Monday, August 23, 2010

Safeway Classic Sunday: Ai Miyazato Takes 5

There are a lot of ways of winning in golf. Ai Miyazato's wire-to-wire win at the Safeway Classic wasn't capped off by the textbook exemplarity of her Sunday at the ShopRite, the explosive brilliance of her Sundays at Tres Marias and in Singapore, or the jaw-dropping onslaught of her Sunday in Thailand. In fact, yesterday's 72 was tied for Miyazato's 2nd-worst Sunday score of the season. But thanks to a lot of help from Cristie Kerr and Song-Hee Kim, who both got to double digits under par and the lead or a share of it on the back 9--combined with more difficult scoring conditions that saw only Mina Harigae break 68--Ai-sama walked away from Ghost Creek with her 5th LPGA win of the season and the 6th of her career. Despite opening the door to the field early on by going +2 over her 1st 7 holes, Miyazato came back with back-to-back birdies on 9 and 10 and parred her way home. Whatever it takes, eh?

Miyazato's win vaults her back to the top of the money list ($1.31M to Na Yeon Choi's $1.30M) and Player of the Year race (172 points to Ya Ni Tseng's 146) and should put her back atop the Rolex Rankings, as well. On to the Canadian Women's Open!

[Update 1 (2:44 am): Awesome play-by-play from Hound Dog! Maybe when we get our new house we'll get cable tv to go with it!]

[Update 2 (12:22 pm): And an excellent epilogue as well from HD!]

1 comment:

spyder said...

I was hoping that you did a follow up on the Safeway, knowing how much you appreciate Ai. They were playing on the one course i have played on in the last 10 years, so it was fun to watch the tourney. Sunday came as a bit of a surprise, esp with Christie's uncommon collapse. Still nice to see someone you (TC) know being quite successful on tour this year. Your support over the years for her seems to have paid off.