holes and is only 2 behind Brewerton.]

[Update 16 (9:29 am): Oh no! Lewis bogeyed 18 (mirroring her bogey on the 1st) to "only" shoot a 67. Now it's Kerr's chance to pass her for low American--she has the short 16th through 18th to go, as does Paula Creamer, who's -4 over her last 11 holes and is just a shot back of Lewis and Kerr.]

[Update 17 (9:35 am): Natalie Gulbis was another American who flirted with the cut line--twice, actually--but came back both times to close at -1 through 36 holes. The cut line, by the way, did end up at +3.]

[Update 18 (9:45 am): Kerr moved to -7, Creamer and Ward to -6, Choi to -9, and Brewerton to -11 with their recent birdies.]

[Update 19 (9:46 am): Alfredsson posted a fine 69 to join Pak at -5, but both will need to shoot in the mid-60s at least once on the weekend to have a chance for a win that would mean a lot to either of them.]

[Update 20 (9:48 am): Off to story time with the girls. Onechan would like to see Karrie Webb start making more birdies. I'd say the same about Seon Hwa Lee. Both are stalled at -3, where Pat Hurst ended up.]

[Update 21 (12:58 pm): Check out Hound Dog's 2nd-round overview for the final results.]

[Update 22 (1:32 pm): Onechan will be glad to hear that Karrie Webb made 3 birdies down the stretch to pull to -6 and only 3 shots out of the lead after Brewerton's late bogeys brought her back to Ai-chan and NYC. I'm dismayed at Seon Hwa Lee's finish (she dropped all the way to -1 for the tournament with her 74 today), and feel bad for Momoko Ueda (75, E), Candie Kung (74, E), and Mika Miyazato (76, +3), but with Ai-chan and Inky at the top of the leaderboard, I've still got plenty to root for.]

[Update 23 (1:37 pm): Only 7 players have broken 70 both rounds, while 24 have gone under par twice. I have to admit that I'm amazed that 66 is the lowest score of the tournament. I truly believe there are a couple of low 60s and several mid-60s rounds to come. My guess is the winning score comes between -16 and -21.]

Evian Masters Thursday: Who Can Top Brewerton's 67?

There aren't as many low numbers among the early starters at the Evian Masters as I expected, so Becky Brewerton, last week's winner on the LET and the last entrant into the field of 90, stands alone at -5 right now. And her round could even have been better. After making 5 birdies in a 6-hole stretch starting on the par-4 5th, she offset a pair of bogeys on 13 and 14 with a pair of birdies on 16 and 17, but missed great birdie opportunities on the closing par 5s, 15 and 18. Her nearest competitor in the clubhouse is Jin Joo Hong, who opened with 3 bogeys in her 1st 4 holes, but closed with 5 birdies in her last 11 (despite also failing to birdie the 15th and 18th) for a 70. Yuko Mitsuka's comeback was even more intense: +3 through 13, she finished birdie-par-birdie-par-eagle for her 71.

I'll be providing updates off and on through the morning. Be sure to check out the tournament website for preview videos, interviews, and more. And let me know if you could get the live tv to work for you!

[Update 1 (7:07 am): The traditional way to go low at Evian is to take advantage of the front and finish hot. A double bogey on the par-4 6th derailed Anna Nordqvist's attempt to do the first part, but she came back with birdies on 8, 10, and 18 to join Hong at -2. Na Yeon Choi opened with a bogey-free 33, but just bogeyed the 10th to fall back to -2. We'll see if Karine Icher, who matched Choi's front, can avoid her fate on the 10th. Karen Stupples did, and more--she's -4 through 11. Ji Young Oh did, too, until she bogeyed the par-4 12th, but she got back to -3 with a birdie on the par-3 14th. An eagle on the par-4 11th just brought In-Kyung Kim into the -3 club, as well--let's see if she can avoid squandering it like Stacy Lewis (71) did with hers on the 10th. But the player with the best chance to surpass Brewerton at the moment is my pick to win this thing. Yup, Ai Miyazato birdied the 4th, 5th, and 6th to get to -3. She failed to birdie the par-5 7th, but there haven't been as many birdies there thus far today as on the other par 5s. Let's see how she closes out the front.]

[Update 2 (7:12 am): Kim followed up her eagle with a birdie on the 12th, joining Stupples at -4. Sweet!]

[Update 3 (7:16 am): Besides Ai-chan and Inky, other players I like a lot are doing just fine so far. Seon Hwa Lee is -2 through 10, with 3 birdies on the front, so hopefully she's shaken off the back troubles that caused her early WD from the U.S. Women's Open. Momoko Ueda bounced back from her opening bogey with birdies on 2, 4, and 6, so let's see if she can get another on the par-3 8th. And Mika Miyazato, playing with Ai-chan and Momo-chan, birdied 3 and 5 to offset her bogey on 1. Hold on! Ai-chan just birdied the 8th to get to -4. Momo-chan parred it, but Mika-chan bogeyed it.]

[Update 4 (7:21 am): Maria Hjorth has birdied 3 of her 1st 4 holes for the fastest start to the tournament yet. Candie Kung made 3 birdies on the front to offset her 2nd-hole bogey, so watch out for the Lee Westwood of the U.S. Women's Open this week. And Hall of Famer Se Ri Pak also opened with a 3-birdie 34. Wouldn't a win for her this week to join Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, and Juli Inkster mean a lot to her and her fans?]

[Update 5 (7:26 am): Whoops, Stupples made her 1st big mistake of the day with a bogey on the par-4 12th. Now it's just Inky and Ai-chan at -4. Oh has a great chance to join them as she's playing the 18th. The JLPGA's Mi-Jeong Jeon can join Hong and Nordqvist at -2 with a birdie there, as well.]

[Update 6 (7:31 am): Oh did it. She posted a 68, good enough for 2nd right now.]

[Update 7 (7:33 am): Stacy Lewis on twitter blames her putter and forecasts rain.]

[Update 8 (7:35 am): Don't look now, but Lee birdied 12 and Pak birdied 10 to get to -3.]

[Update 9 (7:39 am): Now that's more like it! Teresa Lu bounced back from a bogey at 17 with an eagle at 18 to also post a 68! Candie Kung (-2 through 11) and Ya Ni Tseng (+2 through 11 thanks to a pair of doubles) have something to shoot for if they want to be the low Taiwanese player this week. Oh, and Stupples joins the ever-growing group at -4 with a bounceback birdie on 13.]

[Update 10 (7:45 am): Speaking of big numbers, what is Nicole Castrale doing with that 76 today so close to the Solheim Cup? Only Martina Eberl can keep her out of a tie with Lotta Wahlin for last place! Laura Diaz only did 2 strokes better, and she's fighting for that last spot on the team. Christina Kim and Jane Park are +3 with a handful of holes left to go, while Michelle Wie and Natalie Gulbis are +2 as they close out the front. What's up with the Americans? Kristy McPherson is low American in the clubhouse with a disappointing 72.]

[Update 11 (7:48 am): Whoops, Stacy Lewis is American, too! But consider this: Italy's Diana Luna (-2 through 12) and Russia's Maria Verchenova (-1 through 9) are outplaying most of the contenders for the US Solheim Cup team. Ouch!]

[Update 12 (7:49 am): Speaking of ouch, a double just derailed Hjorth's hot start. But on the bright side, Ai-chan opened with a 32 and Momo-chan with a 33. And the JLPGA's Jeon did birdie 18 to post a 70.]

[Update 13 (7:53 am): Here's an even bigger ouch! Lu didn't actually eagle 18; she parred it. And with a bogey on the 16th, too, she finished with a 73, not the 68 LPGA.com originally gave her!]

[Update 14 (7:57 am): More ouches. Lorena Ochoa and Angela Stanford each have 0 birdies, 1 bogey, and 1 double to their names in their 1st 6 holes.]

[Update 15 (7:59 am): Even more. England's Melissa Reid, a likely Solheim Cupper who's not shy about her desire to leave the LET for the LPGA, doubled 18 for a 75. Yikes!]

[Update 16 (8:01 am): Still more. Juli Inkster started birdie-bogey-bogey-bogey-double-birdie and now has 2 pars in a row as she heads onto the 9th.]

[Update 17 (8:03 am): How about some good news for a change? Inky and Ai-chan are -5! Kim birdied the par-5 15th and Miyazato birdied the par-4 10th.]

[Update 18 (8:04 am): Meena Lee couldn't make it 2 birdies in a row to finish off her round, but she's the 3rd person to break 70 in the field.]

[Update 19 (8:05 am): How about that? Momo-chan also birdied 10 to get to -4!]

[Update 20 (8:43 am): Girls woke up. Time to feed them. And Ai-chan doubled 12. Oh no!]

[Update 21 (8:44 am): Whoa--and Se Ri tripled 13.]

[Update 22 (8:46 am): Choi birdied 15 and 16 to get to -4. She can tie Brewerton and Kim with a birdie on 18.]

[Update 23 (9:35 am): Choi made it 3 birdies in her last 4 holes to post the 3rd 67 of the day. Icher and Stupples joined Oh at 68. Seon Hwa Lee joined Meena Lee at 69. Ueda is -4 with 3 to play, Miyazato -3. Hjorth is back to -4, thanks to an ongoing 3-hole birdie train from the 9th on. Morgan Pressel opened with 16 straight pars and birdied out to join the big group at 70. I'm out till lunch!]

[Update 24 (11:54 am): Man, Ai-chan can't buy a break! The rains came in as she was finishing her round--don't know if they were a factor in her double/bogey stretch, but after a birdie on the 14th to fight back to -3, she couldn't make another the rest of the way. Momo-chan bogeyed 16 and birdied 17 to also finish at -3--guess it was another LPGA.com mistake that had her at -4 with 3 to go. Karrie Webb birdied 3 of 4 holes as she made the turn and finished with a birdie on the 17th to join them at T8 right now. With play suspended, Hjorth is -3 through 16 and Wendy Ward is -4 through 14.

Ward's making a big push to get into the conversation about Solheim Cup captain's picks. Creamer and Kerr, who will be leading the US team, joined Pressel at -2, so Ward has a great chance to be low American in the 1st round, although she'll have to stay ahead of Pat Hurst and Brittany Lincicome, who are both -2 with a few to play, to do it. Brittany Lang and Natalie Gulbis matched Lewis's 71, while Leta Lindley matched McPherson's 72. So it's not like all the Americans did terribly today. And actually, the damage wasn't complete for the Americans who got off to bad starts: Michelle Wie birdied her last 2 holes to salvage a 73, Juli Inkster birdied 16 and 17 for a 74, Stacy Prammanasudh bogeyed 18 for her 74, and Angela Stanford could still birdie 18 to join Inkster and Prammanasudh. When you consider that Ya Ni Tseng shot a 75, Jane Park's and Christina Kim's don't seem all that bad.

Ji-Yai Shi needed to play her last 10 holes in 2-under to get back to E, while Pettersen bogeyed 18 for hers and Pak ended up at E as well when she couldn't make any bounceback birdies after her triple. So there are plenty of big-name players not playing up to expectations today.]

[Update 25 (12:03 pm): Hound Dog has 2 awesome thinkpieces up today, one on whether majors are really tougher to win and another on the 2010 entry criteria for the Evian Masters and their implications for the LET. Plus his 1st-round overview is coming once the 15 players still on the course complete their rounds.]

[Update 26 (12:13 pm): I wonder what Jeff Skinner will make of this leaderboard. He wants the LPGA's biggest (in his eyes, American) stars to step up this week, but instead we have an LPGA Q-School dropout tied with the best player on tour without a win and perhaps the best Junior Mint on tour at the top of the leaderboard.]

[Update 27 (12:56 pm): Ward finished with a 68 (T4), Hjorth bogeyed 2 of her last 3 for her 70 (T13), Hurst also shot a 70, Ji-Hee Lee of the JLPGA birdied 3 of her last 5 to join them, Gulbis, Lincicome, and Jee Young Lee ended at 71 (T27), Eun-Hee Ji birdied 18 to salvage a 73 (T53), but Stanford couldn't do it so ended up with a 75...just like Ochoa! If you're wondering why Jimin Kang showed up off the alternate list and ended up with a 75, too, well the hot rumor going around Seoul Sisters.com is that Angela Park didn't just DNS from the Evian but may well have retired!]

[Update 28 (6:03 pm): Please see the comments from Pyoung and Jamie, which are practically posts in themselves. And do check out Jamie's extended comments over at Crosscourt Birdies, Hound Dog"s 1st-round overview, and Brian Heard's look at how the Evian purse compares to typical LPGA, LET, and KLPGA purses.]

As the LPGA World Turns

Seems like Lorena Ochoa's former caddie, Dave Brooker, is now looping for Suzann Pettersen. Wonder if he'll be playing in the annual soccer match at Evian? It was the broken foot he suffered at the Corona soccer match that was probably the beginning of the end for him with Lorena.

Evian Masters Pairings

The Evian Masters just announced their Thursday pairings and let's just say that they're pretty awesome. They honor their multiple winners Rachel Hetherington and Laura Davies by putting them with Karrie Webb at 11:31 am, followed by American winners Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, and Juli Inkster. They generally tried to make their threesomes include an American, Asian, and European player, but broke with that principle enough to make things interesting, as with the Ai Miyazato, Mika Miyazato, Momoko Ueda pairing at 11:00 am or the Candie Kung, Se Ri Pak, Ya Ni Tseng pairing at 10:27 am. If I were there instead of here, though, the only pairing that might tear me away from Ai-chan and Momo-chan would be In-Kyung Kim, Morgan Pressel, and Katherine Hull at 9:43 am, although for sheer entertainment value, it would be fun to be a spotter for the Pat Hurst, Jee Young Lee, Brittany Lincicome team of bombers. Now I gotta figure out the time zones to see if I can catch any action on Evian Masters TV.

[Update 1 (4:21 pm): Brian Heard profiles Amy Yang in advance of her 7:22 am starting time Thursday with Yuko Mitsuka and Anja Monke.]

[Update 2 (7/22/09, 4:56 am): Check it out! Stephanie Wei scored an interview with Natalie Gulbis in NYC before she left for Evian (Natalie, not Stephanie)!]

[Update 3 (5:44 am): Just realized that Heard's claim that Yang is the only Korean player on the LPGA to come via Australia is wrong. Haeji Kang is another one coming out of this pipeline.]

[Update 4 (11:11 am): Speaking of Australia, Hound Dog has a great profile of Lindsey Wright. She's paired with Hee Young Park and Meena Lee, heading off at 9:10 am tomorrow.]

[Update 5 (11:20 am): Golf Observer finally has their player history chart up. Looks like I was an idiot not to pick Lorena for a top 5, much less a top 15!]

Finally! The LPGA Has Good News to Announce

They've got a new tournament in Acapulco for 2010 and 2011! (Hat tip: BunkerShot.com.)

Yup, it's another Mexico event, with a purse of only $1.3M, but a) that's a hell of a lot more than $0 and b) it's in North America. So now the LPGA has 14 events locked up for next season, 15 existing ones in discussions, and an undisclosed number of possible new events. Looking forward to them keeping the mo' going during the European swing and in the run-up to the Solheim Cup!

[Update 1 (4:10 pm): Heh, beat Randall Mell by 18 minutes! He'll beat me in page views, though. So let's call it a...draw?]

[Update 2 (9:15 pm): John Strege beat me by an hour, darn it!]

Evian Masters Preview/Predictions

This is my third preview of the Evian Masters, so I'll just hit the high points this time around.

There are 2 great ways to find out more about this year's field: the LPGA tells you how the players got into the 90-player event, while the tournament site allows you to find out a little bit more about who they are. The latter also provides two ways of finding out about the history of the event, in both text and video. But you'll learn more from Hound Dog's Hot 20 and Golf Observer's historical stats. As for the course, it definitely favors the precision players, but everyone will have to exercise good judgment when it comes to strategy and club/shot selection and will need a lot of touch on the tiered, undulating greens. After a short, tight, front side, the increased length of holes 10-15 will force the players to shift gears quickly, while the final 3 (a driveable par 4, a short downhill par 3, and a short downhill par 5) give them interesting choices over how aggressively to finish out their rounds.

Who do I think will respond best to these challenges? Well, here's my attempt to make a comeback in the PakPicker this week:

1. Miyazato Ai
2. Pressel, Morgan
3. Kim In-Kyung
4. Shin Ji-Yai
5. Kim Song-Hee
6. Creamer, Paula
7. McPherson, Kristy
8. Kerr, Cristie
9. Gulbis, Natalie
10. Choi Na Yeon
11. Lee Seon Hwa
12. Miyazato Mika

Alts: Ji Eun-Hee; Tseng Ya Ni; Wie, Michelle

If you're looking for dark horses, the LET's Becky Brewerton went low to win last week and become the last player to get into the field, the JLPGA's Chie Arimura won last week and Mi-Jeong Jeon won the week before, and the KLPGA's Hee Kyung Seo was the hottest player in the world earlier this season. I'm particularly curious to see how Amy Yang, who rocked the LET last season as a low-status LPGA member, and Tania Elosegui, this year's Amy Yang, will do, not to mention find out whether I made a big mistake by snubbing Lorena Ochoa, Suzann Pettersen, and Angela Stanford in this week's picks.

[Update 1 (11:01 am): Hey, check out the new Rolex Rankings page. Much more interesting than before!]

[Update 2 (1:48 pm): Here's Golf Girl's tribute to the Evian!]

[Update 3 (4:04 pm): Nice to get a comment from Jamie and then find out he's done a preview post, too!]

[Update 4 (8:50 pm): Here's Hound Dog's preview.]

Evian Masters Juniors Cup Update

Somehow I had it set in my mind that Annie Park and Kyung Kim would be returning to the Evian Masters Juniors Cup this year, but it looks to me the U.S. team was replaced by a team from Mexico instead. Megumi Takahashi won the individual girls title with a sizzling 72-68, eclipsing Kyung Kim's winning 72-72 score from 2008. For more, check out their tres chic and cho kawaii web site!

Futures Tour Heartbreak

No, I'm not talking about my Futures Tour faves Mina Harigae, Tiffany Joh, and Hannah Yun making like Ryo Ishikawa at the Open this week in New England. Nor am I talking about my #6 preseason pick Song-Yi Choi making like Steve Marino on a Turnberry weekend by following up an opening 64 with a 73 and a 74 and dropping completely out of the top 20. No, I'm talking about '08 Curtis Cupper and Q-School disappointment Alison Walshe getting to -12 for the tournament after a flawless 33 on the front, only to follow it up with a triple and 5 bogeys on the back for a 42 that allowed Australian Kristie Smith to pass her with her 2nd 66 of the week, along with South Korean Aimee Cho and American Hannah Jun, and take even runner-up honors away from her. And I'm talking about Sofie Andersson finding herself suddenly in the hunt down the stretch and responding with 2 bogeys and a walkoff triple in her last 4 holes to plummet out of the top 10. Not quite Tom Watson level, but for someone at the start of her pro career, pretty tough to deal with nonetheless.

Amid all that heartbreak, a gleam of hope emerged for winner Dewi Claire Schreefel, who played steady golf after an opening bogey--15 pars and 2 birdies the rest of the way. Like Walshe, she disappointed at last season's LPGA Q-School, but wasn't setting the FT on fire, unlike Walshe, who had been a top 10er on their money list for most of the season. But now, Walshe and Schreefel are in the #6 and #7 spots. Sometimes slow and steady does win the race. We'll see how this one turns out.

[Update 1 (6:25 pm): Here are the official results. Note that U.S. Women's Open low amateur Jennifer Song helped sweeten the pot for #1-on-the-FT Jean Reynolds and others at T8, but that you really only make serious money with a win or runner-up on this tour.]

Tweet! Tweet! Cink Birdies Out to Rout Watson in Open Playoff

I wonder if this means that Cink will gain more new Twitter followers then he loses for ruining everyone's hopes and dreams?

[Update 1 (7/20/09, 10:44 pm): Bob Smiley has a preliminary answer.]

Stanley Ladies Sunday: Arimura Wins Fog-Shortened Event

For the 2nd time this season, Chie Arimura held off Yuko Saitoh to win on the JLPGA. Unlike at the Crystal Geyser Ladies, however, she did it in only 45 holes at the Stanley Ladies, thanks to heavy fogs that prevented the front side from being played. A bogey-free 34--tied for lowest score of the day--allowed Arimura to extend her lead on Saitoh to 4 shots. Many of the 2nd-round leaders stumbled badly in the fog and of the JLPGA's top 3 players, only Shinobu Moromizato managed to hold on for a top 10.

Here are the final results for the top 10 and notables.

1st/-12 Chie Arimura (67-67-34)
2nd/-8 Yuko Saitoh (72-65-35)
3rd/-6 Na-Ri Lee (72-68-34)
T4/-5 Nikki Campbell (72-69-34), Nozomi Sato (71-68-36)
T6/-4 Midori Yoneyama (70-72-34), So-Hee Kim (70-70-36)
T8/-3 Asako Fujimoto (71-72-34), Maiko Suzuki (71-72-34), Eun-A Lim (71-71-35), Mika Takushima (71-71-35), Da-Ye Na (70-72-35), Junko Omote (70-72-35), Rui Kitada (69-73-35), Shinobu Moromizato (74-67-36)

T16/-2 Rikako Morita (74-69-35), Hiromi Mogi (66-77-35), Maiko Wakabayashi (73-69-36), Ji-Woo Lee (68-70-40)
T25/-1 Mai Arai (77-68-34), Saiki Fujita (73-72-34), Akiko Fukushima (74-70-35), Miho Koga (71-71-37), Sakura Yokomine (73-67-39), Mi-Jeong Jeon (70-69-40)
T34/E Ah-Reum Hwang (72-72-36)
T38/+1 Kumiko Kaneda (70-74-37), Yukari Baba (72-70-39), Li-Ying Ye (69-72-40)
T47/+2 Tamie Durdin (72-73-37)
T53/+3 Mie Nakata (72-72-39)

This was the 1st time all season that Sakura Yokomine failed to place in the top 20 and the 2nd week in a row she missed the top 10 (also a 1st in '09). Her top-20 streak on the JLPGA ends at 30. But she still tops the money list, in part because so many players crowded into the top 8 today:

1. Sakura Yokomine ￥77.75M
2. Shinobu Moromizato ￥75.09M
3. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥63.98M
4. Yuko Mitsuka ￥58.92M
5. Chie Arimura ￥56.31M
6. Yuko Saitoh ￥38.40M
7. Ji-Hee Lee ￥37.18M
8. Miho Koga ￥30.54M
9. Erina Hara ￥28.18M
10. Ah-Reum Hwang ￥27.98M
11. Eun-A Lim ￥27.84M
12. Ayako Uehara ￥27.69M
13. Tamie Durdin ￥25.28M
14. Akiko Fukushima ￥23.22M
15. Rui Kitada ￥22.54M
16. Yuri Fudoh ￥21.38M
17. Midori Yoneyama ￥20.64M
18. Li-Ying Ye ￥20.06M
19. Yukari Baba ￥19.43M
20. Ji-Woo Lee ￥19.43M
21. Nikki Campbell ￥17.62M
22. Na-Ri Lee ￥17.13M
23. Saiki Fujita ￥16.84M
24. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥16.63M
25. Hiromi Mogi ￥15.42M
26. Rikako Morita ￥15.37M
27. Miki Saiki ￥14.52M
28. Bo-Bae Song ￥14.23M
29. Akane Iijima ￥13.29M
28. Mie Nakata ￥13.07M

Big moves up by Nikki Campbell and Na-Ri Lee; Ayako Uehara paid for missing the cut by falling out of the top 10. The JLPGA doesn't return to action until August 7 at the AXA Ladies, where Shinobu Moromizato will attempt to defend her title, become the 1st 4-time winner on tour in '09, and take the money-list lead for the 1st time this season. It'll be interesting to see if LPGA regulars Ji-Yai Shin, Ai Miyazato, Momoko Ueda, and Shiho Oyama will take advantage of their dual JLPGA membership (and whether Mika Miyazato will get sponsor exemptions) to stay sharp during the LPGA's down-time after the European swing--and if so, when they will return to action in the States. We won't know until the AXA Ladies field list is posted. So let's focus on whether Chie Arimura can carry her momentum from this win over to Evian.

Stanley Ladies Saturday: Arimura Takes Charge

Chie Arimura shot her 2nd-straight 6-birdie 67 at the Stanley Ladies today, vaulting into a 3-shot lead on Yuko Saitoh, whose 65 is the low round of the tournament thus far. A late bogey dropped Mi-Jeong Jeon 5 off the pace, and even 67s by Sakura Yokomine and Shinobu Moromizato only kept them 6 and 7 back, respectively. Here's how everyone chasing Arimura stands after the 2nd round:

1st/-10 Chie Arimura (67-67)
2nd/-7 Yuko Saitoh (72-65)
3rd/-6 Ji-Woo Lee (68-70)
T4/-5 Nozomi Sato (71-68), Mi-Jeong Jeon (70-69)
T6/-4 Sakura Yokomine (73-67), Na-Ri Lee (72-68)
T10/-3 Shinobu Moromizato (74-67), Ikue Asama (74-67), Nikki Campbell (72-69), Kaori Aoyama (72-69), Li-Ying Ye (69-72), Natsu Nagai (67-74)

T16/-2 Maiko Wakabayashi (73-69), Yukari Baba (72-70), Miho Koga (71-71), Eun-A Lim (71-71), Midori Yoneyama (70-72), Da-Ye Na (70-72), Rui Kitada (69-73)
T26/-1 Rikako Morita (74-69), Asako Fujimoto (71-72), Hiromi Mogi (66-77)
T32/E Akiko Fukushima (74-70), Ah-Reum Hwang (72-72), Mie Nakata (72-72), Kumiko Kaneda (70-74)
T44/+1 Mai Arai (77-68), Saiki Fujita (73-72), Tamie Durdin (72-73)

Huge disappointment for Erina Hara, who had just moved into the top 10 on the money list last week; she closed with a birdie-less 38 to miss the cut by a shot. Back-side back-to-back doubles did Ayako Uehara in, despite her 2 birdies over her last 6 holes. Sad to see the hard times continuing for Hyun-Ju Shin, Miki Saiki, and Esther Lee.

T55/+2 Akane Iijima (74-72), Erina Hara (73-73), Yuki Ichinose (72-74)
T62/+3 Hyun-Ju Shin (76-71)
T69/+4 Ayako Uehara (75-73)
T74/+5 Yun-Jye Wei (75-74), Mayu Hattori (73-76)
T91/+8 Sakurako Mori (76-76)
T96/+9 Miki Saiki (73-80)
T101/+13 Riko Higashio (82-75), Esther Lee (82-75)
107th/+18 Woo-Soon Ko (83-79)
WD Julie Lu (78-WD)

A win tomorrow would vault Arimura well ahead of an idle Ji-Hee Lee and close to a similarly idle Yuko Mitsuka, creating a big separation between the top 5 on the JLPGA and the rest of the field. On the other hand, Saitoh would move into the top 6 at least if she were to overtake Arimura tomorrow. There's a fog delay right now, so if the weather conditions remain tough, there's still a chance for those 5 to 7 shots back to steal away with a W.

Stanley Ladies Friday: The Field Strikes Back

With Sakura Yokomine, Shinobu Moromizato, and Mi-Jeong Jeon triopolizing the winner's circle on the JLPGA the last month and a half, it's no surprise I began talking about the possibility of a Big 3 distancing themselves from the rest of the tour. Only problem with that theory is that Yuko Mitsuka barely trails Jeon on the money list, Ji-Hee Lee is playing really well, you can never count out veteran stars like Yuri Fudoh and Akiko Fukushima, and young guns like Miho Koga, Erina Hara, and Chie Arimura have been playing pretty well lately. And after the 1st round of the Stanley Ladies, the putative Big 3 have a lot of ground to make up on Hiromi Mogi, who shot a 7-birdie 66, and Chie Arimura, who shot a 6-birdie 67. How much? Check out the top 10 and notables:

1st/-6 Hiromi Mogi (66)
T2/-5 Chie Arimura, Natsu Nagai (67)
4th/-4 Ji-Woo Lee (68)
T5/-3 Rui Kitada, Li-Ying Ye, Kuniko Maeda (69)
T8/-2 Mi-Jeong Jeon, Midori Yoneyama, Kumiko Kaneda, Da-Ye Na, So-Hee Kim, Junko Omote, Yui Kawahara, Yuka Shiroto (70)

Jeon came back from an early double to play bogey-free golf the rest of the way. Despite making 6 bogeys through her 1st 14 holes, Sakura Yokomine had fought back to -1 with her birdie on the par-4 15th. But a double on the par-4 17th sunk her to T38. And Shinobu Moromizato sandwiched 4 bogeys between a pair of birdies in the middle 13 holes of her round today.

T17/-1 Miho Koga, Eun-A Lim, Asako Fujimoto (71)
T25/E Ah-Reum Hwang, Tamie Durdin, Nikki Campbell, Yukari Baba, Mie Nakata, Yuko Saitoh, Yuki Ichinose (72)
T38/+1 Sakura Yokomine, Erina Hara, Saiki Fujita, Miki Saiki, Maiko Wakabayashi, Mayu Hattori (73)
T51/+2 Shinobu Moromizato, Akiko Fukushima, Akane Iijima, Rikako Morita (74)
T71/+3 Ayako Uehara, Yun-Jye Wei (75)
T83/+4 Hyun-Ju Shin, Sakurako Mori (76)
T88/+5 Mai Arai (77)
T105/+10 Riko Higashio, Esther Lee (82)
107th/+11 Woo-Soon Ko (83)

This weekend on the JLPGA should be particularly interesting, as Chie Arimura and Erina Hara could build some serious momentum for her premiere at the Evian Masters next week. Yuko Mitsuka must have headed over early, as she's not in the Stanley field this week.

News Flash: Ryo Ishikawa Misses the Cut at the Open Championship

Darn it, Ryo Ishikawa went 68-78 to miss the cut at the Open Championship. Heard one of his playing partners did, too. Will do some research on that and get back to y'all when I find out why Lee Westwood screwed up so bad.

[Update 1 (3:16 pm): Whaaa?!]

[Update 2 (3:20 pm): Seriously, Ryo was in good company, in a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde kinda way. Ben Curtis went 65-80, Mike Weir 67-78, Anders Hansen and D.J. Trahan 68-77, John Senden 66-80, and a couple of guys you never heard of did the same or worse. Ryo shot a 33 on the back the 1st day and a 42 on the same side the 2nd day, so his swing came in 9 holes.]

Recommended Reading: MoneyGolf

I ran into one friend from college golf up in Buffalo last week after connecting with another via the web. The latter helped his brother research this Slate.com article on the significance of golf stats. It focuses on the PGA. Wonder what it would take to extend it to women's golf?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Best Blogs on Women's Golf

In the off-season, I started a series on the best blogs on women's golf to try to draw some attention to the bloggers whose writing and perspectives I value the most. Of course, Hound Dog LPGA was at the top of my list, followed by Waggle Room and Seoul Sisters (a spin-off from the amazingly informative Seoul Sisters.com site). At a time when many fans are recycling Yellow Peril/Asian invasion discourses to put down the LPGA, finding it difficult to connect with players whose languages and cultures are different from their own, or hungering for more information about a wider range of players than the national media typically focuses on, I thought it was time to say a bit more about some of the bloggers I feature in the Mostly Harmless Golfarama sidebar.

Let's start with 2 veteran LPGA bloggers from whom I've learned a great deal.

Bill Jempty started golf blogging as the Florida Masochist and is now the editor at OTB Sports. He writes on Florida sports in general, but his passion is the LPGA. He's one of the 1st LPGA bloggers who really stood out to me back in 2007. He was one of the earliest and most trenchant critics of now-ex-LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens, is a tireless critic of gaffes by golf journalists, and one of the first golf bloggers to seek and get media credentials to cover a tournament. You may not always agree with Bill, but you're going to have to think hard about why you don't. If you like fiery, provocative, combative, but always well-informed golf blogging, then he's your guy.

Brent Kelley is About.com's golf guide, so it's no surprise that terms like thoughtful, judicious, clear, and comprehensive spring to mind to characterize his writing on golf in general and the LPGA in particular. Browse through his blog archives and you'll see what I mean. It's not that he's unwilling to take a stand, but you can be confident that he'll have explored an issue from every angle before offering his perspective. Take, for example, the Michelle Wie follies of 2008. He had the best take on her DQ at the State Farm and her absence from the Women's British Open of anyone out there. Yup, when Brent Kelley speaks, people listen. At least people with any sense do.

Now let's turn to a pair of newer writers who are finding their feet and their voices and deserve even larger audiences.

Stephanie Wei started Wei Under Par back in March and since then has distinguished herself as a blogger/vlogger with great access to players like Christina Kim, Jeehae Lee, Anna Grzebien, Paige Mackenzie, and Ryan Moore (as well as caddies) and great insight into political, economic, and cultural issues facing the LPGA. What's more, she writes with heart, humor, and style.

Brian Heard at Women's Golf Center is doing a fantastic job profiling a wide range of Korean, Taiwanese, and Japanese players on the LPGA and identifying the latest trends and tough issues on tour.

So there you have it, 7 bloggers to check in on regularly. But also worth checking out are Golf Girl, Golf Babes, and Cross-Court Birdies.

Among the player-bloggers out there, I'm enjoying Tiffany Joh, Momoko Ueda, and Louise Friberg the most. (Maybe if I could read Japanese I'd add Ai Miyazato, Shiho Oyama, and Miho Koga.) You can see which players, journalists, bloggers, and tournaments I'm following on Twitter if you're curious about how micro-blogging-meets-social-networking works.

The point is, there's actually plenty of good information and great stories out there in the golfoblogosphere. If you combine that with the kind of local coverage of LPGA events that Golf Observer follows and the international scope of Asian Golf Daily, you'll have gone from better-informed fan to women's golf expert-in-the-making!

[Update 1 (7/17/09, 3:02 pm): Please help Hound Dog celebrate his 3-year blogiversary!]

"Nice Bah-dee!": Ai-chan vs. Ryo-kun on YouTube

Ryan Ballengee has the bad news on the U.S. Women's Open ratings (shorter version: Cristie Kerr is killing the tour ;) ). It's worth remembering, though, that the LPGA gets a significant amount of change from its contracts with Korean and Japanese TV. I'll bet the ratings there were pretty good. In lieu of the information needed to settle that bet, check out part of the coverage for yourself. You don't need to understand Japanese to appreciate the 10 minutes of U.S. Women's Open highlights from Ai Miyazato's, Momoko Ueda's, and Mika Miyazato's final rounds. (The younger Miyazato was rocking the orange ball, while Ai-chan was making everything she was looking at and Momo-chan had the yips on the back.)



The 1st-round highlights remind me that Ai-chan was +4 through her 1st 4 holes of the Open, so played the last 68 in E. That's how close she is to winning on the LPGA!



But Ai-chan is so 2004 in Japan. Everyone is nuts over the latest teen sensation, Ryo Ishikawa. Especially mothers of teen-age boys:



It's Open week, and Ryo is paired with Tiger and Lee Westwood (in case you hadn't heard), which means it's time for an hour-long bio of the 17-year-old. Here's part 1 (lots of home videos from when he was younger):



[Update 1 (12:28 pm): How about that?! Ryo opened with a 68 at the Open Championship! He tied playing partner Lee Westwood and beat Tiger by 3 shots. It's just 1 round, but way to go, Ryo!]

The Best of the LPGA: June-Plus 2009 Edition

A lot has changed since April's Best of the LPGA ranking: a new commissioner, a new strategy (at least on the domestic front), and a new Big 6 on the LPGA. Now that Hound Dog's new Top 70 has just come out, it's time to mix in results from this week's Rolex Rankings, Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, and LPGA Official Money List, stir, bake, cool, and voila! I present Mostly Harmless's latest Best of the LPGA ranking. It goes well with yesterday's look at 6 generations' worth of top LPGA careers, don't you think?

This is the 1st time since I began doing these rankings that I can confidently state that the world #1's chase pack has her in sight and in their sights. Here's the LPGA's Big 6 I was referring to above.

1. Lorena Ochoa: #6 money ($768.3K), #1 RR (12.61), #1 GSPI (68.98), #1 HD. Ochoa is still the world #1 by a sizable margin, but so far this season Ji-Yai Shin beat her to a million dollars, Cristie Kerr has pulled slightly ahead of her in scoring average, and Michelle Wie is making more birdies per round than she has been. 9 players are going under par with more regularity. 5 players have more rounds in the 60s. She's no longer one of the very best on tour off the tee. And her putting is nowhere near what it was in 2006 and 2007. So not only is her stranglehold on the Player of the Year award loosening, but if any of the Big 6 actually were to get hot in the 2nd half of the season and she continued to struggle, we could well have a new #1 before it's over, as well.
2. Ji-Yai Shin: #1 money ($1.08M), #3 RR (8.27), #4 GSPI (69.44), #2 HD. Shin is the winningest player on the LPGA and in the world of women's golf over the past calendar year. In her short time competing on tour, she's racked up as many wins and majors as Suzann Pettersen. And she's just getting started. I wonder if she'll take a rest after the Women's British Open, or head over to the JLPGA, where she's a member by virtue of her 2 wins on that tour last season? Last season she played in almost 40 events around the world!
3. Cristie Kerr: #2 money ($1.04M), #4 RR (7.76), #2 GSPI (69.22), #3 HD. Kerr is #1 in the Player of the Year race, 9 points up on Shin, and less than $40K behind her on the money list. After the active Hall of Famers (Inkster, Webb, Pak, Ochoa), she has the most career wins on tour. And while she has let 2 golden opportunities to win a major slip through her fingers already this season, she's been the most consistently excellent of anyone on tour over the past calendar year. In fact, you have to go back to 2003 to find a year when she failed to win a million dollars or more on tour. She's already done it this season, her 6th in a row, a feat only Ochoa can match (Paula Creamer and Jeong Jang are going for their 5th in a row).
4. Ya Ni Tseng: #4 money ($875.5K), #2 RR (9.20), #9 GSPI (69.88), #4 HD. Last week's missed cut at the U.S. Women's Open was only the 2nd of Tseng's career on tour. She's averaging 3 top 20s out of every 4 starts and has put herself in contention close to a dozen times. So it's no wonder she finally broke through for her 2nd career victory earlier this season. She's the closest to Ochoa in the Rolex Rankings, the closest to Kerr in total birdies, and the longest driver on tour. Yet she's stuck at #4 on this list for the 2nd time in a row. What'll move her up? More wins!
5. Paula Creamer: #8 money ($667.6K), #5 RR (7.57), #3 GSPI (69.26), #5 HD. Creamer hasn't gotten a win yet this season, but she's had the most physical problems to deal with among the Big 6, from her early-season intestinal difficulties to her recent thumb injury. The layoff couldn't have come at a better time for her, as she struggled to hit fairways and greens until the final round of the Open, losing her huge lead in GIR this season in the process (from that event alone, she dropped from hitting close to 80% of her greens to just over 75%--not good). Still, I'm looking for her to get hot in the 2nd half of the season.
6. Suzann Pettersen: #7 money ($732.9K), #6 RR (6.86), #5 GSPI (69.53), #7 HD. Yes, Pettersen hasn't won since that burst at the end of 2007, but in the intervening years she's convinced me that she's really made a quantum leap. Her scoring average is down and birdie rate up from last season and she's well on pace to get her 3rd straight million-dollar year. She seems fully recovered from the virus that forced her out of the LPGA Championship and poised for a great European swing.

There are 2 players itching to turn the Big 6 into a Big 8, but I'm still not convinced that they're not just riding hot streaks. Have they really made the quantum leap to contend week in and week out for wins and top 10s? Are they really capable of consistently grinding out top 20s without their A game?

7. Angela Stanford: #9 money ($631.0K), #7 RR (6.35), #7 GSPI (69.69), #6 HD. Stanford has already won once this season and is a threat to do it again every time she tees it up. Yes, she missed the cut at the Open, but she's dealing with a lot right now, what with her mom being diagnosed with breast cancer and all. She's consistently been one of the best off the tee on tour, but has improved all aspcts of her game in the past year or so, so it's no surprise that she leads the tour in percentage of rounds under par, is behind only Kerr in top 10 rate, and is a legitimate contender for the Vare Trophy (for lowest scoring average) this season.
8. In-Kyung Kim: #3 money ($957.7K), #8 RR (6.04), #8 GSPI (69.78), #8 HD. That quantum leap that I predicted for Kim before the start of the season may just have arrived. She's averaging as many birdies per round as Ochoa, is right behind Creamer in greens in regulation, and ranks among the game's elite in just about every other performance measure. She's averaging just over 250 yards off the tee, so it's not like she's bunting it around, either. Kim was the player I was rooting for to win the Open (what with Moira Dunn not entered, Seon Hwa Lee withdrawing, and Ai Miyazato out of contention), but how well she plays in the European swing will determine whether she succeeds Angela Park as the best player in her rookie class or whether Open champion Eun-Hee Ji will regain the top spot.

Stanford and Kim have put a little bit of distance between themselves and the large group with a top 10 in at most 2 of the 4 systems and/or top 20s in at least 3 of the 4.

9. Eun-Hee Ji: #5 money ($832.9K), #11 RR (4.88), #15 GSPI (70.43), #9 HD. Speaking of Ji, she's in a great position to avoid the Open curse that struck fellow Junior Mint Inbee Park (which she's only just recently started recovering from). She's a much more accurate driver than Park ever has been and a much more consistent player overall. She's won in different ways, too--going low at the Wegmans and chasing Pettersen down, while grinding it out at Saucon Valley and chasing Kerr down. There's no reason she can't keep winning. If she makes the cut at Evian, she'll cross the $2M barrier in career winnings in only her 47th start on tour. That puts her in the company of players like Paula Creamer, Seon Hwa Lee, and Ya Ni Tseng (Na Yeon Choi will have to come on strong to join them). So enough of the comparisons to Birdie Kim and Hilary Lunke already, ok?
10. Song-Hee Kim: #11 money ($576.4K), #12 RR (4.60), #12 GSPI (70.30), #10 HD. Among those on tour without a win as an LPGA member, nobody's playing better lately than Kim. This Junior Mint has been learning how to put herself in contention in the big leagues after dominating the Futures Tour. She's among the very best putters out there and is averaging close to 260 yards off the tee, so it's no surprise she's threatening to finish the season averaging more than 4 birdies per round.
11. Na Yeon Choi: #14 money ($474.5K), #15 RR (3.95), #10 GSPI (70.15), #11 HD. With a 42-event made-cut streak which dates back to the beginning of her rookie season last year, this Super Soph is at the top of my list of players due to break through for her 1st LPGA member win. I saw her play a few holes at the Wegmans and came away impressed. She's definitely among the best ball-strikers on tour. What's held her back last year and this one is her putting--that 1.83 PPGIR rate needs to go down and fast if she wants to move up this list. Still, she's on pace for her 2nd-straight million dollar season.
12. Michelle Wie: #17 money ($435.2K), #28 RR (3.09), #6 GSPI (69.60), #14 HD. I'm neither a Wie fanatic nor a Wie-basher, so believe me when I tell you that her comeback is for real. I had predicted that Shin, Stacy Lewis, and Shiho Oyama would have better rookie seasons, but Wie has already exceeded my expectations by a mile. Her ability to bounce back from a disappointing LPGA Championship and disastrous final 9 in Open qualifying with a top 10 at the Wegmans and a top 3 at the Farr, on courses that I didn't think suited her game, was the tipping point for me. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I really think she's ready to win on the LPGA. Let's see how she handles the pressure of trying to qualify for the Solheim Cup (or at least play well enough at Evian and the WBO to justify a captain's pick).
13. Ai Miyazato: #18 money ($433.9K), #27 RR (3.16), #17 GSPI (70.55), #13 HD. OK, Ai-chan is my favorite player, but I pretty much nailed my preseason prediction that she'd return to her rookie form in this, her 4th season as an LPGA member. She is back to driving the ball and making birdies like the Ai-chan of old, even though she hasn't had a fantastic year on the greens. If she can get her putter going and put together 4 good rounds in a row, she may well be the 1st among Kim, Choi, and Wie to get that Rolex for being a 1st-time winner on tour.
14. Karrie Webb: #19 money ($422.5K), #9 RR (5.00), #13 GSPI (70.34), #12 HD. She's cooled off from a hot start and will have to play better--and soon--to remain the Head Aussie in Charge on the LPGA. That still doesn't mean she can't win again any time she tees it up.
15. Lindsey Wright: #10 money ($615.7K), #13 RR (4.20), #35 GSPI (71.26), #15 HD. She's fully recovered from the injuries that sabotaged the 2nd half of last season and ready to contend with regularity again--and maybe even get that 1st win.
16. Kristy McPherson: #13 money ($533.0K), #18 RR (3.71), #30 GSPI (71.10), #19 HD. I was sad to see McPherson fade on Open weekend, but I'm convinced she's made a quantum leap. I'm certain she has more upside than Ji Young Oh, a fellow Junior Mint who already has 2 LPGA wins, so don't be surprised to see her in the winner's circle soon.
17. Anna Nordqvist: #20 money ($387.4K), #20 RR (3.50), #11 GSPI (70.29), #20 HD. Yes, she won the LPGA Championship and hasn't missed a cut in her 8 starts as an LPGA member, and she did it all while having to piece together a schedule and decide how often to play on the LET (in whose Q-School she was the medalist in the off-season). But that win is her only LPGA top 10. The problem has been her iron play; she hits a lot of fairways (over 76% of 'em) but not a lot of greens (only 66%). For a precision player like her, that just doesn't cut it on the LPGA. Right now she's benefitting from that 1 great week in winnings and rankings, but she'll need to improve a lot just to remain this high in my next ranking.
18. Helen Alfredsson: #38 money ($215.5K), #10 RR (4.92), #26 GSPI (70.99), #25 HD. She's hanging on to her status in this grouping thanks to the Rolex Ranking's 104-week span; although she's been able to put together the occasional brilliant round, she hasn't been able to sustain that level of play for very long this season. Still, she's healthy and having a blast, so there's no reason she can't get hot and stay hot long enough to move up this ranking again.

Because HD and the GSPI did it, I'm including Annika Sorenstam in my system until she drops out of it. Last time, she was still in the lead chase pack. Now, she's part of the huge group with at most 2 top 20s and/or at least 3 top 30s:

19. Seon Hwa Lee: #26 money ($280.6K), #16 RR (3.92), #25 GSPI (70.84), #16 HD. Lee is one of my favorite players, so I was particularly concerned to find out that her WD from the Open was due to a back injury. (Why? Just ask Natalie Gulbis or Jane Park!) Just as it seemed her game was rounding into form (she played great at the Farr), too. Like Nordqvist, it's been her iron play that's been the culprit. When you're finding more than 4 out of every 5 fairways, you should be hitting more than 2 of every 3 greens. She'll need to recover from her injury and address that problem quickly if she wants to get her 3rd-straight million-dollar season and return to the ranks of the game's elite. There's no time like the Evian to make a statement!
20. Katherine Hull: #22 money ($348.7K), #17 RR (3.82), #16 GSPI (70.55), #22 HD. One of the hottest players in the world at the end of last season and start of this one has cooled off; there's no single culprit that stands out, though I suspect that it starts from her driving not being as on and extends to every facet of her game.
21. Ji Young Oh: #16 money ($445.9K), #24 RR (3.26), #37 GSPI (71.36), #18 HD. Oh's been in serious contention twice and won both times, so she knows how to close the deal. But I can't help but feel she's too inconsistent to stay this high on the list next time around.
22. Candie Kung: #15 money ($459.6K), #14 RR (4.15), #45 GSPI (71.78), #32 HD. If Kung had won the Open, she would have matched Pettersen and Shin in wins and majors and come close to matching Stanford in career winings. As it is, she still has a great chance to to beat Pettersen, Stanford, Sophie Gustafson, Wendy Ward, Maria Hjorth, and Carin Koch to the $5M mark in career winnings. Wonder when she'll be recognized as one of the top Asian American golfers on tour (she's a naturalized U.S. citizen)?
23. Brittany Lincicome: #12 money ($534.8K), #19 RR (3.57), #121 GSPI (73.02), #26 HD. I wsn't convinced by her stirring victory at the Kraft Nabisco Championship that she was out of her slump, but her tenacity at the Open impressed me. She's still wildly inconsistent, but with 3 wins and a major to her name, she's passed Meena Lee to be the 2nd-best player in her rookie class (to Paula Creamer, who doesn't yet have a major) and is closing on Stacy Prammanasudh for the #5 spot in her generation. She bombs it out there like Pettersen, Tseng, Jee Young Lee, Vicky Hurst, and Wie, but is even less accurate than they are. If she ever seriously improved on her 55% fairways rate, she'd start moving up these rankings again--and fast.
24. Brittany Lang: #24 money ($307.6K), #31 RR (2.81), #21 GSPI (70.75), #17 HD. Her game has fallen off a bit in the summer, but I'm still high on her to be the 1st golfer to break the Duke curse. She has a Stanford/Kerr-quality long game, so it's just a matter of working on her touch.
25. Jee Young Lee: #29 money ($263.6K), #26 RR (3.16), #24 GSPI (70.82), #21 HD. Her game has fallen off a lot since earlier in the season and I'm worried at her WD from the Open, not to mention shocked that she didn't qualify for Evian (unless, that is, she's 1 of 10 players who don't appear on their profiles page).
26. Sun Young Yoo: #28 money ($270.0K), #39 RR (2.52), #28 GSPI (71.03), #23 HD. She's been hitting it about 260 off the tee and finding the fairway about 75% of the time this season, so with ball-striking stats comparable to Kristy McPherson, Song-Hee Kim, and Ai Miyazato, it's no surprise she's having as good a season as the Senior Standout fightin' Lees and hanging out in the MH top 25 for the past 2 rankings.
27. Hee-Won Han: #35 money ($238.5K), #22 RR (3.30), #29 GSPI (71.05), #27 HD. Han's 2009's been kind of blah, but she's been hanging in there and hanging around, despite not even hitting 66% of her greens in regulation. At 1.75 putts per GIR, she would benefit a lot from giving herself more birdie chances. 3.28 birdies per round is OK, but far below her peaks in 2004 and 2006, when she was threatening to average 3.70. I haven't been able to determine if her toddler son is travelling with her or not, but if so, she may not have time to hone her iron game.
28. Morgan Pressel: #23 money ($318.6K), #25 RR (3.26), #39 GSPI (71.50), #24 HD. As I predicted last ranking, Pressel bottomed out at #40 and is back on the upswing. If she hadn't fallen apart in the rain on the back at the Wegmans and not fallen victim to a great playoff putt by Eunjung Yi at the Farr, she would have moved up even faster. She's got everything going again and seems to have emerged from her swing transition hitting the ball farther withut having sacrificed much if any accuracy. If she continues to putt as well as she has been lately, watch out for her to do more than contend.
29. Natalie Gulbis: #37 money ($225.8K), #41 RR (2.47), #18 GSPI (70.60), #28 HD. Gulbis is one of the best putters on tour and she's healthy again, so it's no surprise she's jumped from #50 last ranking. But she'll need to start hitting more than 2 out of every 3 greens to keep moving up this list as quickly as she has been. Her 3.62 birdies per round rate could skyrocket if she were giving herself a couple of more birdie chances per round.
30. Annika Sorenstam: n.r. money (she's at least on extended maternity leave and most likely retired from the LPGA), n.r. RR (she was removed from their rankings at her request), #19 GSPI (70.70), #39 HD. She'll drop out of HD's next ranking, when he takes only this season's results into account, so this is the last time she'll be showing up in the Best of the LPGA ranking here, too--barring a decision to come back as a player and not just as a consultant, that is, the possibility of which is looking ever more remote to me.

A large number of players have at most 2 top 30s and/or at least 3 top 40s:

31. Hee Young Park: #21 money ($361.3K), #40 RR (2.50), #32 GSPI (71.19), #30 HD. I've always seen her as a player who could blow up--in either a good way or a bad way--but her steadiness at the Open impressed me. Hopefully this will be the start of better things to come for this Super Soph.
32. Wendy Ward: #31 money ($252.8K), #55 RR (1.91), #27 GSPI (71.02), #29 HD. This vet is on fire (3.67 birdies per round) and shows no signs of letting up.
33. Nicole Castrale: #24 money ($241.9K), #38 RR (2.52), #44 GSPI (71.78), #31 HD. Castrale is playing really good golf heading into the Solheim Cup, so I expect to see her GIR and birdie rates continuing to improve in the 2nd half of the season. No need for a captain's pick this time around.
34. Juli Inkster: #45 money ($160.1K), #37 RR (2.55), #22 GSPI (70.77), #33 HD. Unfortunately, Inkster will most likely need one. Fortunately, I think she'll get it. As for what Beth Daniel thinks.... Well, she could go with another vet like Ward, but my guess is that Wie will continue to outplay her on the European swing and will either pass Gulbis or earn the 2nd pick. Tough luck for Ward either way--I can't see Daniel not picking Gulbis if she can't hold on to that last spot. And she certainly won't pass up a Hall of Famer like Inkster.
35. Se Ri Pak: #25 money ($291.3K), #34 RR (2.75), #61 GSPI (71.94), #34 HD. Despite missing the cut at the Open, this Hall of Famer is making a big move, all the way from #51 last ranking. She's still not putting up HOF numbers, but if she ever gets her game synchronized, career win #25 isn't far away.
36. Angela Park: #33 money ($246.3K), #30 RR (2.91), #43 GSPI (71.76), #48 HD. She's fallen off a cliff lately. Is she playing hurt? Hopefully she'll be in better shape for Evian.
37. Momoko Ueda: #48 money ($137.9K), #36 RR (2.62), #31 GSPI (71.13), #36 HD. Ueda has been struggling lately but continues working hard on her game--I saw her on the range Sunday at the Wegmans, despite missing the cut there--so it was a big deal that she made the cut at the Open. Let's see if she can build some more confidence on the European swing and head into the JLPGA in August with some momentum. With the possibility of Shin, both Miyazatos, Oyama, and Ueda joining the JLPGA's finest for an extended stretch, the run-up to the Konica Minolta Cup will be intense. I wonder if any of them will book a flight to Japan from Calgary (after the Canadian Women's Open) to compete in it.
38. Pat Hurst: #27 money ($280.6K), #51 RR (2.08), #83 GSPI (72.46), #38 HD. Hasn't done much since her surprise win, but on track to pass Lorie Kane by the end of the season and become the #3 player in her generation, behind Sorenstam and Webb. Unfortunately, I don't think she's played well enough lately to beat out Inkster, Wie/Gulbis, or Ward for the last captain's pick and her 6th Solheim Cup, but who knows? She has a pretty darn good match-play record.
39. Eunjung Yi: #30 money ($258.9K), #43 RR (2.38), #99 GSPI (72.69), #49 HD. Talk about surprise wins--not only did she go low at the Farr, but she also bounced back from her only bad stretch of golf that week to beat Pressel in a playoff. That win should move her into the top 7 among the Super Sophs when I rank them in August.
40. Jeong Jang: #150 money (just back from wrist surgery with $3.1K), #29 RR (3.00), #36 GSPI (71.34), #69 HD. Jang will need a miracle to get her 5th-straight million-dollar season on the LPGA, but making the cut on the European swing is a more realistic goal after her wrist surgery.

A large number of players have at most 2 top 40s and/or at least 3 top 50s:

41. Mika Miyazato: #39 money ($212.0K), #63 RR (1.66), #38 GSPI (71.45), #42 HD. This Miyazato's having the 4th-best season in a packed rookie class, so I'm glad to see Evian inviting her to compete with the world's best next week.
42. Stacy Lewis: #40 money ($183.4K), #52 RR (2.05), #59 GSPI (71.88), #37 HD. Off to a slow start by the high standards she set at LPGA Q-School last year, Lewis has still shown plenty of promise. Wonder what she'll do after the WBO? Unless she wins it, there's no way she'll be playing in the Solheim Cup this year.
43. Meaghan Francella: #36 money ($232.2K), #73 RR (1.39), #49 GSPI (71.80), #40 HD. It's great to see this Senior Standout (and NYer!) making such a great comeback.
44. Amy Yang: #46 money ($147.1K), #59 RR (1.74), #52 GSPI (71.83), #35 HD. I'm still waiting for Yang to make that In-Kyung Kim-like quantum leap this season. No time like the European swing for this 3-time LET winner.
45. Inbee Park: #55 money ($119.9K), #33 RR (2.76), #96 GSPI (72.62), #46 HD. Back from the brink and playing good golf, as she seems to do every summer, expect to see Park climbing these rankings next time around.
46. Teresa Lu: #42 money ($174.6K), #58 RR (1.81), #50 GSPI (71.83), #44 HD. This Senior Standout has stalled a bit of late. Having failed to qualify for the Evian Masters (unless she's just not listed in the field yet), she'll have to wait a bit for her next chance to cross the $1M mark in career winnings.
47. Michelle Redman: #57 money ($105.5K), #67 RR (1.52), #40 GSPI (71.61), #57 HD. Another veteran who just keeps playing solid golf.
48. Kyeong Bae: #32 money ($248.2K), #77 RR (1.36), #123 GSPI (73.05), #45 HD. Another Senior Standout making a huge comeback, Bae just became the 17th Young Gun to join the Million Dollar Club.
49. Maria Hjorth: #111 money (just back from maternity leave with $30.7K), #32 RR (2.77), #58 GSPI (71.88), #55 HD. Like Jang, it's going to take Hjorth a little while to get up to LPGA speed again.

There's a huge group with at most 2 top 50s and/or at least 3 top 60s:

50. Jimin Kang: #44 money ($163.3K), #75 RR (1.37), #72 GSPI (72.19), #47 HD.
51. Vicky Hurst: #50 money ($134.1K), #92 RR (1.00), #46 GSPI (71.79), #52 HD.
52. Christina Kim: #51 money ($131.7K), #50 RR (2.09), #57 GSPI (71.86), #50 HD.
53. Jane Park: #52 money ($129.8K), #53 RR (1.99), #60 GSPI (71.90), #43 HD.
54. Shanshan Feng: #58 money ($105.5K), #60 RR (1.74), #53 GSPI (71.84), #65 HD.
55. Sandra Gal: #43 money ($167.0K), #70 RR (1.47), #64 GSPI (72.07), #51 HD.
56. Karen Stupples: #61 money (despite having to have an emergency appendectomy, she has $94.3K), #45 RR (2.33), #66 GSPI (72.08), #61 HD.
57. Mi Hyun Kim: #67 money ($88.6K), #56 RR (1.86), #73 GSPI (72.25), #41 HD.
58. Sophie Gustafson: #65 money ($89.3K), #49 RR (2.09), #79 GSPI (72.38), #60 HD.
59. Soo-Yun Kang: #41 money ($177.3K), #76 RR (1.37), #81 GSPI (72.41), #56 HD.
60. Anna Grzebien: #47 money ($137.9K), #104 RR (.91), #51 GSPI (71.83), #62 HD.
61. Stacy Prammanasudh: #49 money ($136.9K), #62 RR (1.66), #100 GSPI (72.72), #67 HD.
62. Laura Diaz: #90 money ($58.5K), #46 RR (2.30), #97 GSPI (72.63), n.r. HD.

And here are the best of the rest:

63. Meena Lee: #56 money ($110.0K), #66 RR (1.53), #67 GSPI (72.16), #54 HD.
64. Haeji Kang: #54 money ($123.7K), #130 RR (.71), #87 GSPI (72.51), #58 HD.
65. Young Kim: #53 money ($125.4K), #81 RR (1.29), #63 GSPI (72.06), #63 HD.
66. Janice Moodie: #60 money ($97.3K), #87 RR (1.07), #62 GSPI (71.97), #66 HD.
67. Sarah Kemp: #77 money ($79.2K), #120 RR (.75), #120 GSPI (72.99), #59 HD.
68. Amy Hung: #59 money ($98.3K), #105 RR (.90), #183 GSPI (73.86), n.r. HD.
69. Catriona Matthew: #143 money ($7.9K as she began her maternity leave), #65 RR (1.61), #54 GSPI (71.84), n.r. HD.

[Update 1 (10:36 pm): Hound Dog just updated his LPGA stats, most notably total driving and total putting.]

[Update 2 (7/17/09, 5:10 pm): Yay, Jee Young Lee is now listed in the Evian field!]

Revisiting the LPGA's Top Rivalries

All right, it's time to focus on the players again. Now that we're well into the LPGA's pre-European-Swing break, let's take another look at my preseason take on how the tour's last 6 generations stack up by checking out the career money list and wins/majors totals for the 4 older generations and examining a wider variety of stats for the 2 younger generations that are already making such a huge impact on the tour.

1994-1996: The Sorenstam Generation

[1. Annika Sorenstam (1994) $22.57M (#1), 72/10]
2. Karrie Webb (1996) $14.73M (#2), 36/7
3. Lorie Kane (1996) $6.72M (#14), 4/0
4. Pat Hurst (1995) $6.44M (#16), 6/1
5. Catriona Matthew (1995) $5.50M (#25), 2/0
6. Wendy Ward (1996) $4.42M (#35), 4/0
7. Carin Koch (1995) $4.38M (#37), 2/0

Not too much movement here, but Ward passed Koch and Hurst continues to close on Kane.

1997-1999: The Pak Generation

1. Se Ri Pak (1998) $10.44M (#5), 24/5
2. Cristie Kerr (1997) $9.98M (#7), 12/1
3. Mi Hyun Kim (1999) $8.38M (#10), 8/0
4. Rachel Hetherington (1997) $5.62M (#23), 8/0
5. Laura Diaz (1999) $4.97M (#30), 2/0
6. Sophie Gustafson (1998) $4.64M (#32), 4/0
7. Maria Hjorth (1998) $4.36M (#38), 3/0
8. Karen Stupples (1999) $3.16M (#54), 2/1

If Kerr hadn't let those 2 majors slip through her fingers on the final 9, she'd have passed Pak on the career money list. Between Kim's slow recovery from her knee surgery 2 winters ago and upcoming maternity leave (at least according to rumors on Seoul Sisters.com), looks like she's going to have to settle for #3 in her generation. Finally, Gustafson failed to put much distance on Hjorth while her rival was on maternity leave.

2000-2002: Seoul Sisters

1. Jeong Jang (2000) $6.11M (#17), 2/1
2. Hee-Won Han (2001) $5.88M (#19), 6/0
3. Grace Park (2000) $5.31M (#29), 6/1
4. Angela Stanford (2001) $4.45M (#34), 4/0
5. Candie Kung (2002) $4.41M (#36), 4/0
6. Natalie Gulbis (2002) $3.87M (#40), 1/0
7. Gloria Park (2000) $3.24M (#53), 2/0

Han passed Park, who may be out for the season after arthroscopic hip surgery. Jang is back from her own layoff due to wrist surgery, so looks like a showdown between her and Han at the top is shaping up nicely. Stanford and Kung are locked in a great battle to see who will be the next to pass Park.

2003-2005: The Ochoa Generation

1. Lorena Ochoa (2003) $13.97M (#3), 26/2
2. Paula Creamer (2005) $6.48M (#15), 8/0
3. Suzann Pettersen (2003) $4.67M (#31), 5/1
4. Christina Kim (2003) $3.27M (#52), 2/0
5. Stacy Prammanasudh (2003) $2.88M (#60), 2/0
6. Brittany Lincicome (2005) $2.51M (#71), 3/1
7. Meena Lee (2005) $2.46M (#75), 2/0
8. Shi Hyun Ahn (2004) $2.32M (#80), 1*/0 [non-member win]
9. Young Kim (2003) $2.31M (#81), 1/0
10. Katherine Hull (2004) $1.96M (#96), 1/0
11. Lindsey Wright (2004) $1.86M (#104), 0/0

Lincicome is making a big move on Kim and Prammanasush and Hull and Wright are making similar-sized moves on Lee, Ahn, and Kim.

2006-2008: Young Guns
[I include this generation's numbers of events, majors, wins, top 3s, top 10s, top 20s, and made cuts (along with made cut rates); *=non-member win (not counted toward other stats).]

1. Seon Hwa Lee (2006) $3.46M (#45), 100/0/4/11/26/51/92 (.920)
2. Ya Ni Tseng (2008) $2.63M (#68), 42/1/2/11/18/30/40 (.952)
3. Jee Young Lee (2006) $2.60M (#69), 93/0/0/7/27/51/86 (.925)
4. Morgan Pressel (2006) $2.47M (#73), 87/1/2/7/25/42/75 (.862)
5. In-Kyung Kim (2007) $2.19M (#86), 66/0/2/7/18/27/56 (.848)
6. Julieta Granada (2006) $2.17M (#88), 94/0/1/5/10/21/60 (.638)
7. Ai Miyazato (2006) $2.17M (#89), 82/0/0/4/23/35/68 (.829)
8. Angela Park (2007) $2.10M (#90), 68/0/0/8/18/25/58 (.853)
9. Eun-Hee Ji (2007) $2.00M (#94), 46/1/2/5/15/20/41 (.891)
10. Brittany Lang (2006) $1.82M (#105), 96/0/0/4/20/38/74 (.771)
11. Inbee Park (2007) $1.64M (#111), 66/1/1/3/9/17/50 (.758)
12. Song-Hee Kim (2007) $1.64M (#112), 58/0/0/5/13/22/44 (.759)
13. Na Yeon Choi (2008) $1.57M (#115), 42/0/0/5/14/26/42 (1.000)
14. Sun Young Yoo (2006) $1.32M (#133), 93/0/0/1/11/26/73 (.785)
15. Ji Young Oh (2007) $1.28M (#140), 65/0/2/2/7/15/47 (.723)
16. Kristy McPherson (2007) $1.02M (#174), 59/0/0/2/9/16/42 (.712)
17. Kyeong Bae (2006) $1.01M (#176), 87/0/0/2/9/15/62 (.713)

Bae and McPherson are the latest additions to this generation's Million Dollar Club, and Teresa Lu and Meaghan Francella aren't far from joining them. Tseng just passed 1 Lee and has her sights set on another. Kim and Miyazato are closing on Pressel, while Ji is looking to leapfrog 1 Park as Kim and Choi are close to passing another.

2009-2011: New Blood
[I include this generation's numbers of events, majors, wins, top 3s, top 10s, top 20s, and made cuts (along with made cut rates); *=non-member win(s) (not counted toward other stats).]

1. Ji-Yai Shin (2009) $1.08M (#163), 14/1*/5*/4/4/9/13 (.929)
2. Michelle Wie (2009) $435.2K (#282), 11/0/0/3/5/6/11 (1.000)
3. Anna Nordqvist (2009) $387.5K (#291), 8/1/1/1/1/3/8 (1.000)
4. Mika Miyazato (2009) $263.7K (#346), 13/0/0/0/3/3/10 (.769)
5. Stacy Lewis (2009) $183.4K (#391), 13/0/0/0/2/3/8 (.615)
6. Vicky Hurst (2009) $134.1K (#437), 12/0/0/0/2/3/9 (.750)
7. Haeji Kang (2009) $123.7K (#440), 9/0/0/0/1/1/6 (.667)
8. Shiho Oyama (2009) $93.7K (#476), 12/0/0/0/1/1/6 (.500)
9. M.J. Hur (2009) $66.5K (#513), 12/0/0/0/0/1/5 (.417)
10. Mindy Kim (2009) $64.8K (#518), 9/0/0/0/1/1/3 (.333)
11. Chella Choi (2009) $57.4K (#530), 11/0/0/0/0/0/6 (.545)

Nordqvist, Miyazato, and Kang are exceeding my expectations, whereas I'm still waiting for Lewis, Hurst, and Oyama to really get it going. 2nd half of the season should be very interesting. Wie will need to start winning to have a hope of catching Shin.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Yes, I just compared ex-LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens to the dolphins in the 4th novel of Douglas Adams's classic Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.

And yes, the analogy doesn't precisely hold, for as the 2nd-most-intelligent species on Earth, the dolphins in Adams's novel saved the planet after it had been unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, or rather saved the 3rd-most intelligent species (us) by pulling a parallel Earth to replace the demolished one (it's all there in Chapter 32), so if you take the Earth as a metaphor for the LPGA, this seems to me to better fit the new-Commissioner-to-be-named-later than Bivens herself, whose grasp of English and social interactions was never quite as Vogon-reciting-poetry-bad as critics like Geoff Shackelford made out but who really did take a huge gamble with the tour's future and has paid the price for it, although her consolation prize--a buyout of the remaining years on her contract--will pay for a lot of fish, so maybe the metaphor does work, after all. Speaking of fish, Adams has lots of passages that can help a blog named Mostly Harmless commemorate the end of the Bivens era.

Take last year's language controversy. All the LPGA needs is the Babel fish, right? Hmmm...what does the Hitchhiker's Guide say to that?

the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

Of course that one's from page 42 of The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide. Here's one for the golfy media, courtesy of Wonko the Sane:

I'm not trying to prove anything, by the way. I'm a scientist and I know what constitutes proof. But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting.

Anyway, to return to my nautical theme, Marsha Evans, a retired Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy and former President/CEO of the American Red Cross, will be the tour's interim commissioner, and Annika Sorenstam will be helping the Board of Directors find its bearings and chart a new course. Apparently the idea was that having been ousted in a ARC board mutiny back in 2005 and participating in the LPGA Board's own in 2009, Evans will have learned from her own and her predecessor's mistakes. In which case, let's hope she wasn't in charge of the announcement process.

Sometimes life imitates Adams. And sometimes bloggers do, too.

[Update 1 (4:11 pm): Here's Ryan Ballengee with the news and background on Evans, Stephanie Wei on Bivens's legacy and Sorenstam's role, Jay Busbee on what next, and The Golf Chick with some answers.]

[Update 2 (4:14 pm): And here's Brent Kelley's thoughtful analysis.]

[Update 3 (4:21 pm): And here are the LPGA's press releases announcing Bivens's replacement with Evans and explaining Sorenstam's role.]

[Update 4 (11:11 pm): Bill Jempty, one of Bivens's longest-standing and harshest critics in blogaramaville, weighs in with his thoughts on Bivens's ouster and replacement.]

[Update 5 (11:18 pm): Here's Randall Mell.]

[Update 6 (11:24 pm): Here's the Golf Channel video of the announcement.]

[Update 7 (11:49 pm): Here's Hound Dog's reaction to the news and the press conference.]

[Update 8 (7/14/09, 9:54 am): Here's Daniel Wexler's reaction and Stephanie Wei's overview at the Huffington Post.]

[Update 9 (10:00 am): Geoff Shackelford links to and comments on various journalists' reactions.]

[Update 10 (10:09 am): Here's Dave Seanor's reaction.]

[Update 11 (11:18 am): Here's Christina Kim on why she's optimistic about the LPGA's future.]

[Update 12 (11:33 am): Here's Gene Yasuda's piece for Golfweek.]

[Update 13 (11:44 am): And here's one of the guys from Nice Ballz.]

[Update 14 (4:21 pm): William Rhoden of the NYT got Bivens to talk in a phone interview, so his piece is definitely worth reading.]

[Update 15 (7/15/09, 10:54 pm): John Strege shares the views of a former tournament organizer of Bivens's 1st ex-tournament, the Shoprite.]

[Update 16 (7/16/09, 12:37 am): Brent Kelley has done some reading--and linking--of his own.]

Dear Media: This Ain't Reality TV

In one of my last updates to my not-quite-live-blogging the final round of the U.S. Women's Open, I had occasion to ask,

When is the national media going to realize that sports are different than a reality tv show and that their job isn't to script an event but to report on it?

Whether it was Leonard Shapiro hoping for a Cristie Kerr win or Michael Arkush bemoaning a Paula Creamer moving day implosion, something fishy was in the air this week, and it wasn't just those doing the color commentary who were the source of it. Consider who among the following 3 pairs of golfers captured the imagination and attention of the national media in the Sunday game stories you read today.

• Cristie Kerr and Candie Kung: the last leader in the clubhouse--and her disappointing bogey on the 71st hole of the tournament--were almost completely eclipsed by the focus on Kerr's struggles with her game.
  
• Brittany Lincicome and In-Kyung Kim: the player who was actually tied for the lead late on the back 9--and who bogeyed the final hole to fall out of a tie with Kung--gets eclipsed by a player who made a charge early on the back but fizzled from 15 on.
  
• Paula Creamer and Ai Miyazato: both players made late birdies to become the 1st leaders in the clubhouse (at +4) to actually put a little pressure on those in the final pairings, but you'll only find out about 1 of them if you rely on the national media.
  

Yeah, yeah, beyond the fact that it's always the blonde American LPGAers who get the word count from the U.S. media, I get it that Kerr and Lincicome have each won a major recently and that Creamer may well be the best player on tour without one. Yes, Suzann Pettersen also made a late birdie to join Creamer and Miyazato as co-leaders in the clubhouse until Lincicome, Kim, and Kung surpassed them, so it's not just the Taiwan-born, Korean, or Japanese players who fall outside the media spotlight. And yes, I'll even confess to feeling the same things that lead to these kinds of oversights: I was disappointed 2 Sundays ago when Morgan Pressel's dramatic comeback on Eunjung Yi at the Farr came just short.

But a 1st LPGA win for my #11-ranked Super Soph is less of a story than my #2-ranked Junior Mint coming back from a mini-slump this season to get her 2nd career win and 1st major with a walkoff birdie on women's golf's biggest stage. And the fact that she beat Kung, Kim, Miyazato, and Pettersen is just as significant as the fact that she beat Kerr, Lincicome, and Creamer.

I'm off to take out my frustrations on the course--for the 1st time since last August, so I'm pretty excited. Maybe in the meantime someone in the national media will prove me wrong and find a compelling way to frame what really happened at Saucon Valley rather than focusing only on the news that's "fit to print" in their eyes. And maybe everyone will realize that the LPGA's future doesn't rest on one individual or nationality, that the point of sports is the thrilling competition itself.

Yeah, and maybe I'll break 75 on The Easiest Course in the World today.

[Update 1 (12:09 pm): Well, I couldn't even break 80 today (the rust on my 30-to-90 yard game was something fierce!), but I got to catch up with one of my golfing buddies from years ago and we had a fun 3 and a half hours. Nice to come back to find that Jay Busbee's got my back (and a link to a very good Brian Murphy piece)!]

[Update 2 (12:18 pm): Also a nice overview from Amy Ellis Nutt out of the Newark Star-Ledger. Have I misunderestimated the national media?]

[Update 3 (12:30 pm): But the basic question remains: will the national media be able to get the story right? My benchmark is whether they understand the tournament and final round as well as long-time LPGA bloggers Hound Dog and Bill Jempty.]

[Update 4 (1:15 pm): The smaller-market golf writers are doing a good job. Here's Mark Wogenrich out of PA's Lehigh Valley, Andrew Shay out of Bethlehem, and Gerry Dulac out of Pittsburgh. But Mike Kirn of the Philadelphia Daily News, Joe Juliano of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Michael Whitmer of the Boston Globe did just fine. Still, the SI guys only focus on Creamer's and Kerr's collapses--the rest is on who will replace Bivens. (More on that in another post.)]

[Update 5 (7/14/09, 12:30 pm): John Strege gets it right, as usual.]

U.S. Women's Open Sunday: Down to the Wire

Don't look now, but Candie Kung, a Taiwan-born American citizen (for those who don't remember her from when she was one of the best players in the world earlier this decade), is making a move on Cristie Kerr at the U.S. Women's Open. Kung closed with a 33 yesterday and birdied her 1st 2 holes today to get back to +1 for the tournament and within 2 shots of the lead after Kerr bogeyed the 5th. But wait...a Kung bogey on the tough 7th allowed Eun-Hee Ji to leapfrog her with a birdie on the par-5 6th and return to +1 for her round and the tournament. That turned into a 2-shot swing on Kerr when she bogeyed the 6th! And now Kung has birdied the 8th to also pull within 1 of the lead!

With Kerr now at E, she's opened the door to several other golfers to pull into serious contention on Open Sunday. Teresa Lu has made 4 bogeys and 2 birdies in her 1st 7 holes to fall back to +4 with Jean Reynolds and Suzann Pettersen, but In-Kyung Kim has fought back to E on the day and +3 for the tournament with her 2nd birdie of the day, offsetting her double on 7. More soon!

[Update 1 (3:24 pm): Kim birdied 10 and Ji bogeyed 7 to meet at +2. Kung, who's gone 35-33-34 her last 3 9s, remains 1 back. With a birdie on 10, Brittany Lincicome has fought back to E on her day and +4 for the tournament. Na Yeon Choi just joined her there with a birdie on the par-5 12th.]

[Update 2 (3:27 pm): Ah, Hound Dog's been doing this since the leaders teed off. Definitely follow his live-blogging--he's able to watch the telecast, unlike me!]

[Update 3 (3:45 pm): OK, HD's going to do the play-by-play; I got dibs on color commentary! A 32 on the back makes Ji-Yai Shin the leader in the clubhouse at +7. When her irons weren't letting her down this week, her putter was. But there are only 15 golfers ahead of her right now. Let's see where she ends up. Ai Miyazato (-1 through 15, +5 overall) and Paula Creamer (-1 with 2 to play, also +5 overall) have the 1st chances to displace her.]

[Update 4 (4:00 pm): What a charge by Lincicome! And what a tactical error--compounded by execution problems--by Ji on the 10th. If she and Creamer lose by a couple of shots, the decision to use driver there yesterday by the latter and today by the former will weigh heavy on their minds for a long time to come. Creamer's now +4 after a birdie on 17; she'll need to birdie 18, too, to put any pressure on the leaders coming down the stretch. BTW, looks like Reynolds and Lu have lost too much ground to get back in the mix. They're both +6 overall, +4 through 11 today.]

[Update 5 (4:02 pm): Wow! Ai-chan just joined Creamer (and Choi and Hee Young Park) at +4 with a birdie on 16! Let's see if she can keep it going!]

[Update 6 (4:09 pm): Here's Hound Dog's new live-blog page. Ai-chan needs to birdie 18 to finish at +3 and displace Creamer as leader in the clubhouse.]

[Update 7 (5:01 pm): Too bad Ai-chan couldn't birdie 17 or 18. But T6 is a great finish for her--and it could end up better if Lincicome stumbles on 18. Nice job by Sun Ju Ahn to tie her old KLPGA sparring partner, Ji-Yai Shin, at +7. She bounced back from a front-side 40 with a closing 33 to do so. If Suzann Pettersen, Hee Young Park, or Kyeong Bae fall back from +5 in their closing holes, that'll be good enough for T12 or better! And, oh yeah, Eun-Hee Ji and In-Kyung Kim are still tied with Cristie Kerr at +1, 1 behind Candie Kung with 1 left for Kim, 2 for Kung, and 4 for Ji and Kerr.]

[Update 8 (5:05 pm): Fantastic job by this year's WAPL champion, Jennifer Song (72), to take low amateur with a +7 finish. She parred her last 7 holes to beat Jessica Korda (69) and Allison Lee (70) by 2.]

[Update 9 (5:08 pm): And great 68 by KLPGA Super Soph He Yong Choi to join the amateurs at +9. There are a lot of great players they beat this week.]

[Update 10 (5:09 pm): Speaking of young Asian golfers with great promise, Mika Miyazato tied Yuri Fudoh at +15 in her first USWO. Not a bad start.]

[Update 11 (5:22 pm): Even though Lincicome couldn't sustain her momentum down the stretch and faded to +3 (5th place right now), she impressed the heck out of me this week. I'm starting to believe her comeback is for real. Pettersen's walkoff birdie brought her even with Creamer and Miyazato at T6. Great comebacks for all of them. Too bad In-Kyung Kim bogeyed the 18th yet again this week--4 for 4 there is prbably what's going to keep her from winning the Open. But with Kung falling back into a tie with Ji and Kerr at +1, she could still find herself in a playoff. Kung will need to par 18 to displace her as leader in the clubhouse.]

[Update 12 (5:28 pm): Kung parred 1 to finish at +1. It's up to Ji to tie or beat her outright now. Kerr just 3-putted 16 to fall to +2.]

[Update 13 (5:39 pm): Wow, if we had tv, I'd be pissed off today at imoto. For the 4th time in a row over the last 2 days, she's decided to poop in her panties. Who knew toilet training would be such a battle with the younger child! Speaking of battles, Eun-Hee Ji needs to birdie 18 to win and par it to tie Kung. Kerr has better birdie 18 and hope Ji doesn't of she wants a chance to keep another major in '09 from slipping away from her.]

[Update 14 (5:58 pm): Looking over Candie Kung's scorecard, she finished 35-33-34-35 over her last 4 9s. That's some great golf. But you know what? That bogey on 17 (her 2nd on that hole this weekend) ended up costing her a chance to get her 1st major and 5th career win. My mom just called me to tell me that Eun-Hee Ji made a sliding downhiller of at least 15 feet to win the U.S. Women's Open!]

[Update 15 (6:01 pm): Ji was my 8th-ranked Young Gun back in early June, but she may well be my #1 Junior Mint when I redo my rankings after the Women's British Open.]

[Update 16 (11:50 pm): Lots of bloggy commentary on Ji's win. Brent Kelley hits all the right notes in his tournament summary. Average Golfer sums up Ji's win in his inimitable fashion. Armchair Golfer kindly appends the ESPN highlights to his capsule summary. And Stephanie Wei has video of Ji's post-putt interview with Roger Maltbie.]

[Update 17 (7/13/09, 12:18 am): I've been checking out Golf Observer's links to the media coverage of the Open, and few come close to the USGA's news page. When is the national media going to realize that sports are different than a reality tv show and that their job isn't to script an event but to report on it?]

[Update 18 (12:36 am): Saving the best for the last update--Hound Dog's final-round overview.]

[Update 19 (12:09 pm): OK, one more link, for Hound Dog's epilogue.]

[Update 20 (12:28 pm): Just came across this great Bill Jempty piece.]

Meiji Chocolate Cup Sunday: Mi-Jeong Jeon in the Driver's Seat

Mi-Jeong Jeon takes a 4-shot lead on Midori Yoneyama into the final 5 holes of the Meiji Chocolate Cup. After a bogey on the par-4 3rd dropped her to -4 on the tournament, Jeon rattled off 3 birdies in her next 10 holes while Yoneyama offset her birdie on the par-3 7th with a bogey on the par-4 13th, Erina Hara made 13 straight pars to stay at -2, Saiki Fujita also couldn't find a birdie in that same stretch but did find 3 bogeys to join her, and Da-Ye Na rode the roller coaster to also fall 5 back. We'll see if anyone puts any pressure on Jeon down the stretch. She had some heart-breaking collapses as a front-runner at the end of last season and start of this one, but could become the 3rd 2-time winner on tour if she can hold on today. If she does it, this'll be the 6th event in a row that was won by her, Sakura Yokomine, or Shinobu Moromizato--and we can start talking about a Big 3 on the JLPGA in '09.

[Update 1 (9:13 am): There was no faltering for Jeon this time, as she birdied 2 of her last 4 holes for a 68 that gave her a 6-stroke victory over Miho Koga, Yuko Mitsuka, and Midori Yoneyama. Another dominating win for Jeon on the JLPGA in '09. Here's how the top 10 and notables ended up on the final leaderboard:

1st/-9 Mi-Jeong Jeon (71-68-68)
T3/-3 Miho Koga (74-70-69), Yuko Mitsuka (73-69-71), Midori Yoneyama (69-71-73)
T5/-2 Erina Hara (70-72-72), Da-Ye Na (72-69-73)
T7/-1 Nikki Campbell (77-69-69), Rikako Morita (76-70-69), Na-Ri Lee (75-71-69), Saiki Fujita (76-63-76)

T11/E Esther Lee (74-71-71), Mayu Hattori (69-74-73)
T14/+1 Akane Iijima (73-74-70), Sakura Yokomine (74-71-72), Chie Arimura (74-70-73)
T19/+2 Hiromi Mogi (75-73-70), Shinobu Moromizato (72-74-72)
T25/+3 Kumiko Kaneda (77-70-72), Ayako Uehara (73-74-72), Yuki Ichinose (73-74-72), Yukari Baba (70-76-73)
T34/+4 Rui Kitada (76-72-72), Yuko Saitoh (75-72-73), Mie Nakata (73-74-73)
T44/+6 Ji-Woo Lee (76-70-76)

Looks like Koga, Mitsuka, and Hara are coming alive, too. The 2nd half of the JLPGA season should be quite interesting.]

[Update 2 (9:27 am): The new money list suggests we're not quite at a Big 3 on the JLPGA. Mitsuka is closer to Jeon than Jeon is to Moromizato or Yokomine. So if Mitsuka is the 4th to become a repeat winner on the JLPGA any time soon, it'll be better to talk of a Big 4.

1. Sakura Yokomine ￥77.01M
2. Shinobu Moromizato ￥73.24M
3. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥63.24M
4. Yuko Mitsuka ￥58.92M
5. Chie Arimura ￥40.11M
6. Ji-Hee Lee ￥37.18M
7. Yuko Saitoh ￥30.48M
8. Miho Koga ￥29.80M
9. Erina Hara ￥28.18M
10. Ayako Uehara ￥27.69M
11. Ah-Reum Hwang ￥27.36M
12. Eun-A Lim ￥25.99M
13. Tamie Durdin ￥24.90M
14. Akiko Fukushima ￥22.49M
15. Yuri Fudoh ￥21.38M
16. Rui Kitada ￥20.69M
17. Li-Ying Ye ￥19.56M
18. Yukari Baba ￥18.93M
19. Ji-Woo Lee ￥18.41M
20. Midori Yoneyama ￥17.27M
21. Saiki Fujita ￥16.10M
22. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥15.61M
23. Miki Saiki ￥14.52M
24. Hiromi Mogi ￥14.40M
25. Rikako Morita ￥14.35M
26. Bo-Bae Song ￥14.23M
27. Akane Iijima ￥13.29M
28. Mie Nakata ￥12.73M
29. Nikki Campbell ￥12.67M
30. Julie Lu ￥12.15M

Nice moves into the top 10 by Koga and Hara, into the top 20 by Yoneyama, and back into the top 30 by Campbell. This is the 1st time in a while that Hyun-Ju Shin (#31) hasn't appeared on this list. But you can see what a missed opportunity this week was for many mid-level JLPGAers by the fact that hardly anyone passed Fukushima, Fudoh, and Saiki while they were competing in the U.S. Women's Open this week. And it's a sign of how well Ji-Hee Lee has been playing that she maintained a healthy distance on #7 Saitoh despite also playing at Saucon Valley this week.]

U.S. Women's Open Saturday: Movin' on Down

By now you know the big news at the U.S. Women's Open: like Lorena Ochoa Friday, Paula Creamer blew up Saturday to plummet out of contention, while Cristie Kerr continued to position herself for a wire-to-wire win of her 2nd Open and 2nd career major. That's not to say it's going to be easy for her, but with Jean Reynolds (74), Song-Hee Kim (75), Na Yeon Choi (76), Guilia Sergas (76), Nicole Castrale (74), Meaghan Francella (74), Kristy McPherson (77), Lindsey Wright (77), Alexis Thompson (78), and Yuri Fudoh (80) losing serious ground to her 72 yesterday, not to mention none of the LPGA's elite making a charge from back in the pack--not Suzann Pettersen (72), Lorena Ochoa (73), Karrie Webb (74), or Ji-Yai Shin (76)--Kerr has to like her chances. She's 2-up on her playing partner tomorrow, the resurgent Eun-Hee Ji (70), 4-up on Reynolds and Teresa Lu (70), and 5-up on Candie Kung (68), In-Kyung Kim (72), and Hee Young Park (72). Sure, 69s by Kyeong Bae and Morgan Pressel pulled them within 6 and 7 of the lead, respectively, but of everyone chasing Kerr, only Ji and Kim have been hitting the ball as solidly as she has been, while neither have putted as proficiently. So let's see if Kerr struggles tomorrow or if someone makes a move on her (or both, or neither).

As for the players I've been rooting for the most, Ai Miyazato drove the ball a little more aggressively yesterday, but the key difference for her was her putting, as she broke the 30-putt barrier for the 1st time this week on her way to a 71 that brought her to T17 at +6. Momoko Ueda only hit 5 fairways but thanks to her added distance (272 yards off the tee!) was able to bounce back and hit 12 greens on her way to a 72 that tied her at 27th with the likes of Ochoa, Webb, Wright, Anna Nordqvist, Amy Yang, and the KLPGA's Hee Kyung Seo. But Mika Miyazato (76) and Mina Harigae (80) continued to struggle at Saucon Valley. Here's hoping they all play great on Sunday.

In addition to the race for low amateur later today--this year's WAPL champion Jennifer Song is 3-up on Azahara Munoz and Alexis Thompson--I'll also be following the Young Guns shootout at the top of the leaderboard between Junior Mints Eun-Hee Ji, In-Kyung Kim, and Song-Hee Kim and Senior Standouts Teresa Lu, Kyeong Bae, Morgan Pressel, Sun Young Yoo, Ai Miyazato, and Meaghan Francella. Should be a lot of fun!

[Update 1 (1:55 am): Be sure to check out the on-site blogging from Saucon Valley by Stephanie Wei and Golf Girl. And of course Golfweek's coverage and Golf Channel's Shag Bag blog are must-stops, as is LPGA.com's notes and interviews page.]

Meiji Chocolate Cup Saturday: Saiki Fujita Lights It Up

Saiki Fujita just fired a 10-birdie 63 today that lifted her to -5 at the Meiji Chocolate Cup. She's the leader in the clubhouse right now, but only 2-up on Mi-Jeong Jeon and Midori Yoneyama. With lots of birdie holes ahead of them and others playing well like Yuko Mitsuka, it's anyone's guess how the leaderboard will look at the end of play. More later.

[Update 1 (9:31 am): Jeon caught Fujita with a solid 68 of her own. Here are the top 10 and notables:

T1/-5 Saiki Fujita (76-63), Mi-Jeong Jeon (71-68)
3rd/-4 Midori Yoneyama (69-71)
4th/-3 Da-Ye Na (72-69)
T5/-2 Yuko Mitsuka (73-69), Erina Hara (70-72)
T7/-1 Keiko Sasaki (76-66), Itsumi Okada (73-70), Mayu Hattori (69-74)
T10/E Miho Koga (74-70), Chie Arimura (74-70), Hiromi Takesue (74-70), Akane Azuma (74-70), Yuriko Ohtsuka (73-71), Chieko Amanuma (73-71)

T16/+1 Sakura Yokomine (74-71), Esther Lee (74-71)
T21/+2 Nikki Campbell (77-69), Ji-Woo Lee (76-70), Rikako Morita (76-70), Shinobu Moromizato (72-74), Yukari Baba (70-76)
T38/+3 Kumiko Kaneda (77-70), Yuko Saitoh (75-72), Ayako Uehara (73-74), Akane Iijima (73-74), Mie Nakata (73-74), Yuki Ichinose (73-74)
T47/+4 Rui Kitada (76-72), Hiromi Mogi (75-73)

The cut was particularly cruel to the JLPGA's mid-level name players:

T55/+5 Hyun-Ju Shin (76-73), Sakurako Mori (76-73), Eun-A Lim (74-75), Li-Ying Ye (73-76)
T65/+6 Yun-Jye Wei (77-73)
T73/+7 Ah-Reum Hwang (80-71)
T79/+8 Maiko Wakabayashi (81-71), Mai Arai (76-76)
T85/+9 Woo-Soon Ko (76-77)
T92/+10 Tamie Durdin (78-76), Julie Lu (78-76)

Tomorrow's a great opportunity for Mi-Jeong Jeon to pull close to Yokomine and Moromizato in the wins column and the money list. Let's see if she can do it.]

U.S. Women's Open Friday: Hanging On

Scoring remains high at the U.S. Women's Open today, with only Teresa Lu (69) and Lindsey Wright (70) breaking par among those going out in the morning pairings--and only Yuri Fudoh, Suzann Pettersen, Sandra Gal, and Jimin Kang shooting par. The low players from the morning remain Na Yeon Choi, who shot a 74 to fall back to E (T6 right now), and Alexis Thompson, whose 73 allowed Fudoh and Wright to catch her at +2 (T15 right now). Back with more later.

[Update 1 (2:13 pm): Add Inbee Park to the list of 71s today. And add Naree Song, Pat Hurst, Jee Young Lee, and Minea Blomqvist to the list of WDs. Either there are an unusual number of injuries this week, or an unusual number of humiliating holes.]

[Update 2 (2:20 pm): As commenter Pyoung noted, Ji-Yai Shin dropped to +5 after a 75 that seems due mostly to her putter cooling off from yesterday. But she had an uninspired start to the HSBC Women's Champions and poured it on for the win on the weekend. Plus, she'll probably have fewer strokes to make up here than there. So let's not count her out just yet.]

[Update 3 (5:55 pm): I'm amazed that Brittany Lincicome is hanging tough at +2 (T9 right now) after her 2nd straight 72. Kristy McPherson (74) and Meaghan Francella (72) join Pettersen and Lu at +3 (T16). Jennifer Song (74) and Maria Hernandez (72) join Gal, Inbee Park, and Young Kim (75) at +4 (T24). Laura Davies (75) joins Shin and Kang at +5 (T34).]

[Update 4 (6:03 pm): Cristie Kerr is singlehandedly trying to thin the field. For a while, it looked like the 10-shot rule was going to let over 100 golfers into the weekend, but after 3 birdies in a row on the back and 2 straight on the front to more than offset her bogeys, she's -2 on her day and -4 for the tournament with 8 and 9 left to play. Close behind her is the top Futures Tour player of 2009, Jean Reynolds, who's -2 for the tournament with 4 holes on the front left to play. Right behind her is a trio at -1, Paula Creamer (-2 today with 17 and 18 left to play), Eun-Hee Ji (-1 today with 3 to go on the back), and Hee Young Park (E today with 3 left to play on the front). Guilia Sergas has fought back to E for the tournament and is -4 on her day with 4 left to play. So there are definitely some great rounds out there.]

[Update 5 (6:11 pm): Whoops, Kerr bogeyed 8 to fall back to -3. But that won't save the big group at +9 that includes Juli Inkster, He Yong Choi, Amanda Blumenherst, Jennie Lee, Maria Jose Uribe, Candace Schepperle, and Stacy Lewis (who's playing 9 now), unless she and Reynolds fall back to -1 at the end of the day.]

[Update 6 (6:20 pm): They probably have better odds of making the cut if they can move within the top 60. For that to happen, Cindy LaCrosse (+3 through 12, +8 overall), Mika Miyazato (+4 through 16 today, +8 overall), Ai Miyazato (+4 through 17, +7 overall), Haeji Kang (+5 through 14, +7 overall), Lorena Ochoa (+8 through 17, +6 overall), Allison Fouch (+2 through 15, +6 overall), and Ji-Hee Lee (E through 14, +6 overall) have to play badly enough down the stretch to also fall back to +9 or worse.]

[Update 7 (6:27 pm): Beyond help, though, are Se Ri Pak (77, +11), Jane Park (74, +12), Sophie Gustafson (73, +12), Jeong Jang (78, +13), Shiho Oyama (79, +15), Hee-Won Han (79, +15), Angela Park (82, +17), and Alison Walshe (84, +21). And it's pretty much guaranteed that Angela Stanford (+11 with 1 left to play), Gwladys Nocera (+11 with 2 to go), Katherine Hull (+13 with 1 left), and Ya Ni Tseng (+14 with 1 left) will join them.]

[Update 8 (6:32 pm): Back to the top: Creamer birdied the tough 18th to shoot a 68 and finish at -2 for the 1st 36 holes. Hee Young Park has bogeyed her 2nd in a row to go to +1 for the round and E for the tournament. Eun-Hee Ji doubled 17 to fall back to +1 today and for the tournament. In-Kyung Kim shot her 2nd straight 72 to finish at +2 at the halfway point.]

[Update 9 (6:34 pm): It's looking more and more like the cut will be at +9. Mika Miyazato and Cindy LaCrosse have already joined the club. Just one more person has to stumble down the stretch to bring +9 to T60....]

[Update 10 (6:36 pm): Kerr is the only person to break par both rounds, and if it weren't for that bogey on 8, she would have broken 70 twice, as well. As it is, her 70 puts her at -3, 1 shot ahead of Creamer at the halfway point. So much for the decline and fall of American golf thesis, eh?]

[Update 11 (6:39 pm): Hee Young Park has now made it 3 bogeys in a row. She's tied with Ji (who finished with a 72 today) at +1. Song-Hee Kim could join them if she birdies the 9th for a 69....]

[Update 12 (6:40 pm): Guilia Sergas is now -5 on her day and -1 for the tournament. What a fantastic round she has going!]

[Update 13 (10:06 pm): So, the 8th got Reynolds, too--she ended up with a 72 that brought her down to -1. It was the 18th that got Sergas (again)--but she still had the best round of the tournament, a 67 that brought her back to E. Song-Hee Kim, by contrast, birdied the long par-3 9th for her 69 to join Ji at +1 (T6). But Hee Young Park bogeyed her last 4 in a row to fall all the way to +2 (T8), while Lindsey Wright joined her with a fine 70. So there are 13 golfers within 5 shots of the lead.]

[Update 14 (10:15 pm): Amy Yang, who bogeyed her last 4 in a row on the front yesterday, shot a solid 71 today, to remain at +4 (T19); the KLPGA's Sun Ju Ahn matched her for the day and the tournament. They epitomize the 22 golfers between +3 and +5--all playing pretty well but making too many mistakes and not bouncing back from them as well as the top 13. The other 37 golfers between +6 and +9 (where the cut line did end up) are going to need 2 great rounds to get in the mix. That last group includes Lorena Ochoa, Ai Miyazato, Akiko Fukushima, and Hee Kyung Seo at +6, Morgan Pressel, Brittany Lang, Momoko Ueda, Ji-Hee Lee, and Mina Harigae at +7, and the players I already mentioned at +9, so you know there's plenty of talent in the bottom half of those who survived into the weekend.]

[Update 15 (10:24 pm): It's easy to lose the forest for the trees when you do the not-quite-live-blogging thing, so here's Hound Dog's 2nd-round overview and Brent Kelley's crisp summary of where things stand at the halfway point.]

[Update 16 (10:30 pm): But if you're like me and you love details, then feast your eyes on Hound Dog's live-blogging of round 2.]

[Update 17 (11:36 pm): Some stats of interest.... Why do I think it's a good sign for Paula Creamer that she's only hitting 61% of her fairways this week thus far, while a bad sign for Jean Reynolds that she's only hitting 57%? Because Creamer is among the LPGA's leaders in driving accuracy, I believe she's bound to start hitting more fairways. Whereas Reynolds, too, is likely hitting far fewer fairways than she usually does, she doesn't rank among the top 15 on the Futures Tour in driving accuracy. To be fair, she'd have to be hitting over 80% of her fairways to do so, so it's quite possible she's almost accurate off the tee as Creamer. But what I take from this is that Reynolds is scoring way over her head right now and can't possibly keep this up for 36 more holes, whereas Creamer could run away with this thing if she starts hitting her driver the way she's capable of. Both Creamer and Reynolds are at 64% in greens in regulation, but whereas Creamer is close to 80% for the LPGA season, Reynolds is close to 70% for the FT season. So there's much less room for reasonable improvement for Reynolds than Creamer.

If Karrie Webb starts putting well on the weekend, watch out for her. She's near the top in GIR and near the bottom in putts per round. Ditto for NCAA star and FT newbie Maria Hernandez. To a slightly less degree, the same goes for Eun-Hee Ji, In-Kyung Kim, and Alexis Thompson.

Morgan Pressel's hitting it shorter and much more crooked than usual, so no wonder she's struggling to hit greens. With a cold putter compared to her last few outings, she's in big trouble heading into the weekend.]

[Update 18 (11:46 pm): Some pairings of interest.... Stacy Lewis and Mika Miyazato at 7:50 am, Amanda Blumenherst and Maria Jose Uribe at 8:00, Brittany Lang and Mina Harigae at 9:20, Morgan Pressel and Momoko Ueda at 9:30, Ai Miyazato and Jessica Korda at 9:40, Akiko Fukushima and Shanshan Feng at 10:30, Ji-Yai Shin and Laura Davies at 11:10, Amy Yang and Anna Nordqvist at 11:30, Sandra Gal and Maria Hernandez at 12 noon, and of course the last hour or so are all intriguing. It's enough to make me want to drive down to Bethlehem for the weekend, but onechan has a violin lesson tomorrow morning, so....]

[Update 19 (7/11/09, 10:18 am): Here's Stephanie Wei's overview of ther 1st half of the Open.]

Meiji Chocolate Cup Friday: Where's Sakura?

Sakura Yokomine and Miho Koga must have been imagining they were playing Saucon Valley today at the Meiji Chocolate Cup, because they opened with 2-over-par 74s that put them in a tie for 26th. They could have come to Bethlehem (as they were eligible to do) to shoot numbers like that. Still, just like the 1st day of the U.S. Women's Open, scoring was high on the other side of the world, with only 7 golfers breaking par. Maybe the weather was bad, or maybe the players were just rusty after the 1st off-week in the JLPGA schedule since late March.

Here are the top 10 and notables:

T1/-3 Midori Yoneyama, Mayu Hattori, Ai Nishikawa (69)
T4/-2 Erina Hara, Yukari Baba (70)
T6/-1 Mi-Jeong Jeon, Nozomi Sato (71)
T8/E Shinobu Moromizato, Da-Ye Na, Erika Kikuchi, Aiko Ueno, Azumi Katoh (72)

T13/+1 Yuko Mitsuka, Ayako Uehara, Akane Iijima, Mie Nakata, Li-Ying Ye, Yuki Ichinose (73)
T26/+2 Sakura Yokomine, Miho Koga, Chie Arimura, Eun-A Lim, Esther Lee (74)
T38/+3 Yuko Saitoh, Hiromi Mogi (75)
T44/+4 Hyun-Ju Shin, Rui Kitada, Saiki Fujita, Ji-Woo Lee, Woo-Soon Ko, Rikako Morita, Sakurako Mori, Mai Arai (76)
T67/+5 Nikki Campbell, Yun-Jye Wei, Kumiko Kaneda (77)
T84/+6 Tamie Durdin, Julie Lu (78)
T98/+8 Ah-Reum Hwang (80)
T103/+9 Maiko Wakabayashi (81)

Let's see if Hara, Jeon, and Moromizato can take advantage of the struggles of the rest of the JLPGA's finest and put some distance on them this weekend.

U.S. Women's Open Thursday: A Game Called Survival

The U.S. Women's Open is in full swing and Saucon Valley has introduced itself to some of the top players in women's golf in a decidedly inhospitable manner. Angela Stanford broke a 5-hole bogey train on the front with a double bogey on the par-4 8th to open with a 43; she remains +7 through 11. Stacy Lewis birdied her 1st hole, but thanks in part to a triple on the par-4 3rd could only manage a 40; she's currently on a 5-hole bogey tain of her own to balloon to +8 through 13. Seon Hwa Lee opened with a birdieless 40 on the back and has gone from bad to worse on the front; she's now +8 through 14. Katherine Hull took a quad on the hole Lewis tripled and opened with a 42 on the front, but she's fought back to +5 after a birdie on the 11th. The JLPGA's top player in the field, Ji-Hee Lee joins Futures Tour hotshot Mina Harigae and world #2 Ya Ni Tseng at +4 (through 10, 13, and 13, respectively). There are a lot of players in the morning groups taking a lot of early damage. More on those minimizing it in updates.

[Update 1 (11:48 am): Lorena Ochoa hasn't birdied a par 5, but she's birdied 3 par 4s and a par 3 to get to -2 with 5 holes left to play on the front. She's joined for the moment by Hee Young Park, a recent KLPGA transplant who can shoot a 63 as easily as a 79, so don't expect her to hang around the top of the leaderboard all week. Right behind them are Cristie Kerr (2 birdies and a bogey in her 1st 13 holes), Anna Nordqvist (who just birdied the par-5 12th to get back under par), Eun-Hee Ji (who opened with a 33 on the back and recently bogeyed the 435-yard par-4 2nd to fall back to -1), and top-ranked Futures Tour regular Jean Reynolds (who bounced back from a bogey on the 453-yard par-4 7th with a birdie on the par-4 8th on her way to a 35 on the front). They're the only players under par among the morning pairings right now. And there are only 6 players at E, including Candie Kung, Nicole Castrale, and Amy Yang.]

[Update 2 (11:51 am): Among those hanging around near par, special invite Laura Davies may be the most exciting story. She needs to win 2 more LPGA events or 1 major to qualify for the Hall of Fame, and she needs a par on the 444-yard par-4 18th to shoot a 72. She's been up and down all season, but she already has a dramatic come-from-behind win in Australia, so never count her out. Right now she's doing it with her putter. We'll see if she can keep it up.]

[Update 3 (11:55 am): I'm glad to see Ai Miyazato fighting back from a par-bogey-double-bogey start with 2 birdies and no bogeys in her last 9 holes. She definitely has the game and the mindset to keep it right around par all week and keep herself in the mix. We'll see how resilient fellow Okinawan and LPGA rookie Mika Miyazato is--she shot a 34 on the back to get off to a great start, but is now on a 3-hole bogey train on precisely the holes her namesake went +4 over. They're tied with Paula Creamer, by the way, who has ridden the roller coaster all day. More updates after my lunch meeting is over.]

[Update 4 (2:02 pm): Most of the morning scores are in and they don't look pretty. Here's the damage, from worst to least:

Can't Win
81 Helen Alfredsson, Sophie Gustafson, Birdie Kim, Brandie Burton
80 Seon Hwa Lee, Gwadlys Nocera

Outside Chance
78 Angela Stanford, Katherine Hull, Stacy Lewis, Meg Mallon
77 Ya Ni Tseng, Ji-Hee Lee, Jeong Jang, Pat Hurst, Mina Harigae
76 Ji Young Oh, Miki Saiki

Still In It
75 Karrie Webb, Brittany Lang, Amy Yang, Mika Miyazato, Sun Ju Ahn
74 Song-Hee Kim, Ai Miyazato, Nicole Castrale, Johanna Mundy
73 Stacy Prammanasudh, Joo Mi Kim, Candace Schepperle

In the Thick of Things
72 Paula Creamer, In-Kyung Kim, Christina Kim, Laura Davies, Sun Young Yoo
71 Candie Kung, Anna Nordqvist, Eun-Hee Ji
70 Hee Young Park

Kicking Butt
69 Lorena Ochoa, Cristie Kerr, Jean Reynolds

Your leader right now is Na Yeon Choi, who's got a 3-hole birdie train going to start her round on the back.]

[Update 5 (5:05 pm): Got an update from my mom on my cell phone while I was getting my car inspected--NYC is rocking SV! She birdied 4 of her 1st 5 on the back and missed an itty bitty one on the par-3 4th to stop her streak on the front at 2. With 5 holes to play, she's -5. I'll tell you what, I also didn't expect to see Brittany Lincicome anywhere near par this week, but there she is, at -2 through 10.

Other notable scores from the morning that I missed:

78 Esther Choe
76 Hannah Jun, Cindy LaCrosse
73 Haeji Kang
72 Hye Jung Choi

For why names like these are notable in my book, check out my tournament preview. More after I pick the girls up from day care! But before I go, NYC bogeyed the long par-4 5th to fall to -4 with 4 to play. Here's hoping she doesn't finish the front as weakly as, say, Amy Yang did.]

[Update 6 (6:02 pm): Wow, I just realized that Seon Hwa Lee and Brandie Burton WDed after their rounds today, joining the LET's Martina Eberl, who did it either before or during her round.]

[Update 7 (6:11 pm): Awesome 68 from NYC today, even with those 2 bogeys in a row midway through the front (her back). Impressive 71 from Alexis Thompson, too. Will update my chart in Update 4 with afternoon scores after I make the girls dinner.]

[Update 8 (10:22 pm): Here are notable afternoon scores. Some real blow-ups late in many rounds, it seems.

Can't Win
81 Tiffany Lua
80 Jane Park
79 Meredith Duncan, Alison Walshe

Outside Chance
78 Hee-Won Han, Juli Inkster, Shiho Oyama, Minea Blomqvist, M.J. Hur
77 Jee Young Lee, Angela Park, He Yong Choi, Leta Lindley, Michele Redman, Beth Bader
76 Se Ri Pak, Akiko Fukushima, Teresa Lu, Misun Cho, Victoria Tanco, Rosie Jones

Still In It
75 Inbee Park, Hee Kyung Seo, Sandra Gal, Kyeong Bae, Amanda Blumenherst, Maria Jose Uribe, Jennie Lee
74 Suzann Pettersen, Morgan Pressel, Lindsey Wright, Shanshan Feng, Maria Hernandez
73 Yuri Fudoh, Karen Stupples, Maria Hjorth, Meaghan Francella

In the Thick of Things
72 Ji-Yai Shin, Momoko Ueda, Brittany Lincicome, Meena Lee, Jennifer Song, Azahara Munoz, Jessica Korda
71 Kristy McPherson, Young Kim, Alexis Thompson

Kicking Butt
68 Na Yeon Choi

With 83 players at +5 or better, the cut could be incredibly high this year. Looks like Saucon Valley is winning.]

[Update 9 (10:44 pm): Here's Hound Dog's 1st-round overview.]

[Update 10 (10:50 pm): Here are LPGA.com's notes and interviews.]

[Update 11 (7/10/09, 7:42 am): Dan Mirocha does a nice profile of Jean Reynolds.]

[Update 12 (7:45 am): Golfweek is also reporting that Seon Hwa Lee withdrew with a back injury.]

U.S. Women's Open Preview/Predictions/Pairings

OK, time to shift the focus from the LPGA's leadership crisis to the USGA's U.S. Women's Open at Saucon Valley's par-71 Old Course. Hound Dog is the place to go for your tournament preview and hot 20 list. I agree completely with his assessment in the former that "6740 yards makes for a long course in LPGA terms. Add to that the typical U.S. Open setup of thick rough (lots of rain in the area recently) and slick greens plus par of 71--we may not see anybody under par by the end of the day Sunday." Not only is the course long, it features long par 5s, so any long hitter who's hitting it straighter than the others will have an incredible advantage on these holes in particular. But with Saucon Valley's tiered, undulating and super-fast greens, touch and finesse will also be at a premium. In short, this is going to be a test of every aspect of everyone's games, not to mention their judgment, patience, ability to bounce back from mistakes, and overall mental focus, toughness, and endurance.

The field is impressive, even with Michelle Wie, Natalie Gulbis, Vicky Hurst, Wendy Ward, Sakura Yokomine, Miho Koga, and So Yeon Ryu either not qualifying or choosing to stay on their home tour. It's always interesting to find out how JLPGAers Yuri Fudoh, Akiko Fukushima, Ji-Hee Lee, and Miki Saiki, KLPGAers Hee Kyung Seo, Sun Ju Ahn, and He Yong Choi, LETers Gwladys Nocera and Martina Eberl, and Futures Tour regulars Jean Reynolds, Mina Harigae, Misun Cho, Alison Walshe, Hannah Jun, Esther Choe, and Libby Smith will fare against new pros like Amanda Blumenherst, Maria Hernandez, Jennie Lee, Cindy LaCrosse, and Maria Jose Uribe, as well as much-heralded amateurs like Jennifer Song, Kimberly Kim, Alexis Thompson, Victoria Tanco, Azahara Munoz and Tiffany Lua. The Open has always been where the present and future of women's professional golf meet and this year is no different.

Golf Observer's historical stats show how players have done at previous Opens, but Daniel Wexler's odds, Ryan Ballengee's picks, and Jeff Skinner's rundown of top contenders are also worth a close look. In this week's PakPicker, I'll take some wild guesses:

1. Tseng
2. Shin Ji-Yai
3. Pettersen
4. Stanford Angela
5. Wright
6. McPherson
7. Kim Song-Hee
8. Kerr
9. Ochoa
10. Lang
11. Lee Seon Hwa
12. Pressel

Alts: Miyazato Ai, Pak Se Ri, Lee Jee Young

It was difficult not to pull the trigger on In-Kyung Kim, Paula Creamer, Na Yeon Choi, Inbee Park, Jane Park, Amy Yang, and Sun Young Yoo, and when you look at the pairings, you'll probably find a dozen more who could win this thing. Since just about every one of them has the quality of a typical prime-time pairing, I'll just list the 12 I'd be most interested in following were I to drive down to Bethlehem this Thursday or Friday.

Th, 8:06 AM, #1; F, 1:36 PM, #10
Karrie Webb
Pat Hurst
Ai Miyazato

Th, 7:44 AM, #1; F, 1:14 PM, #10
Mina Harigae
Stacy Lewis
Sun Young Yoo

Th, 1:25 PM, #1; F, 7:55 AM, #10
Morgan Pressel
Maria Jose Uribe
Jane Park

Th, 7:55 AM, #10; F, 1:25 PM, #1
Paula Creamer
In-Kyung Kim
Lorena Ochoa

Th, 1:47 PM, #10; F, 8:17 AM, #1
Ji-Yai Shin
Amanda Blumenherst
Inbee Park

Th, 1:03 PM, #10: F, 7:33 AM, #1
Suzann Pettersen
Na Yeon Choi
Lindsey Wright

Th, 7:55 AM, #1; F, 1:25 PM, #10
Cristie Kerr
Anna Nordqvist
Ya Ni Tseng

Th, 7:33 AM, #10; F, 1:03 PM, #1
Christina Kim
Martina Eberl
Seon Hwa Lee

Th, 8:17 AM, #1; F, 1:47 PM, #10
Song-Hee Kim
Katherine Hull
Angela Stanford

Th, 8:06 AM, #10; F, 1:36 PM, #1
Mika Miyazato
Eun-Hee Ji
Stacy Prammanasudh

Th, 1:14 PM, #10; F, 7:44 AM, #1
Juli Inkster
Azahara Munoz
Se Ri Pak

Th, 1:36 PM, #1; F, 8:06 AM, #10
Kristy McPherson
Yuri Fudoh
Hee-Won Han

Time to get psyched for some great golf and even better competition!

[Update 1 (12:57 pm): Congratulations to Mika Miyazato for getting a sponsor exemption into the Evian Masters.]

[Update 2 (3:48 pm): Here are the Golfweek reporters' picks. Be sure to check out their complete coverage along with Golf Channel's Shag Bag blog, where Randall Mell is joined by David Allen. Should be a good competition.]

[Update 3 (8:12 pm): Jay Busbee has his 5 to watch and Ryan Ballengee introduces Waggle Room's Open correspondent.]

[Update 4 (7/9/09, 8:42 am): Here are Stephanie Wei's picks.]

[Update 5 (5:08 pm): Jeff Skinner comes through with a 2nd Open preview, this one with a predominant focus on Stacy Lewis, who struggled in the morning today.]

Whither the LPGA? Or, the Michelle Wie Effect, Revisited

There's been a lot going on off the course in LPGA-land as we head into the U.S. Women's Open. For those who need catching up, here's a run-down. What follows it are some thoughts on the issues facing the tour, and some advice.

Last week, Ryan Ballengee (following up on Beth Ann Baldry) laid out the effects of a terrible economy--and what's looking more and more like a terrible strategy from Commissioner Carolyn Bivens and company--on this year's and next year's schedule. Hound Dog considered its repercussions on the tour's rank-and-file. Emily Kay worried that even great play and great competition on the course can't make up for what's been happening off the course. John Strege collected Ron Sirak's tweets on the LPGA's gloomy outlook. Brent Kelley passed along the million-dollar question from a fellow about.com guide, "Is the LPGA dying?" (I put my own 2 cents in on the discussion forum and I encourage you to, too.) And Dave Andrews surveyed the most recent writings by Jim Gorant and the SI guys. In response (and anticipation of some of these posts), Stephanie Wei suggested we all take a chill pill, stop blaming the Biv, and wait for the tour to bounce back, even if it takes a few years.

But then the bombshell hit. Ryan Ballengee (again following up on a Baldry story) summarized the most recent round of now-confirmed rumors--that prominent players have signed a letter demanding Bivens's resignation--and laid out his own vision for the LPGA's future. Jeff Skinner thoughtfully linked the crisis at the LPGA with the debate over the USGA's new entrance criteria for this year's U.S. Women's Open.

So that's where we stand right now. I should have known something big was going on last week when I noted signs of desperation leaking out from LPGA HQ. Remember the heat they were taking at the start of the season for deciding not to go out of their way to hype Michelle Wie? Well, it turns out she may not have been crucial to their media strategy, but all along they were counting on the Michelle Wie effect to get sponsors, tournament organizers, and television executives committed to the tour. Just listen to David Higdon spinning wildly in the wake of the collapse of the Kapalua event:

"Why do we have three tournaments in Mexico? Players drive our business," said Higdon, referring to the draw of top-ranked Lorena Ochoa. "If Michelle Wie took off, the business model will probably change a little bit more and we'll be fielding more calls and options.... You look at how amazing Tiger Woods has been and what a draw he is. Of our players, Michelle Wie has that quality," Higdon said. "So we hope that she can develop because she already has that strong following. If she turns into a great player, it will be amazing for the sport...and those are the kinds of things that will play in Hawaii's favor down the road."

I can imagine how hard it has been to sell a bunch of ifs in this economy. If this is what Mission 2010 (or is it Vision 2010?) is built on, if this is the reason the LPGA brass decided to have so many tournament contracts come up for negotiation simultaneously, if this is why Bivens decided to take such a huge gamble, then, wow, she deserves everything she gets. Because this strategy had to have been crafted when Wie was injured, playing terribly, and getting lambasted for it. And she was pitching it while Wie was playing fine for a rookie, but only showing flashes of brilliance. In fact, it's only in the last couple of weeks that Wie has really begun to impress me, as she's played much better than I expected her to on courses that don't suit her game as it stands.

And that's precisely where things get very interesting. Is Wie on the verge of breaking through for her 1st win since 2003, as her supporters suggest? You can see now why the LPGA brass have delayed serious negotiations with tournament organizers as long as they possibly could, right? They're literally waiting to see what happens if the hypotheticals that ground their business strategy come true.

But whoever emerges as the LPGA commissioner after the ongoing power struggle plays out--and it could well be Bivens herself--won't have the luxury of waiting. No matter who sits in the commissioner's seat, the same issues will be facing the LPGA.

The Players

The LPGA attracts the vast majority of the best professional women golfers on the planet. Sure, a handful of KLPGA and LET players could do well on tour, and maybe more than a dozen of the JLPGA's finest, as well. Some might even be top 20 material on the LPGA, or better. Therein lies the LPGA's promise, and its curse. If even Lorena Ochoa has been finding it difficult over the last year to stay ahead of the curve, it's pretty safe to say what's defined professional golf for many fans' and sports writers' memory--the Annika Era, the Tiger Era, the Lorena Era--is coming to a close. Everyone is going to have to adjust to the idea that rivalries, not a single dominant player, are the wave of the future in women's professional golf. And it goes beyond the Big 6 I focused on last week. When the last 2 1st-time winners on tour didn't even make my top 20 of those seeking their 1st win as an LPGA member, the tour, the media, and the fans are going to have to learn a lot--and quickly--about a much wider range of players than they're used to.

But the LPGA is so much better positioned now than they were in the mid-to-late '90s, when new stars Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, and Se Ri Pak joined a resurgent Juli Inkster as the tour's Big 4. Back then, the media worried that Sorensam and Webb were too reserved to connect with existing fans or make new ones and that Americans wouldn't warm up to the furriners stealing their tour. Today, even taking into account that anti-Asian prejudice and ignorance of Asia is exponentially greater even today than what the Swedish and Australian Hall of Famers had to negotiate last decade, the fact is that information technology and social networking have made it possible for players and the tour to take the initiative. They can help shape the media's coverage and even bypass it entirely. They can reach out to bloggers like Hound Dog, Happy Fan, Golf Girl, Ryan Ballengee, Bill Jempty, and Stephanie Wei (not to mention others I follow in the Mostly Harmless Golfarama sidebar). They can speak directly to fans through facebook, twitter, and their own blogs. It's going to take some work and some creativity to take full advantage of these possibilities, but it can be done.

And time is on their side. There's a global youth movement changing the face of women's professional golf. Who would have predicted in 2006 that Ya Ni Tseng and Ji-Yai Shin would have gotten multiple LPGA wins before Michelle Wie? Who knows who the LPGA's elite will be in 2012? And who knows what kind of schedules they'll put together?

The Schedule

As I've already noted, we can expect to see more players with "dual citizenship" and more choices where to play any given week in the world of women's golf. Sometimes that can lead to strange decisions, as in the recent cases of Ai Miyazato and Sakura Yokomine each deciding to skip an LPGA major to play on the JLPGA. But overall it helps to grow the game.

And the players are ahead of the tours on this. With the LPGA's plans for a U.S. network deal in shambles, it's about time to revisit an idea I floated back in February: shore up the spring schedule by co-sponsoring events in Australia and Asia with the JLPGA, KLPGA, LET, and ALPG and shore up the spring and summer schedule in the U.S. by keying fees for tournament sponsors and organizers to market and population sizes. The only thing that's really changed since then is the need to repair relationships with long-running events and communities that have been put off by Bivens's hardball tactics. Whether it's a newly-contrite and flexible Bivens doing that, or a player-commissioner like Juli Inkster, or someone else entirely (what do you say, Annika?) matters less to me than a commitment by the tour to keep the Corning, Wegmans, and Farr going, reach out to Shoprite, and lower the start-up costs for those wanting to bring the LPGA to smaller cities with strong golfing communities.

To keep the best players committed to the LPGA, the tour brass ought to preserve old ADT Championship's qualifying criteria and format for the season-ending Tour Championship (unless, of course, they can get ADT back or find someone else to start the 2011 season off with a bang). Sure, they could expand the number of qualifiers in each half of the season to, say, winners of any LPGA event and those in the top 30 on the money list, and offer 4 more spots for the highest on the season-long money list who haven't already qualified, to expand the initial field from 32 to 64. And if they started on a Wednesday, they could use match play on Saturday to winnow the Sweet 16 down to an Elite 8 playing 18 holes of stroke play on Sunday for the $1M prize. Rather than fearing the "any given round" vagaries of match play and a shootout, they could use the uncertainty and surprises to introduce new players to new audiences. After all, if it were a season-opening event, they would have the entire off-season to hype it up and to prepare bite-size profiles of each of the competitors (and have more ready to go when dark horses emerge from the pack).

The chance to qualify for and compete for such a big prize and get such exposure would provide even more incentive for the world's best female pros to make the LPGA their tour of choice. No matter how long it takes for Michelle Wie to win once or repeatedly on the LPGA, following this plan would ensure that more media and fans would come to appreciate the meaning and value of her being able to defeat the world's best.

[Update 1 (11:31 am): Thanks for the link over at Devil Ball Golf. If you're not in the habit of reading comments there, or just want an executive summary of my own thoughts on where the LPGA has to go, I had to respond to Jay's teaser set-up, "Changes must come, sooner rather than later, and the one person who could save the entire organization is ... Michelle Wie? Read on and see if you agree." Here it is:

To be clear, I believe Bivens has bet the house on Wie--and who knows, the bet may still pay off if she can put together 4 good rounds. But I don't think the LPGA has the luxury of waiting for this to happen. Could be later this season. Could be next. Could take longer. (Me, I'm still waiting and rooting for Ai Miyazato [14 JLPGA wins] to get that 1st LPGA win, and she's in her 4th year on tour. ) Waiting and hoping is not a viable business model in this economy. So I lay out areas where the LPGA ought to rethink their tactics and strategy, short-run and long-term. Even if Wie starts winning, I'm not at all confident she can do for the LPGA what Tiger did for the PGA. So in my book, Wie is part of the answer, not the answer. No single player is going to be the answer.

Also, I encourage you to check out Waggle Room regular courtgolf's thoughtful response to (and critique of) this post in the comments here--and join in!]

[Update 2 (11:45 am): My U.S. Women's Open preview goes live at midnight. Until then, I recommend Golfweek's coverage and Golf Channel's blogging over at Shag Bag.]

[Update 3 (2:12 pm): Dave Seanor speculates on a Bivens successor and wonders whether IMG or the PGA will be the LPGA's white knight. I think the former is premature: Bivens is a hardball negotiator and isn't likely to be intimidated even by Hall of Famers playing hardball with her; it's going to take everyone on the LPGA Player Executive Committee acting in concert to oust her; and a negotiated settlement is just as likely as any other outcome, particularly with the money at stake to terminate her contract. On the latter, I don't see why the LPGA needs a white knight. More coordination with other major women's tours will handle the spring and more flexibility with tournament organizers will handle the summer and the fall. Bivens's bullishness on the LPGA for the long term is well-founded. All the LPGA has to do is survive for the next few years and let the players speak for themselves on and off the course. Stephanie Wei was absolutely right to stress that now is the time to lay the foundation for future growth.]

[Update 4 (4:11 pm): Steve Elling isn't happy with Cristie Kerr's refusal to speak about the Bivens imbroglio. I can understand the logic of the players leaking their grievances this week--Independence Day symbolism, media attention on the LPGA b/c of the U.S. Women's Open, giving Bivens a taste of her own medicine--but this is sure going to make it difficult for the players and the media to focus on the actual tournament at hand, particularly when writers like Seanor and Elling usually have so much trouble focusing in the first place. Plus, it's a potentially divisive issue heading into the Solheim Cup. I have to wonder if it would have been better to air the concerns privately and, if Bivens hadn't shown flexibility, go public to the Board of Directors after the Cup. Yes, that would have been a risky strategy, as well, particularly if the Wegmans and Farr organizers decided to call Bivens's bluff in the mean time. But it would have given the dissidents more time to lobby their peers and make sure the BOD voted their way. Given all the risks to going forward now, I have to believe the players thought the rewards were both attainable and worth it.]

[Update 5 (5:02 pm): Gotta clear up a misconception I'm seeing all over--it's not that the LPGA isn't marketing a wider range of players than ever before (just check out LPGA.com) or doing a better job of it (although they really gotta make every player's page a portal for finding out more than golf, like, say, links to their web sites, good articles on them from all over the web, and photos/videos, as well as for communicating with them). It's that their marketing's been most successful with local media--yet these are the very people who won't be writing on the LPGA if it no longer comes to their region. Yet another reason the LPGA needs small-to-mid-market events.]

[Update 6 (5:09 pm): Elling, take note. Instead of just emoting, Ron Sirak did some old-fashioned reporting, giving much-needed context on the timing of the dissidents' letter, reasons for everyone's (HQ as well as players) silence, and a sense of how the players on the Executive Committee may vote (5-2 in favor of the dissidents).]

[Update 7 (7:44 pm): I must be a bad writer; Stephanie Wei misreads my post in a similar way as Jay Busbee did, on the way to expressing more enthusiasm for Seanor's PGA buyout scenario than I have. So let me try to be clearer here: it's not that I think betting the farm that Wie would rapidly become a rainmaker vis a vis sponsors was a good idea; sure, it could still work out if Wie rocks the European swing and qualifies for the Solheim Cup (or is a captain's pick and plays great), but, man, what a risk! You can see the same risk-taking mentality in the decision to double down during a bad economy and pressure tournament organizers and sponsors to pony up more (and risk giving less). While I admire that bravado at some level, the tour could well be headed for an epic fail if Bivens continues to stick to her guns. I don't care who's in charge; I want to see a change in tactics and strategy from LPGA HQ.]

[Update 8 (7/8/09, 10:31 am): Baldry has more news; read it to see why a Christina Kim-Suzann Pettersen singles match in the Solheim Cup woud have an extra spark to it.]

[Update 9 (10:39 am): Joe Juliano reports that Helen Alfredsson (who's on the LPGA Board of Directors) knew nothing about this. The plot thickens.]

[Update 10 (11:41 am): Ryan Ballengee (responding in part to Seanor) thinks through the short term if Bivens were to step down or be forced out.]

[Update 11 (8:08 pm): More thoughts from Stephanie Wei, links from Geoff Shackelford, and a preview of the Open itself from yours truly.]

[Update 12 (7/9/09, 2:18 pm): I'm not blogging on Bivensgate until after the Open, but if Shackelford's linkage isn't enough for you, here's some more from Ryan Ballengee. BTW, the LPGA has issued a statement explaining their no-statement policy.]

[Update 13 (6:24 pm): Here's a more thoughtful Steve Elling.]

[Update 14 (10:37 pm): Whoops, Sirak trumps Elling, again.]

[Update 15 (10:42 pm): Hound Dog is back from vacation and has a response to Baldry's latest.]

If You Were Ashleigh Simon, What Would You Get Eunjung Yi?

From LPGA.com's news and notes for this week:

The 2009 Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic Presented by Kroger once again served as the U.S.-based qualifier for the LPGA Tour's final major of the season, the RICOH Women's British Open. Sixty-five players registered to try to qualify and at the end of 36 holes of competition it looked like Sarah Kemp, Eunjung Yi, Kris Tschetter, Jin Joo Hong and Allison Hanna-Williams were on their way to England. However, since Yi won the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, she became eligible for the RICOH Women's British Open under Category 7G (winners of any LPGA Tour event in 2009), which opened one more spot from the qualifier. Since Ashleigh Simon and Sung Ah Yim were tied for sixth in the qualifying spots at the conclusion of the first 36 holes of play, their third round scores would serve as the tie breaker. Simon (71) was one stroke better than Yim (72) for the third round and earned a spot in the 2009 RICOH Women's British Open.

Just what would be an appropriate gift from Simon to Yi in this case?

Some LPGA Stats of Interest

Got some better posts cooking for later this week, but for now I want to point out a few things I noticed while checking out the LPGA.com stats pages.

Guess who leads the tour in birdies per round?

Michelle Wie 4.23
Lorena Ochoa, In-Kyung Kim 4.08
Suzann Pettersen, Song-Hee Kim 4.06
Ya Ni Tseng 4.04
Ji-Yai Shin 4.00

There are usually only a couple of players breaking the 4.00 barrier at the end of the season each year on the LPGA. We should see these averages drop as the tour moves on to tougher courses over the next few weeks, but with Cristie Kerr lurking at 3.91, who knows how many we'll have in Ochoa/Sorenstam territory by the end of 2009?

How about percentage of rounds under par?

Angela Stanford 74.4%
Ji-Yai Shin 73.5%
Cristie Kerr 72.2%
Ya Ni Tseng 68.5%
Michelle Wie 67.4%
Ai Miyazato 66.0%
In-Kyung Kim 65.3%
Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer 64.1%
Lindsey Wright 63.0%
Suzann Pettersen, Song-Hee Kim 61.2%

Once again, Ochoa has a lot of company--and a lot of ground to make up. Ditto in rounds in the 60s:

Ya Ni Tseng 24
Ji-Yai Shin 23
Suzann Pettersen, Song-Hee Kim 21
Cristie Kerr, Angela Stanford 20
Lorena Ochoa 19
Brittany Lang, Michelle Wie 18

But Ochoa still leads (barely) in scoring average:

Lorena Ochoa 69.77
Ya Ni Tseng 69.89
Cristie Kerr 69.98
Angela Stanford 70.09
Ji-Yai Shin 70.10

So it's no wonder the Player of the Year race is so close:

Ji-Ya Shin 90
Ya Ni Tseng 82
Lorena Ochoa, Cristie Kerr 81
Angela Stanford 70

With the Solheim Cup so close, it's worth noting the big gap between #8 Morgan Pressel (250 points) and the chase pack. Of course, with double points at majors, anyone could move up in a big way over the last 3 events before the captain's picks are made. Here are those fighting for the last 2 automatic spots and their point totals:

Natalie Gulbis 201
Brittany Lincicome 199

Laura Diaz 177 (the weekend at the Farr really cost her)
Stacy Prammanasudh 170
Pat Hurst 164
Juli Inkster 152
Jane Park 141
Michelle Wie 133.5
Wendy Ward 132.5

Jamie Farr Classic/Se Ri Pak Shootout Sunday: Attaaaaack!!

With Eunjung Yi holding a 4-shot lead on playing partner Song-Hee Kim and Morgan Pressel at the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic and the next 7 players 6 back at -12, everyone else is going to have to go super-low to join or catch them. Among those back in the pack, Minea Blomqvist is showing how to do it, with 3 birdies in her 1st 5 holes to climb to -6 for the tournament. That's on pace to better Hye Jung Choi's 32 earlier this morning on the par-34 front side at Highland Meadows. But Eva Dahloff presents a cautionary tale for everyone chasing Yi. After making birdies on 4 of her 1st 5 holes, she's since offset her only other birdie with a bogey and just took a double on the par-4 12th to fall back to -2 on the day and -1 for the tournament.

[Update 1 (10:10 am): Nice bounceback birdie by Dahloff on the 13th. BTW, there's a great chance for everyone who made the cut to end the tournament under par. Right now, Anna Rawson and Jeanne Cho-Hunicke are the only players at E overall.]

[Update 2 (10:18 am): Some very interesting pairings today. Momoko Ueda and Shiho Oyama go off together at 11:09 am, just like old times on the JLPGA. Anna Nordqvist and Sophie Gustafson follow them. Jane and Inbee Park (no relation, ;) ) can relive their junior golf days at 12:05 pm. Jennifer Rosales and Michelle Wie follow them 3 groups later. Moira Dunn gets to play with someone even more of a veteran than she is, the amazing Helen Alfredsson, at 1:17 pm, right in front of Lorena Ochoa and Natalie Gulbis. And from then on, you have those at -12 or better. I'd be tempted to pick up the Ya Ni Tseng-Shanshan Feng pairing on the 10th if I were in Toledo, after following Ueda and Oyama for the front and watching everyone between them come through the 9th green.]

[Update 3 (10:25 am): Blomqvist just birdied the par-5 7th.]

[Update 4 (10:33 am): Scoring may be tougher today. Of the 30 or so players now on the course, only the 3 I've mentioned already are doing better than -1 on their day thus far.]

[Update 5 (10:48 am): Dahloff is now -4 w/the 2 closing par 5s to go. Choi is -4 through 14. And Blomqvist shot a 30 on the front. Plus, 2 of my picks are off to good starts: Angela Stanford is -2 through 6 and Na Yeon Choi has bounced back from a 1st-hole bogey with 3 birdies in her last 4 holes. Both are at -6 for the tournament right now.]

[Update 6 (11:12 am): The 1st had been Hee-Won Han's nemesis this weekend: she doubled it yesterday and bogeyed it today. But she's rattled off 3 birdies in a row since then to climb to -8 for the tournament.]

[Update 7 (11:30 am): Birdie Kim birdied the 2nd and 3rd to join Han at -8. Irene Cho shot a 32 on the front to join Stanford at -6. But Choi and Dahloff could only manage 67s.]

[Update 8 (4:10 pm): Wow, step away to eat lunch, do some chores, and try (unsuccessfully) to get the girls to nap, and you miss a lot! Let me try to cath up on what's been happening while I've been out of the loop. Minea Blomqvist ended up with a 66, but she needed 2 birdies in her last 3 holes to get there, despite her opening 30. That triple on the 11th yesterday cost her a top 30; she finishes at -8, tied with Na Yeon Choi, who was the 1st player to match Hye Jung Choi's and Dahloff's 67s, but she went 31-36 to do it and only birdied 1 of 3 par 5s. Kim ended up shooting a 69 that puts her at T30 right now, while Stanford's matching score may be good enough to get her a top 50. And Irene Cho shot a 68 that guarantees her a top 50. At least Hee-Won Han shot a 67 that gt her to -10 for the tournament, T25 right now, but I can't imagine she's happy going 30-37 to do it. Looks like the back is playing tough today.]

[Update 9 (4:18 pm): Kyeong Bae and Karine Icher also shot 67s to join Han at -10, the former by riding the roller coaster all day (the Senior Standout birdie machine had 7 of them today), the latter by coming on strong on the back. But they got leapfrogged by Junior Mint Eun-Hee Ji, who shot a bogey-free 65, and Se Ri Pak, who made 7 birdies on the way to her 66. Anna Nordqvist shot a 66 of her own, thanks to 6 birdies in her last 10 holes--4 of them coming in her last 6--to jump to -12. We still haven't gotten to the top-10 contenders, though.]

[Update 10 (4:24 pm): Michelle Wie came on strong with 7 birdies in her last 10 holes to shoot a 64 that makes her the leader in the clubhouse at -16. But I'm sure the press will focus on her par on the 18th that broke a 4-hole birdie streak. Yes, she had trouble on 18 all week, but this is another strong--and, at least for me, unexpected--result from Wie. She finishes 2 shots ahead of Lindsey Wright, who shot a bogey-free 65 today, and 3 shots ahead of Allison Fouch, whose 65 came courtesy of 7 birdies in her last 11 holes. Maybe late charges aren't out of the question on Highland Meadowns today, eh?]

[Update 11 (4:34 pm): Next let's devote an update to those who shot themselves out of contention today. Moira Dunn is +4 through 16 and hemorraghing money all the way, while Shanshan Feng is +4 through 12; the former is fighting for a top 50, while the latter for a top 30. Ouch. Ji-Yai Shin is +1 through 15 and fighting to stay in the top 20. She's all the way back at -11 with Cristie Kerr, Natalie Gulbis, and Helen Alfredsson. No, wait, Gulbis bogeyed the 16th to fall back to 10. Little is going right for Song-Hee Kim, either, as she's +1 through 11. Failing to make charges today have been Lorena Ochoa (-2 through 16, she's T10 at -13 right now), Ya Ni Tseng (-2 through 13 and -14 for the tournament), and Seon Hwa Lee and Suzann Pettersen (-2 through 14 and also -14, tied with Sarah Kemp, who's made 4 birdies but 2 bogeys through 15 holes). They're in danger of being leapfrogged by Nicole Castrale, who needs a birdie on 18 for a 66 that would get her to -15.]

[Update 12 (4:42 pm): Finally it's time to get to the top of the leaderboard. Eunjung Yi birdied 2 and 3 to get to -20 for the tournament, but bogeyed the 9th to fall back to -19 and has stayed there through the 12th. Morgan Pressel birdied the 8th, 9th, and 10th to get to -17, so she's 2 shots back as they play the 13th. Then it's Wie at -16, Suzann Pettersen and Seon Hwa Lee at -15 through 14 (apparently they just caught a mistake on the LPGA.com site!), and Wright and Castrale (who didn't birdie 18) T6 at -14. No, wait, Pressel just bogeyed the par-4 13th. Yi has a 3-shot lead on her and a 4-shot lead on Lee and Pettersen with 6 left for her to play.]

[Update 13 (4:48 pm): Yi parred 13 while Pettersen bogeyed 15 and Lee parred it. Kemp, Pettersen, Tseng, and Kim are running out of holes to make up their 5-shot deficit. But the middle 2 at least could potentially have 2 eagle opportunities on their last 2 holes, so they won't need much help from Yi if they play great golf in the time they have left today.]

[Update 13 (4:52 pm): Tseng birdied 15 to pull even with Lee--and Pressel, who just bogeyed her 2nd in a row--and 4 behind Yi.]

[Update 14 (4:55 pm): Meaghan Francella is walking with Pressel and live-blogging her round. I won't call out the LPGA twitterites who are watching the PGA or driving to Bethlehem for the U.S. Women's Open.]

[Update 15 (5:01 pm): Yi parred 14, while Pettersen bogeyed her 2nd in a row to fall 6 back.]

[Update 16 (5:07 pm): Pressel stopped the bleeding with a par on 15, but she really needs to bear down on the last 3. Ochoa's walkoff birdie brings her to -14, good enough for T6 now. Kerr birdied 17 but not 18 to get to -12, T17 right now. BTW, Dunn's birdieless 75 will put her at T49. 74s by Jin Joo Hong and Russy Gulyanamitta also cost them a lot of money, as did 72s by Laura Diaz, Jane Park, and Sun Young Yoo.]

[Update 17 (5:11 pm): Yi keeps making pars and her chasers keep failing to put any pressure on her. Let's see how Lee, Tseng, and Pressel do on the par 5s.]

[Update 18 (5:18 pm): Well, Pressel has some momentum heading into them. Found out about her birdie from a Francella tweet. Lee couldn't birdie 17, though. So she just got caught at -15 by a Song-Hee Kim birdie on 15. Pettersen birdied 17 to get back to -14.]

[Update 19 (5:21 pm): Bogey on 18 gives Sarah Kemp a closing 39 that dropped her all the way back to T12. BTW, Final Round Queen Ji-Yai Shin needed her walkoff birdie just to climb back to E for the day; she joins Kerr at T17.]

[Update 20 (5:23 pm): Tseng couldn't birdie 17, either.]

[Update 21 (5:30 pm): Uh-oh! Yi made her 2nd bogey since the 9th hole to drop back to -18 with the 2 par 5s left to play. Lee's walkoff birdie on 18 ties her with Wie for leader in the clubhouse at -16. Pettersen made her 2nd birdie in a row to finish T6 at -15. I wouldn't mind seeing Yi get her 1st win, but a playoff between Wie and Lee would be awesome!]

[Update 22 (5:33 pm): Scratch that! A Pressel eagle on 17 pulls her into a tie for the lead with Yi!! Song-Hee Kim is the only one at -16 still out on the course.]

[Update 23 (5:41 pm): Like so many before her, Yi could only par 17, but Kim birdied it to cut the deficit to 1. Pressel needs to birdie 18 to put some pressure on Yi and distance on Kim.]

[Update 24 (5:46 pm): Pressel couldn't do it. So she's the leader in the clubhouse at -18, waiting to see if Kim can tie her and Yi can beat her. It's enough to make me wish I had cable--or a working tv!]

[Update 25 (5:58 pm): Of the players who broke 70 each day at Highland Meadows, Pressel went 64-68-67-67, Pettersen went 65-69-67-68, Tseng went 68-68-65-68, and Ochoa went 67-68-67-68, and Janice Moodie went 67-69-67-68. But only Presse went low enough to catch Eunjung Yi. Pressel's hit 12 more fairways and 10 more greens than Yi, but 10 more putts. Still waiting to see it Kim will make it a 3-some.]

[Update 26 (6:00 pm): Nope, Kim bogeyed 18 to fall back to T3 at -16.]

[Update 27 (6:06 pm): Looking at Ai Miyazato's card, seems like her putter let her down this week, especially today when she needed to go super-low. But if she can figure out Saucon Valley's greens, watch out for her next week!]

[Update 28 (6:09 pm): LPGA.com says Pressel and Yi are starting on 18.]

[Update 29 (6:11 pm): Ron Sirak tweeted that Pressel's eagle on 17 was a hole-out from the fairway. How long, I wonder?]

[Update 30 (6:17 pm): Ouch. LPGA.com tweets that Pressel has a 25-footer and Yi a 12-footer. So much for Pressel's better ballstriking this week, eh?]

[Update 31 (6:19 pm): Putt for dough, indeed! Yi cans it for the win!]

[Update 32 (6:21 pm): Here's Ron Sirak's tweet of the winning putt.]

[Update 33 (7:03 pm): Yi qualified for the Women's British Open after 36 holes and the U.S. Women's Open after 73. Now that's a great week!]

[Update 34 (7/6/09, 2:04 pm): Hound Dog says the playoff started on 17 and that Pressel's eagle was from about 75 yards out.]

Jamie Farr Classic/Se Ri Pak Shootout Saturday: Go Low or Get Out of the Way

The early pairings have shown that there are low rounds to be had for the leaders of the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic. Mikaela Parmlid's amazing 10-birdie 62 lead the way--and made her the leader in the clubhouse at -12--but Sun Young Yoo (65), Jennifer Rosales (65), Shi Hyun Ahn (65), Jimin Jeong (66), Candie Kung (66), and Allison Fouch (66) showed that there are birdie opportunities galore at Highland Meadows today.

And some of the leaders have made early moves. Lorena Ochoa has birdied 4 of her 1st 6 holes and Song-Hee Kim 4 of her 1st 7 to pull within a shot of Parmlid. Jin Joo Hong got on the birdie train for 3 holes in a row early in her round to get within 2 of the lead. And there are 15 players at -9 or better right now. Back with updates after we run some errands!

[Update 1 (4:17 pm): Wow, never expected Eunjung Yi to be the one to surpass Parmlid, but with 8 birdies and an eagle on the par-4 10th, her 61 brings her to -18. Kinda makes Song-Hee Kim's 64 look, well, just good enough for 2nd right now, 4 shots back. Ochoa's 67 and Hong's 68 are downright disappointing, putting them at T11 (7 back, with Natalie Gulbis) and T13 (8 back) right now. With 21 golfers double digits under par, you know there was some great golf in the afternoon, though. Ya Ni Tseng's and Shanshan Feng's 65s pulled them even with Parmlid, Suzann Pettersen (67), and Ji-Yai Shi (68), 6 shots back. Cristie Kerr, Helen Alfredsson, Moira Dunn, and Russy Gulyanamitta all shot 66s to join the logjam at -10. Still out on the course are Seon Hwa Lee (-3 through 17) and Morgan Pressel (-4 through 17), as well as Sarah Kemp (-2 through 16) and Laura Diaz (+3 through 16).]

[Update 2 (4:26 pm): Just amazed that Kim eagled 17 for her bogey-free 64 and lost so much ground to the leader. And that Ochoa couldn't make a single birdie the rest of the way, including going 0 for 3 on the par 5s at Highland Meadows. And that Michelle Wie started so slow but fought back to a 71, which leaves her at -9 with Jee Young Lee (T22). She's going to need to go way low tomorrow to get those Solheim Cup points she so desperately needs. She's only 1-up on Jane Park right now, got passed by Nicole Castrale, Wendy Ward, Kerr, and Dunn, and lost ground to Pressel.]

[Update 3 (4:33 pm): Seon Hwa Lee extended her bogey-free run to 54 holes, but I'll bet she wishes those last 2 pars on the closing par 5s at Highland Meadows had been birdies or better. She ended up at -12. Like Ochoa and Lee, Morgan Pressel also went 0 for 3 on the par 5s today, so she stayed at -14. Kemp can join Pressel and Kim at -14 with a birdie on 18.]

[Update 4 (4:47 pm): Yi established her 9-hole scoring record with a 30, on the front, then tied it with a 31 on the back, to surpass her previous LPGA-low round by 5 shots. Back in my April Super Soph ranking, I had demoted her from her previous position at the top of the "on the bottom, looking up" group after a bad start to the season, even though at the end of last season I had noted that she

Had the best LPGA stats of this group, but a final-round 74 at Q-School dropped her to T44, ensuring that she wouldn't improve on her (high) Category 15 status. Hound Dog ranks her right next to Paula Creamer in total driving, so if she can improve on her approach shots and putting, watch out for her in '09.

Even with her bad season thus far, she still has moved up from #15 to #11 in her class.]

[Update 5 (4:50 pm): Unfortunately for Yi's #14-ranked classmate Sarah Kemp, her final-hole bogey gives her a +2 finish over her last holes, dropping her to -12. #10-ranked Jimin Jeong shot a 66 that vaulted her to -8, tied with Laura Diaz, who at least parred the hole for a birdie-less 74 (T24).]

[Update 6 (11:24 pm): Good story for the AP by Rusty Miller, although it would be nice to spell Parmlid's name right.]

[Update 7 (11:30 pm): Miller was lifting most of his player quotes from LPGA.com's notes and interviews page.]

[Update 8 (7/5/09, 12:04 am): Here are highlights from a local Toledo broadcast:



Kemp, Parmlid, Yi--who'da thunk the lowest rounds of the tournament would come from that trio?]

[Update 9 (9:54 am): If you're not reading the Toledo Blade's coverage of what may be the last Farr, you're missing out on something special.]

Jamie Farr Classic/Se Ri Pak Shootout Friday: The Stakes Are High

Rusty Miller does a better job than usual for an AP writer of giving a sense of how many golfers are in the hunt at the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, but he's still no Hound Dog. As good a snapshot as the 2 of them give, though, it's worth reviewing some of the bigger stories coming out of this event that they only touch on or miss entirely.

U.S. Women's Open Qualifier

If this week's winner isn't already qualified for the U.S. Women's Open, she gets into the field at Saucon Valley next week. Not just Michelle Wie (69, T7, -8, after a weak double on the par-5 18th) and Natalie Gulbis (65, T4, -9) have a lot at stake this weekend, then, but also Super Sophs Sarah Kemp (63, T1, -11) and Eunjung Yi (66, T7, -8), not to mention Allison Hanna-Williams (68, T13, -7) and Il Mi Chung (68, T21, -6).

Women's British Open Qualifier

The Farr is the U.S. qualifier for the Women's British Open, but only LPGA members are eligible to be counted for the top 5 among those not already in the field for the year's final major. Hound Dog noted that Sarah Kemp is the 1st of these qualifiers, while LPGA.com also lists the other 4 players: Eunjung Yi, Kris Tschetter, Jin Joo Hong, and Allison Hanna-Williams. Moira Dunn almost repeated her feat of qualifying for the WBO at the Farr for the 2nd year in a row, but her bogey-free 67 was sunk by yesterday's closing 37 on the front side. Wonder if she'll try the final qualifying round?

The Race for the Solheim Cup

With Kristy McPherson (6th in points to join the U.S. side with 276) and Brittany Lincicome (10th with 199 points) missing the cut, there are great opportunities for Brittany Lang (4th with 288 points, but only T66 after making the cut on the dot with a 68 that brought her to -2), Nicole Castrale (5th with 278 points and T21 at -6, thanks to a hot 66 today), Christina Kim (7th with 255 points and T45 after a 68 brought her to -4 for the tournament), Morgan Pressel (8th with 220 points and in the hunt again after a 68 brought her to solo 3rd at -10), and Natalie Gulbis (9th with 201 points and 2 shots off the lead) to consolidate or improve their positions on the list. And of course Laura Diaz (11th with 177 points but T1 thanks to a birdie putt that unexpectedly fell on the 9th green--her 4th in her last 6 holes--that brought her to -11), Jane Park (15th with 141 points but T13 after a hot 66 brought her to -7), and Michelle Wie (17th with 105 points and still only 3 shots out of the lead), along with Juli Inkster (14th with 152 points but only just made the cut with a 71 today) and Meaghan Francella (18th with 102 points but only T54 at -3 after a 72 today), have a chance to stay ahead of or pass those who missed the cut like Stacy Prammanasudh (12th with 170 points) and Pat Hurst (13th with 164 points), and even move into the top 10. Rookies Stacy Lewis and Vicky Hurst didn't help their causes by missing the cut today--Hurst doubled 2 of her 1st 4 holes and her -4 finish over her last 14 turned out to be too little, too late, while Stacy Lewis's -2 finish over her last 8 holes on the front wasn't enough to make up for a disastrous double at 18 and bogey at 1 as she made the turn, which caused her to miss the cut by a single stroke--but a win in the last 3 events before the competition could certainly put each in the conversation for a captain's pick, at the very least. With 2 majors and the Evian Masters left to get points from, this race is going to be down to the wire.

The LPGA's Youth Movement

Except for Diaz, Tschetter, and perhaps Pettersen and Gulbis, nobody among the 12 players within 3 shots of the lead could be called a veteran. What's more, there are some interesting showdowns within rookie classes, as well. The #1 Senior Standout, Seon Hwa Lee, not only shot a career-low 63 but also has a 36-hole bogey-free streak going, while #2 Morgan Pressel's resurgence continues, as her 68 kept her 1 shot ahead of Lee and 1 behind Diaz and Kemp. Similarly, the current leader in the Rookie of the Year race, Ji-Yai Shin, was the beneficiary of a 3-shot swing over #2 Michelle Wie on the 18th hole to take a 1-shot lead on her heading into the weekend. It's also worth noting Senior Standout Kyeong Bae's 64 today; looks like the answer to my question after her top 10 at the LPGA Championship is "yes." And still within 5 shots of the lead are top young guns and rookies I haven't had cause yet to mention like Ya Ni Tseng (68, T21, -6), Jee Young Lee (69, T13, -7), Song-Hee Kim (71, T13, -7), Shanshan Feng (68, T21, -6), and Ashleigh Simon (69, T21, -6). Finally, with her 2 birdies in her last 3 holes, Super Soph Na Yeon Choi fired a 67 that put her barely on the right side of the cut line for the 41st straight time (equal to her entire LPGA career). The only other newbie to avoid missing a cut in her rookie year, Seon Hwa Lee, could only extend her made-cut streak to 32 events. Other recent ROYs like Ya Ni Tseng, Angela Park, and Paula Creamer couldn't make it out of their rookie seasons without missing a cut.

Who's On First?

A shocking missed cut by In-Kyung Kim after an ugly 74, a barely made cut by Angela Stanford after a shaky 73, and a missed opportunity to move up the leaderboard by Cristie Kerr after a so-so 71--not to mention Paula Creamer's DNS and Ya Ni Tseng's lukewarm scoring thus far--conspire to leave the door open for a quietly lurking Lorena Ochoa (68, T13, -7). Ochoa's only blemish in the tournament was a double bogey yesterday back on the par-4 4th; if she can hit a few more fairways and greens over her last 36 holes than she did over her 1st, she can definitely make a big move up the leaderboard and money list this weekend.

***

So even as the future of the LPGA is being hotly debated, the competition on tour is even hotter. Should be an awesome weekend at Highland Meadows!

[Update 1 (7/4/09, 12:39 am): I'd be remiss not to mention Jeong Jang's 1st made cut since her return from wrist surgery. Or to avoid hoping that Ai Miyazato will put together 2 good 9s in a row sometime on the weekend. Or to fail to cheer Momoko Ueda's and Shiho Oyama's walkoff birdies on the 9th to get both of them into the weekend. Too bad Mika Miyazato couldn't make it 4 for 4 for Team Japan.]

Jamie Farr Classic/Se Ri Pak Shootout Thursday: The Fireworks Are Starting Early, But Paula Creamer's Sitting Them Out

I guess Paula Creamer decided that resting her injured thumb for another week would be the best way to prepare for the U.S. Women's Open, because she's listed as a DNS (Did Not Start) on the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic leaderboard. Too bad for her, as the birdies are coming fast and furious so far in the morning pairings. And Suzann Pettersen just topped everyone by acing the 2nd hole to jump to -4 on her day and pull within 2 shots of the leader, Inbee Park, who seems to always heat up around Open time. The 68 that Shi Hyun Ahn just posted--putting her at -3 at the end of her 1st day on the par-71 Highland Meadows course--will be lucky to nab her a top 30, if early scoring is any indication. More updates coming soon!

[Update 1 (12:41 pm): Nice 67s by rookie Chella Choi, Super Soph Ashleigh Simon, and veterans Beth Bader and Allison Hanna-Williams displace Ahn from her leader-in-the-clubhouse position. She's now T15 with Jin Joo Hong, Senior Standout Hye Jung Choi, and Sung Ah Yim. Pettersen has moved to -5 through 14. Park is -6 through 15.]

[Update 2 (12:50 pm): Lorena Ochoa just doubled the par-4 4th to drop out of a star-studded group at -4 on the course right now, which includes Ji-Yai Shin, Cristie Kerr, Angela Stanford, Morgan Pressel, Helen Alfredsson, Michelle Wie, Laura Diaz, and Na Ri Kim. With the 17th and 18th both being par 5s, those on the back have a great chance to catch Pettersen an Park, who are both -6 with only a few holes on the front left to go. Ah, Kerr has already made her move: she's -5 with the 2 par 5s left to play!]

[Update 3 (12:54 pm): Finishing on the front is definitely tougher: Kim just dropped to -3 after bogeying the par-5 7th, while Reilley Rankin peaked at -5 before bogeying the 4th and 7th. Meanwhile, Diaz, finishing on the back, joined Kerr at -5.]

[Update 4 (12:58 pm): Even Shin just got a bogey on the front, her 1st of the day on the par-4 5th. Now she's tied with such young guns as Ya Ni Tseng and In-Kyung Kim, as well as Anna Nordqvist and Katherine Hull.]

[Update 5 (1:01 pm): Nice to see Jeehae Lee and Jeanne Cho-Hunicke post 69s today. It can't hurt the LPGA to have such brilliant, multilingual knockouts making more cuts.]

[Update 6 (1:05 pm): Also nice to see Pressel bucking the weak-front-9-finish trend and posting a pair of birdies in a row to get to -5. A mid-60s round would be a great way of getting the taste of that soggy closing 44 in Pittsford out of her mouth!]

[Update 7 (1:07 pm): But what the heck is Se Ri Pak doing at E with only the 3 holes on the front left to play?]

[Update 8 (1:54 pm): An eagle on the 17th lifted Diaz to -7, joining Pressel, who's now made it 4 in a row on the front. Pettersen ended up with a 65, Kerr with a rather disappointing 666, as she failed to birdie the 17th or 18th, Park with a 66, thanks to a bogey on the par-3 8th, and Stanford, Alfredsson, Nordqvist, and Na Ri Kim with 67s. Inky has a chance to join or surpass them now that a birdie on 8 got her to -4, as do Lindsey Wright and Meaghan Francella, who have a great chance to make birdies on the 18th. Unfortunately, Ai Miyazato wasn't able to do this; she had to settle for a 69. Shin and Wie are -5 with only the 9th left to play.]

[Update 9 (2:04 pm): Blogger's not letting me publish, so I'll do it when I can and have the updates show up as I would have done them had I been able to all along. In-Kyung Kim ended up with a 67. Wonder what's wrong with Momoko Ueda? She had a pair of consecutive birdies late on the front, but offset them and more with a trio of consecutive bogeys late on the back, then failed to birdie the 17th and salvaged her 71 with a walkoff birdie. The way she was practicing on the weekend after missing the cut at the Wegmans, I thought for sure she would have figured out her swing issues. But she only hit 6 fairways and 10 greens today.]

[Update 10 (2:09 pm): Ah, well, that was a short outage. Feel bad for Becky Lucidi, who followed up her DQ at the Wegmans for missing her Saturday starting time with a 76 today. But how about that 64 by Diaz, 65 by Wie, 66 by Shin and Wright, and 67 by Ochoa? With Francella fading to a 68 and Tseng holdig steady with one of her own, we now have 20 players in the clubhouse who matched Ahn or improved on her. It might take a 67 to make the top 30, if this keeps up!]

[Update 11 (2:11 pm): Missed Kris Tschetter in the list of 67s. She birdied both 17 and 18 to do it and could have finished with 6 in a row if she could have birdied the par-4 16th.

[Update 12 (2:13 pm): Whoops, In-Kyung Kim is now listed at -3. Looks like she failed to birdie 17 or 18, just like Katherine Hull. That makes it 18 at 67 or better and 30 at 68 or better in the clubhouse.]

[Update 13 (2:15 pm): Taking a break from not-quite-live-blogging now. Great 64 by Pressel to join Diaz at the top. Let's see if anyone from the morning groups can surpass them!]

[Update 14 (4:13 pm): Shocked to see that Na Yeon Choi has put herself in danger of missing the 1st cut in her LPGA career; she's +3 through 15 and had better take advantage of those closing par 5s. Also surprised to see Mika Miyazato struggling--she's +4 with 5 to play on the front. Brittany Lang at +1 with only the 8th and 9th ahead of her is another unpleasant surprise. Stacy Lewis is going to need to take advantage of 17 and 18 if she wants to get under par today. Was amazed to see that Kristy McPherson dropped back all the way to E with a weak finish on the front. And Se Ri Pak needed a birdie on the 8th to finish at -1. So not everyone is lighting up Highland Meadows today. But even with the bogey she just made on 16, Song-Hee Kim has a great chance to join Pressel and Diaz at -7. She just needs to play the par 5s well. On the front, Sophie Gustafson, Sarah Lee, and Moira Dunn are -4 with a half-dozen or so holes left to go. We'll see if any finish as strongly as Pressel did.]

[Update 15 (4:40 pm): Kim did it! She shot the 3rd 64 of the day! First she made 4 birdies in a row on the front, then 3 in a row on the back, and she closed with 2!]

[Update 16 (4:46 pm): Lewis did get to -1 in the end. Christina Kim turned her round around with an eagle on 18, followed by a birdie on 1. Let's see if she can keep it going! And finally Jee Young Lee is giving us something to get excited about again. She's at -4 with 17 and 18 left to play, thanks to an eagle on the par-4 3rd and consecutive birdies on the 14th and 15th.]

[Update 17 (5:04 pm): Scoring in the afternoon is definitely more of a challenge. A 68 almost certainly will get you a top 30 (right now it sits at T25), although there are 40 golfers at -3 or better as I write this. But Jelly birdied 17 to get to -5!]

[Update 18 (5:10 pm): 18's my lucky #, so may as well use this update to announce that I'm on Twitter. Got 10 followers already. Watch out, Stewart Cink!]

[Update 19 (5:27 pm): Jelly couldn't birdie the 18th, so had to settle for T6 at 66. That's 10 players in the mid-60s today!]

[Update 20 (6:30 pm): Strong finish by Minea Blomqvist--4 birdies over her last 6 holes, including back-to-back walkoff birdies--to join Jelly and the gang at 66. Unfortunately, Moira followed up her 17th-hole eagle with 4 bogeys on the front to only shoot a 70. She's one of probably 86 players who will have shot under par today (there are a few groups still playing, but I gotta go back to cooking dinner.]

[Update 21 (8:18 pm): OK, before I put the girls to bed, it's worth mentioning that 115 players shot par or better, 65 broke 70, and 68 earned you T26, and 11 made it into the mid-60s. The 10-day forecast for Sylvania, OH, looks amazing. Se Ri Pak's record -23 from 1998 is in serious jeopardy.]

[Update 22 (8:36 pm): Onegai My Melody still isn't over. While you're waiting for Hound Dog's overview, Rusty Miller's day 1 game story for the AP will do ya.]

[Update 23 (8:46 pm): How desperate is the LPGA brass for Michelle Wie to win soon? David Higdon is mentioning her by name as a life preserver for the tour. No pressure, Michelle. OK, bath time!]

[Update 24 (11:11 pm): Great notes and interviews over at LPGA.com. Morgan Pressel said a lot of interesting things, but the most interesting was this:

Q. There was some drop off last year in your driving distance, now back up about 10 yards or so. Has that been noticeable for you?

MORGAN PRESSEL: It's actually been great, and it's been bad. It's been both. In one sense, yes I am hitting it further, and getting more shots into the greens, but it's taking me probably about the first half of this year to figure out how far I do hit. It doesn't just affect my driver, but all of my clubs, so distance control is something I have worked hard on, and find out exactly how far my clubs do go.

She also noted her putting was the difference the last few rounds she's played.]

[Update 25 (11:22 pm): Nice piece on Wie and Pressel by Randall Mell, the best of the golfy media when it comes to women's professional golf.]

[Update 26 (11:27 pm): The Toledo Blade got the money quote on Paula Creamer's thumb, from the injured star herself:

"I've felt it for about a month and a half now," Creamer said Wednesday about her thumb. "These last couple events, it's been excruciating."

Ouch.]

Walking the Wegmans with Onechan

No, this is not a post about taking my 5-and-a-half-year-old daughter to the grocery store. Sorry to disappoint you.

What this is about is the road trip a jet-lagged onechan and I took to the Rochester area to spend Saturday and Sunday at the Wegmans LPGA tournament at Locust Hills Golf Club. We got to hook up with my mom and dad for a little while, follow Mika Miyazato and then Ai Miyazato, play in the Sports Zone, meet Meredith Duncan, face off in Wii golf, and avoid every single drop of rain that fell on Pittsford that weekend. What I didn't get to do was try out the LPGA's new blogger media-credentialing process (I missed the deadline the 1st half of our visit to the Full Metal Archivist's family in Japan), follow the range of players I wanted to, or hang with Momoko Ueda on the driving range (yes, she missed the cut but worked hard on her game all weekend).

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning, which is my crazy decision to take a pre-school girl who fell asleep from noon to 8 pm Friday and stayed up till 5:30 am on Saturday on a 2-hour drive to walk as many holes as we possibly could on a rain-delayed moving day. At least I had the sense not to try to take her 3-year-old sister, imoto, along with us. She had been enough of a handful when she was 2 that I couldn't envision taking a more mobile, articulate, independent (to put it nicely), louder, faster, and sleepier (last night was the 1st dinner she had since returning to the States late last Thursday) girl to an LPGA event. Now, the Futures Tour event in Syracuse at the end of the month, that's another story. But I'll save her 2nd LPGA experience for next year. Assuming there is a next year. (Check Dave Hackenberg's excellent piece on this week's event for context on the LPGA's shrinking schedule.) Anyway, my worries about onechan proved to be unfounded. She entertained me on the drive up telling stories about Foxy, a character she just made up. Apparently he gets into a lot of trouble and is often sad or lonely, but onechan told the stories in a gleeful voice and loved to come up with abrupt endings that she found hilarious. Uncle Bill Benzon and Grandpa Bob should be proud!

Speaking of Grandpa Bob, I had to question his judgment for suggesting that we meet at the pro shop rather than at the 17th green, right near where the shuttle buses let you off, not to mention the Sports Zone and the food dome. Sure, thanks to our oversleeping we missed all the early morning groups finishing their 2nd rounds, but onechan had to handle a long walk across the street and up the 10th fairway to see him and Grandma Joy for the 1st time since well before we had left for Japan in late May. As it turned out, though, both the walk itself and the search for my folks (we circled the pro shop twice before we found them) were totally awesome. Onechan was carrying a fairly large plastic baby doll, which she had dolled up for the event by drawing in blue ink flowers in the little hair she had, earrings, nail polish, and lipstick, and as she was getting a lot of "Aww, cute" looks from fans, players, and caddies, I decided to make a bet with her that she would be the only kid with a doll or toy we'd see all day. Trying to find evidence to win our bet turned out to be a fun game for her. As for me, I was struck by how intimate a setting a golf course is for a sporting event. I was walking by pros whose faces looked familiar but whom I couldn't quite place ("Is that Mika Miyazato? Or maybe Ji Young Oh?"). Some players I definitely knew: Vicky Hurst, Jane Park--and of course Ai Miyazato, who just happened to be at the putting green when onechan and I made it to the pro shop area. As Ai-chan was leaving, I was able to say, "Kyoo gambare!" (Go for it today!) to her. I don't know if she remembered onechan or me from last year, but she looked down at the short American wearing a hat bought in Okinawa that said "Island Boy" in kanji and kneeling down by a young girl wearing a flower print dress we'd bought in Hawaii in the middle of my Fulbright year, smiled, and said "Thank you," very sweetly.

Not long after that, we ran into my mom and dad and they had plenty of stories for us. My mom, who is a champion talker, told me how they had run into Karrie Webb while the 3rd-round pairings were being organized, so of course she told her about how big a fan onechan is of her and how I had invented Carrie Mi, Karrie Yoo, and Keri Hu (still useful devices for teasing onechan and imoto out of a desire to be carried!). My dad was psyched that a lesson on the driving range had shortened my mom's Mi Hyun Kim/Sakura Yokomine-like backswing and flattened its plane so well that she was carrying her driver around 150 yards (sadly, the lesson didn't carry over to the course when they got back to Clinton). And we played the game of "Who is that...?" as we got our food, walked over to tables by the 10th tees, and perused the pairings sheet I had gotten from a volunteer as we had been looking for my folks. (He got me on Katherine Hull, and I mistook Na Yeon Choi for Eun-Hee Ji.) He told me how impressed he was by Vicky Hurst ("She could be a center for a women's basketball team") and how Cheyenne Woods's game was much better than he had expected. (Guess who they had followed on Friday!)

So, yeah, with players going off the 10th tee while we were eating--I got a good look at Aree Song's swing (not a lot of shoulder turn there), for instance--and the 1st tee right around the corner, my dad's idea of meeting at the pro shop to follow some early groups was a good one. And when I saw that Mika Miyazato was going off 2 groups ahead of Ai-chan--and that Na Yeon Choi was in the former group while Se Ri Pak was in the latter, not to mention that Amanda Blumenherst was in the threesome between them--I immediately pitched my idea that we follow Mika as long as onechan could handle it, then rest to wait for Ai-chan and follow her as long as possible before resting and watching the leading pairings play through. Best laid plans, of course: my parents were too tired from their Friday outing to make it past the 4th tee before they headed out for home, while the second onechan realized that the front 9 circled back to the clubhouse, she was more interested in getting to the Sports Zone across the street than making it to the 8th green to hang out for 45 minutes. And of course I kept us as far away from the greens as possible, not trusting onechan not to blurt out whatever thought happened to come into her mind at any moment. So I didn't get to see Mika actually make a downhill curling 15-footer for birdie on the uphill par-4 2nd, or, for that matter, Ai-chan's short birdie putt on the short par-4 4th hole fail to drop.

But I did get to see her call her caddie over to swat a black fly that had been pestering her as she was setting up for her putt. And I did get to see every shot that Mika and Na Yeon played between the 1st and 4th tees, and every shot Ai-chan and Se Ri played from their approaches to the 3rd green to their tee shots on the par-3 7th. I can't go into the amount of detail that I did last year, but I do have some general impressions. Mika has a very powerful swing, particularly through the ball. Her tempo's a little quicker and less rhythmic than Ai-chan's, but overall she's a little more aggressive and athletic. I had heard from Q-School interviews that she's a short hitter, but I'd say her length is average, plus she has the capacity to hit it longer than usual when she wants to. I expected her to be well behind Choi and Reilley Rankin, but she was even with them more often than not (although probably b/c they were dialing it down to avoid the rough). As for Choi, she parred every hole we saw, but never gave herself great birdie chances. I came away confirmed in my thinking that both are going to be major talents on tour. But of course most of my attention was on Ai-chan, and I noticed that she had a little tendency to break her wrists early on her backswing, which may have contributed to her pull on the downhill 6th. Other than that, her game was as strong as I expected it to be. Even while struggling--she had to make 2 6-to-9-footers to save par and missed 2 birdie putts of about that length--and dealing with jet lag (I don't care how accustomed to international travel you are, you still feel it for 10-15 days after you settle into a new time zone), she was completely calm, self-contained, and focused. She didn't chat a lot with her caddie or other players, just followed her ball and hit her next shot without making a big fuss about it. Very similar demeanor to Se Ri Pak, now that I think of it, although Pak was definitely longer, of course.

But that's about all I have for observations on the players, as most of my attention was actually focused on keeping onechan happy and quiet. Whether it was playing rock-paper-scissors (in Japanese, of course) or having little races with her between shots and holes when other groups weren't nearby (I let her win all of the latter, but she beat me 7 games in a row in the former, and I was really trying!), assuring her we'd make it to the Sports Zone (eventually), carrying her on my back a few times (including all the way up the par-5 8th's fairway), or getting pro shop staff to open up an "out of order" real bathroom for her b/c once again she was afraid of the port-a-potties, this was a full-time job. It was a lot easier when my folks were still hanging with us. My mom took her to look for frogs by the creek and pond on #2 and gave her a pad of paper and markers (which she used to good effect, although, unfortunately, not to the intended purpose--to get autographs), while my dad asked her questions and told her about the players. I can't say that onechan was particularly into my explanation of what to do off the tee on a dogleg or why you're not allowed to put your club on the ground when it's not in a water hazard but is behind the red line surrounding it, or particularly happy not to be following Karrie Webb and Natalie Gulbis on the other side, but she never whined, she never talked loudly, she never moved (much) while a player was hitting, she loved it that Carri Wood was playing with Ai-chan and Pak, and she won our bet when she found a young Japanese family near the 7th green with twin 2-year-old boys who had a kuma (bear) stuffed animal with them on their stroller.

And the Sports Zone! When I asked her this morning what she remembered about the tournament, that's the first thing she mentioned. She went through the inflated maze/obstacle course that was too wet for her last year, climbed to the top of the 15-foot climbing wall that was too scary for her last year, and, on Sunday, actually practiced chipping outside and putting inside (including a lesson with Meredith Duncan, who's a real sweetheart). I won't get into how onechan chipped in for a birdie on the 2nd hole of the Wii golf they had set up inside or how I hit 3 sand shots into the water hazard and took a mercy 9 on that par-3, or all the fruit juices and ice cream flavors we tried out in the food dome, but I will brag a little about how many times onechan hit the target when practicing those pitch shots.

So even though I didn't get to follow Seon Hwa Lee or In-Kyung Kim on Saturday, hang at the putting green as players finished their rounds, take onechan to the driving range on Sunday, where Momoko Ueda was working hard with caddie, or follow Ai-chan for awhile in the final round (we went straight to the Sports Zone this time and the weather looked threatening by the time onechan was all exercised out), we had an absolutely fantastic time at the Wegmans. I got a great reminder that a classic course like Locust Hills, with its tight, tree-lined fairways, small, tiered greens, and elevation changes, could be a great challenge with just the light breezes that were turning approach shots into exercises in judgment, precision, and finesse. Sadly, these are qualities that seem to be lacking in LPGA HQ these days. With the Corning gone and the Wegmans seemingly in trouble, I'm wondering if there's a Route 390 curse or if Carolyn Bivens is taking the LPGA seriously off course. It's all well and good to move into bigger domestic and international markets, but why not hold 40+ tournaments a year and keep the mid-market, community-based events by offering a reduced fee structure for them?

Onechan, Wegmans LPGA Sketch Artist

Onechan: 1st Green, Locust Hills
Originally uploaded by the_constructivist18

Here's onechan's take on what she had seen on the 1st hole of the Locust Hills Golf Club, while following Mika Miyazato, Na Yeon Choi, and Reilly Rankin. For context, click here.

Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic Preview/Predictions/Pairings

The Se Ri Pak Shootout, so nicknamed after its 5-time winner--otherwise known as the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic--is the lead-in to the U.S. Women's Open this season, so the field is a particularly strong one, augmented by top college players and now new pros Amanda Blumenherst and Maria Hernandez.

Last year, Paula Creamer opened with a 60 and barely held on for a wire-to-wire win. This year, she's coming off a WD at the Wegmans due to a thumb injury and has dropped to #8 on Hound Dog's list of the hottest 20 players on the LPGA, so this week's PakPicker's going to be a challenge, especially when you consider that Lorena Ochoa hasn't played competitively in forever and is breaking in a new caddy, Cristie Kerr auditioned to play the part of a certain little girl from a Longfellow poem at the Wegmans, Suzann Pettersen is coming off a WD of her own (at the LPGA Championship) due to a virus, and Angela Stanford is playing her 1st tournament since finding out her mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Taking players' histories at Highland Meadows into account, then, here are my picks:

1. Shin
2. McPherson
3. Tseng
4. Miyazato Ai
5. Lewis
6. Pak Se Ri
7. Ochoa
8. Creamer
9. Wright
10. Choi Na Yeon
11. Stanford
12. Kim In-Kyung

Alts: Kerr, Castrale, Yoo

Looking at the pairings, I'm very curious to see how early-morning frontsiders Shiho Oyama (7:30 am) and Amy Yang (8:00 am) and backsiders Haeji Kang (7:40 am), Jennifer Rosales (7:50 am), and Aree Song (8:40 am) stack up against late afternoon backsiders Shanshan Feng (1:05 pm), Moira Dunn (1:15 pm), Jane Park (1:25 pm), and Christina Kim (1:55 pm). Most eyes, however, will be focused on the star-studded 10th tee late in the morning:

Start Time: 8:50 AM
Brittany Lincicome
Anna Nordqvist
Inbee Park

Start Time: 9:00 AM
Angela Stanford
Suzann Pettersen
Kristy McPherson

Start Time: 9:10 AM
Paula Creamer
Se Ri Pak
In-Kyung Kim

Start Time: 9:20 AM
Michelle Wie
Natalie Gulbis
Ji-Yai Shin

Start Time: 9:30 AM
Lorena Ochoa
Ya Ni Tseng
Morgan Pressel

Shin really belonged with the other most recent major winners, but putting her with Wie and Gulbis is a great way to ensure she gets maximum media attention. I can see why Creamer was paired with Pak, but doesn't she really belong with Ochoa and Tseng? And shouldn't the last member of the LPGA's Big 6, Cristie Kerr, be in this prime-time quadrant rather than Pressel? Just asking. Kerr's actually going off the 1st tee in the late morning:

Start Time: 8:50 AM
Cristie Kerr
Eun-Hee Ji
Hee Young Park

Start Time: 9:00 AM
Nicole Castrale
Helen Alfredsson
Silvia Cavalleri

Start Time: 9:10 AM
Pat Hurst
Ai Miyazato
Laura Diaz

Start Time: 9:20 AM
Katherine Hull
Momoko Ueda
Candie Kung

Start Time: 9:30 AM
Lindsey Wright
Soo-Yun Kang
Meaghan Francella

Yes, this quadrant seems kind of B-list-y compared to the previous one, but Diaz is the only one in it not playing well this season. The early-afternoon front-side pairings are not quite as deep or strong:

Start Time: 12:15 PM
Angela Park
Louise Friberg
Hee-Won Han

Start Time: 12:25 PM
Song-Hee Kim
Stacy Lewis
Juli Inkster

Start Time: 12:35 PM
Na Yeon Choi
Wendy Ward
Jeong Jang

Start Time: 12:45 PM
Laura Davies
Sandra Gal
Brandie Burton

Start Time: 12:55 PM
Jee Young Lee
Leta Lindley
Rachel Hetherington

Ditto for the back-wide early-afternoon quadrant, although it seems to have more players in it who are due to break out of the below-expectations-golf they've been playing for most of the season:

Start Time: 12:15 PM
Brittany Lang
Michele Redman
Sun Young Yoo

Start Time: 12:25 PM
Ji Young Oh
Carin Koch
Lorie Kane

Start Time: 12:35 PM
Meg Mallon
Sophie Gustafson
Maria Hjorth

Start Time: 12:45 PM
Vicky Hurst
Young Kim
Seon Hwa Lee

Start Time: 12:55 PM
Stacy Prammanasudh
Mika Miyazato
Kyeong Bae

LPGA.com reminds us that this event will once again serve as the

U.S.-based qualifier for the RICOH Women's British Open. LPGA members who have registered for the final major championship of the year, but are not already in the field, will have a chance to play for a berth. The top-five players after 36 holes not already qualified will earn entry into the 2009 RICOH Women's British Open July 30 to Aug. 2.

The list of WBO entries is a long one, but I've found little information on who can avoid the pre-qualifying and final qualifying rounds. I'll try to find out which players the 1st 36 holes mean the most to ASAP.

[Update 1 (3:36 am): See IceCat's comment for the link to the LGU web site that explains everything (I can't get it to work on this ancient computer and the Full Metal Archivist is monopolizing the new laptop, so it's going to be a little while before I figure things out). Hound Dog's preview is up, too.]

[Update 2 (4:28 am): Just read the Kapalua event in October may be is dead. If the LPGA keeps losing domestic tournaments, we'll miss out on good local golf reporters like Dave Hackenberg, here doing a profile on Maria Hernandez.]

[Update 3 (12:28 pm): Brent Kelley has more on the Kapalua meltdown, while Hound Dog wonders if this is all part of the LPGA brass's master plan.]