Sunday, September 26, 2010

Miyagi TV Cup Dunlop Ladies Open Sunday: Eun-A Lim Takes the Crown

2nd-round leader Rui Kitada was looking for her 7th JLPGA victory and 1st since 2008 today in the Miyagi TV Cup Dunlop Ladies Open, but she started bogey-par-triple bogey and needed a late charge to get back to -2 for the week. She was joined there by Momoko Ueda, who had opened with a 69 and her best chance for a win in 2010, but squandered it with a 2nd-round 75. Still, because just about everyone else played worse (Mika Miyazato, for instance, who had gotten to -3 for the tournament with a birdie on the par-3 4th hole, failed to make another birdie the rest of the way and ended her week on a 3-hole bogey train), the title came down to 3 Korean players, Inbee Park, Na-Ri Lee, and Eun-A Lim.

Park, playing 2 groups ahead of Lee and Lim, tied Junko Omote for the best round of the day, but even though she made 4 birdies in her 1st 7 holes, she also made 2 bogeys, so she was still 1 shot behind Lee and Lim as she made the turn. She fell further behind when Lee and Lim both birdied the par-3. But Park responded with birdies on the par-5 14th and the par-4 17th to get to -5 for the tournament. At that point, she was tied with Lee, who was playing bogey-free golf but had managed only 2 birdies, and 1 behind Lim, who had brought her birdie total for the day to 4 with 1 of her own on the par-5 14th. But a walkoff bogey took a lot of pressure off Lee and Lim, who matched cards on the way home: par-par-bogey-par. When all the dust had settled, Lim, who had been in contention at the Golf5 Ladies just a couple of events ago but blew up with a final-round 78, had won her 3rd career JLPGA event. Park, meanwhile, had to settle for her 5th silver medal in 9 starts as a JLPGA member this season.

Here are the final results for the leaders and notables:

1st/-5 Eun-A Lim (70-71-70)
T2/-4 Inbee Park (72-71-69), Na-Ri Lee (71-70-71)
T4/-2 Momoko Ueda (69-75-70), Rui Kitada (70-70-74)
T6/+1 Shiho Oyama (71-73-73), Mika Miyazato (72-70-75), Li-Ying Ye (69-73-75)
T9/+2 Teresa Lu (73-72-73), Asako Fujimoto (73-72-73), Yuki Ichinose (73-72-73), Ya Ni Tseng (72-73-73), Natsu Nagai (72-73-73), Erika Kikuchi (73-70-75), Shinobu Moromizato (72-71-75)

T16/+3 Mayu Hattori (72-76-71), Chie Arimura (73-72-74), Ji-Hee Lee (72-73-74), Akane Iijima (71-74-74)
T24/+4 Nikki Campbell (75-75-70), Ji-Yai Shin (75-72-73), Mi-Jeong Jeon (75-71-74), Saiki Fujita (74-70-76)
T28/+5 Tamie Durdin (76-74-71), Miki Saiki (72-77-72)
T32/+6 Rikako Morita (76-73-73), Esther Lee (76-72-74)
T34/+7 Hiromi Takesue (73-76-74), Ayako Uehara (75-73-75)
T42/+8 Sakura Yokomine (75-75-74), Mie Nakata (73-77-74), Kaori Aoyama (74-75-75)
T48/+9 So-Hee Kim (76-74-75)
T51/+10 Erina Hara (74-75-77)
T54/+11 Maiko Wakabayashi (70-73-84)
T56/+12 Kyung-Min Lin (76-73-79)

Here's how the JLPGA money list now stands:

1. Sun-Ju Ahn ¥79.17M
2. Sakura Yokomine ¥63.09M
3. Mi-Jeong Jeon ¥62.66M
4. Akane Iijima ¥53.76M
5. Saiki Fujita ¥53.74M
6. Yuri Fudoh ¥53.18M
7. Yukari Baba ¥52.44M
8. Nikki Campbell ¥49.03M
9. Rui Kitada ¥48.91M
10. Chie Arimura ¥45.65M
11. Ji-Hee Lee ¥44.31M
12. Inbee Park ¥44.23M
13. Shinobu Moromizato ¥36.92M
14. Young Kim ¥35.70M
15. Miho Koga ¥34.53M
16. Eun-A Lim ¥34.28M
17. Mayu Hattori ¥34.24M
18. Mie Nakata ¥33.28M
19. Ayako Uehara ¥31.97M
20. Na-Ri Kim ¥30.70M
21. Hyun-Ju Shin ¥29.04M
22. Hiromi Mogi ¥28.63M
23. Hiromi Takesue ¥28.23M
24. Akiko Fukushima ¥28.21M
25. Ji-Woo Lee ¥27.66M
26. Ji-Yai Shin ¥26.34M
27. Bo-Bae Song ¥25.63M
28. Asako Fujimoto ¥24.68M
29. Yun-Jye Wei ¥21.92M
30. Maiko Wakabayashi ¥21.66M

Ueda's 3rd top 5 in 12 JLPGA starts moves her up to #39 on the money list, while Ai Miyazato drops to #48 and Teresa Lu to #55. They'll all need to play well in next week's Japan Women's Open to improve their odds of ending up in the top 50 and keeping their JLPGA cards for 2011.

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