Saturday, May 15, 2010

Fundokin Ladies Saturday: 10 Players Chasing the Billion-Yen Woman

Yuri Fudoh continued her fine play in the Fundokin Ladies event on the JLPGA today, shooting a bogey-free 69 to get to -6 for the tournament. Sakura Yokomine and Hyun-Ju Shin kept within a stroke of her, but the real story is the amount of golfers who played their way into contention on moving day. Hiromi Mogi's 67 was torpedoed by a double bogey on the 363-yard par 4 15th, and she could only manage 3 pars coming in after it. That's significant not just because she fell from 1 to 3 off Fudoh's pace, but also because so many other golfers took advantage of the closing holes. Esther Lee joined Yokomine and Shin by finishing birdie-par-eagle-birdie-birdie. Teresa Lu got to -4 by finishing birdie-bogey-eagle-birdie-par. Veteran Yukari Baba and 19-year-old Asako Fujimoto joined her by bouncing back from opening 37s with a 33 and a 32 on the back, respectively. Sun-Ju Ahn birdied 2 of the last 4 to climb within 4 of the lead. And Shinobu Moromizato bounced back from an early double with 4 birdies in her last 11 holes to join Ji-Hee Lee at -1 (Lee herself shot a bogey-free 32 on the back, which included an eagle on the par-5 16th). 2 late bogeys offset Ah-Reum Hwang's hole in 1 on the 2nd hole, but she still posted a 67 to give herself a ghost of a chance tomorrow. Still, at 6 back, she's not 1 of the 10 players officially in contention (at least by Mostly Harmless standards). Nor are other notables outside the top 10:

1st/-6 Yuri Fudoh (69-69)
T2/-5 Esther Lee (73-66), Sakura Yokomine (69-70), Hyun-Ju Shin (69-70)
T5/-4 Teresa Lu (72-68), Asako Fujimoto (71-69), Yukari Baba (70-70)
8th/-3 Hiromi Mogi (74-67)
9th/-2 Sun-Ju Ahn (72-70)
T10/-1 Ji-Hee Lee (74-69), Shinobu Moromizato (73-70)

T12/E Ah-Reum Hwang (77-67), Chie Arimura (75-69), Rui Kitada (73-71), Eun-A Lim (73-71), Akiko Fukushima (71-73)
T19/+1 Nikki Campbell (76-69), Seon Hwa Lee (73-72), Na-Ri Kim (73-72)
T23/+2 Miki Saiki (75-71), Mayu Hattori (73-73), Na-Ri Lee (73-73), Sakurako Mori (71-75)
T31/+3 Miho Koga (76-71), Tamie Durdin (76-71), Ayako Uehara (75-72), Rikako Morita (73-74), Saiki Fujita (71-76)
39th/+4 Ritsuko Ryu (75-73)
T40/+5 Akane Iijima (78-71), Yuki Ichinose (78-71), Maiko Wakabayashi (75-74), Yuko Saitoh (74-75)
T48/+6 Yun-Jye Wei (77-73), Erina Hara (76-74), Kaori Aoyama (75-75)

The cut line fell far enough to only take a few notable victims:

T60/+7 Ji-Woo Lee (74-77)
T70/+9 Jae-Hee Bae (77-76), Ai-Yu Tu (76-77)
T77/+10 Li-Ying Ye (78-76)
T87/+11 So-Hee Kim (75-80)
WD Riko Higashio (91-WD)

What looked like a Fudoh-Yokomine shootout yesterday is now looking like a free-for-all tomorrow. I'd sure love to see Teresa Lu--who entered the LPGA the same year as Ai Miyazato and Morgan Pressel, who have already won this season--crash that party!

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