Sunday, September 19, 2010

Munsingwear Ladies Tokai Classic Sunday: Mi-Jeong Jeon Wins with 64

Mi-Jeong Jeon opened with a 33 and closed with 4 straight birdies for a 64 that stole the Munsingwear Ladies Tokai Classic from Sun-Ju Ahn, who shot a 65 of her own to pass 2nd-round co-leaders Na-Ri Kim (70) and Sakura Yokomine (71). On a day when Ji-Yai Shin cruised in the KLPGA Championship to her 21st career KLPGA victory, Jeon denied Shin's top competitor from that tour a chance to significantly extend her lead on the 2010 JLPGA money list, not to mention the JLPGA's top gun a chance to make up ground on her. In so doing, she became the 1st 3-time winner on the JLPGA this season and moved her own career JLPGA victory total to 16. And she completely overshadowed Momoko Ueda's best finish of the year (on or off the JLPGA), Yuri Fudoh's 3 sub-70 rounds in a row, and Na-Ri Kim's 3rd top 3 on the JLPGA. Kim, in fact, had a chance to win at the turn, but couldn't manage a birdie on the back 9 and got passed 1st by Ahn, then by Jeon.

1st/-14 Mi-Jeong Jeon (70-68-64)
2nd/-12 Sun-Ju Ahn (72-67-65)
3rd/-11 Na-Ri Kim (67-68-70)
T4/-10 Momoko Ueda (69-70-67), Yuri Fudoh (68-69-69), Yui Kawahara (71-65-70), Sakura Yokomine (66-69-71)
T8/-8 Inbee Park (71-69-68), Shinobu Moromizato (69-70-69)
T10/-7 Chie Arimura (72-71-66), Yuko Saitoh (74-66-69), Ji-Woo Lee (71-66-72), Mayu Hattori (69-68-72)

T14/-6 Na-Ri Lee (69-72-69), Esther Lee (73-67-70), Shiho Oyama (70-69-71), Miki Saiki (70-69-71)
T19/-5 Hyun-Ju Shin (75-68-68), Akiko Fukushima (74-68-69), Li-Ying Ye (69-72-70)
T24/-4 Ah-Reum Hwang (74-68-70), Yukari Baba (73-68-71)
T28/-3 Akane Iijima (71-73-69), Young Kim (69-75-69), Rui Kitada (70-73-70), Bo-Bae Song (67-75-71)
T39/-1 Maiko Wakabayashi (73-69-73), Ayako Uehara (72-69-74)
T44/E Mie Nakata (71-73-72)
T46/+1 Yun-Jye Wei (76-69-72), Yuko Mitsuka (74-70-73), Ritsuko Ryu (71-71-75)

Perhaps most important, Jeon put herself within striking range of Ahn's money-list lead:

1. Sun-Ju Ahn ¥79.17M
2. Sakura Yokomine ¥62.77M
3. Mi-Jeong Jeon ¥62.09M
4. Yuri Fudoh ¥53.18M
5. Saiki Fujita ¥53.17M
6. Akane Iijima ¥53.03M
7. Yukari Baba ¥52.44M
8. Nikki Campbell ¥48.46M
9. Rui Kitada ¥45.06M
10. Chie Arimura ¥44.92M
11. Ji-Hee Lee ¥43.58M
12. Inbee Park ¥38.70M
13. Young Kim ¥35.70M
14. Shinobu Moromizato ¥35.65M
15. Miho Koga ¥34.53M
16. Mayu Hattori ¥33.52M
17. Mie Nakata ¥32.96M
18. Ayako Uehara ¥31.57M
19. Na-Ri Kim ¥30.70M
20. Hyun-Ju Shin ¥29.04M
21. Hiromi Mogi ¥28.63M
22. Akiko Fukushima ¥28.21M
23. Hiromi Takesue ¥27.82M
24. Ji-Woo Lee ¥27.66M
25. Ji-Yai Shin ¥25.76M
26. Bo-Bae Song ¥25.63M
27. Asako Fujimoto ¥23.41M
28. Yun-Jye Wei ¥21.92M
29. Eun-A Lim ¥21.68M
30. Maiko Wakabayashi ¥21.41M

With Momoko Ueda, Tamie Durdin, Ai Miyazato, and Yuko Mitsuka barely hanging onto their spots in the top 50, look for everyone but Miyazato to concentrate on the JLPGA for the next few weeks. Next week in the Miyagi TV Cup Dunlop Ladies Open, Ji-Yai Shin, Ya Ni Tseng, and Mika Miyazato will see how their games stack up against the JLPGA's finest. Should be pretty cool!

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