Sunday, May 22, 2011

Chukyo TV Bridgestone Ladies Open Sunday: Harukyo Nomura Cruises to 1st JLPGA Victory

Harukyo Nomura fired a bogey-free 68 in the final round of the Chukyo TV Bridgestone Ladies Open to secure her 1st career JLPGA victory in her 1st start on tour as a professional.

Nomura started the day with a 2-shot lead over playing partner Sun-Ju Ahn and a lot of question marks--would she be able to handle the pressure? would she be able to build on her Futures Tour win this April? who would make a run at her? Almost immediately, Ahn answered the last one when she cut Nomura's lead to 1 with a birdie on the 158-yard par-3 2nd hole. But when Nomura birdied the 528-yard par-5 6th and Ahn took a quad on it, the building pressure completely dissipated. Nomura proceeded to put even more distance between herself and the field as she followed that birdie up with 3 more, on 8, 11, and 13. Although Sakura Yokomine made 4 birdies between the 5th and 10th holes, she remained 6 down until she birdied the 18th. Even though Kaori Aoyama birdied 4 of her last 5 holes, she still ended up 3 shots off the pace. And despite getting to -8 on the last 9, Ji-Woo Lee finished with 2 bogeys in her last 5 holes to drop into a tie for 7th with Ahn (who came back with a birdie-eagle-par finish) and Momoko Ueda (who really seems to have found her game again!). So in the end, nobody else in the field made up any ground on Nomura, who was the only player to break 70 all 3 rounds.

Here's how Nomura's 1st JLPGA win looked:

1st/-13 Harukyo Nomura (66-69-68)
2nd/-10 Kaori Aoyama (69-70-67)
3rd/-8 Sakura Yokomine (70-71-67)
T4/-7 Yukari Baba (73-67-69), Rui Kitada (71-68-70), Megumi Kido (73-66-70),
T7/-6 Ji-Woo Lee (70-71-69), Momoko Ueda (70-70-70), Sun-Ju Ahn (69-68-73)
T10/-5 Chie Arimura (70-71-70), Mi-Jeong Jeon (71-69-71)

T12/-4 Miki Saiki (72-71-69), Saiki Fujita (71-72-69), Mayu Hattori (71-72-69), Yuri Fudoh (69-74-69), Akane Iijima (70-72-70), Rikako Morita (71-69-72), Hiromi Mogi (70-70-72), Ritsuko Ryu (67-71-74)
T21/-3 Tamie Durdin (67-73-73), Ayako Uehara (72-67-74), Bo-Bae Song (70-69-74)
T26/-2 Mie Nakata (72-71-71), Erika Kikuchi (69-74-71), Kumiko Kaneda (73-69-72), Na-Ri Lee (73-69-72), Nikki Campbell (70-70-74)
T33/-1 Ji-Hee Lee (73-69-73), Shiho Oyama (71-68-76)
T37/E Esther Lee (72-71-73)
T39/+1 Young Kim (72-72-73), Julie Lu (72-70-75), Akiko Fukushima (69-72-76)
43rd/+2 Na-Ri Kim (72-72-74)
T44/+3 Miki Sakai (73-72-74), Rui Yokomine (69-76-74), Soo-Yun Kang (70-72-77)
T48/+4 Teresa Lu (74-71-75)
50th/+5 Onnarin Sattayabanphot (73-72-76)

Nomura's non-member win takes more than 12 million yen out of the year-long race for the JLPGA money-list title. Here how it stands now:

1. Miki Saiki ¥38.01M
2. Sun-Ju Ahn ¥32.42M
3. Yuri Fudoh ¥29.88M
4. Inbee Park ¥20.52M
5. Kumiko Kaneda ¥19.05M
6. Rui Kitada ¥16.94M
7. Sakura Yokomine ¥16.49M
8. Ji-Hee Lee ¥15.63M
9. Momoko Ueda ¥13.77M
10. Yukari Baba ¥13.71M
11. Teresa Lu ¥11.79M
12. Ji-Woo Lee ¥11.06M
13. Chie Arimura ¥10.99M
14. Hiromi Mogi ¥10.97M
15. Ji-Yai Shin ¥10.67M
16. Saiki Fujita ¥10.01M
17. Mi-Jeong Jeon ¥9.54M
18. Mayu Hattori ¥8.98M
19. Bo-Bae Song ¥8.94M
20. Kaori Aoyama ¥8.18M
21. Bo-Mee Lee ¥7.49M
22. Yumiko Yoshida ¥7.09M
23. Ritsuko Ryu ¥7.08M
24. Rikako Morita ¥7.01M
25. Young Kim ¥6.76M
26. Megumi Kido ¥6.50M
27. Shinobu Moromizato ¥6.46M
28. Mie Nakata ¥6.42M
29. Akiko Fukushima ¥6.09M
30. Shiho Oyama ¥5.78M
31. Asako Fujimoto ¥5.48M
32. Ji-Na Lim ¥4.79M
33. Hyun-Ju Shin ¥4.78M
34. Akane Iijima ¥4.72M
35. Na-Ri Kim ¥4.65M
36. Na-Ri Lee ¥4.20M
37. Soo-Yun Kang ¥4.18M
38. Lala Anai ¥3.95M
39. Yuki Ichinose ¥3.81M
40. Ayako Uehara ¥3.77M

Next up is the Yonex Ladies. Here's the field list. At a glance, it looks like only Soo-Yun Kang will be staying in Japan this coming week. Let's see if Mi-Jeong Jeon can defend her title!

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