Sunday, May 1, 2011

Cyber Agent Ladies Sunday: Yuri Fudoh Defeats Ji-Yai Shin for 50th Career JLPGA Victory

The final round of the Cyber Agent Ladies turned into a showdown between the Billion Yen Woman and the Final Round Queen, after all. Even though Miki Saiki, Chie Arimura, and Soo-Yun Kang made great Sunday charges from well back, it was too little, too late for them to crash the Yuri Fudoh/Ji-Yai Shin party. And everyone near them through 36 holes moved in the wrong direction over the final 18. So the stage was set. Who would steal the spotlight?

Shin was the 1st to take a solo lead with a birdie on the par-4 1st, but she lost it with a bogey on the par-4 2nd. Fudoh responded with back-to-back birdies on the par-5 3rd and par-3 4th and extended her lead still further despite bogeying the par-4 6th when Shin doubled it. But even after Fudoh birdied the par-5 8th to return to -8 and bring her lead to 4, the world #2 hung tough, making birdies on the par-4 9th and par-5 12th to fight back to -6, only 2 shots back. But the showdown ended anti-climactically, with both players trading pars for 3 holes until Fudoh birdied the par-4 16th and par-5 17th and made Shin's walkoff birdie moot. So the Billion Yen Woman defeated the Final Round Queen, not only bringing her win total for the year to 2 and for her career to 50, but also extending Shin's record of futility when in contention in the final round in 2011.

Here are the highlights from the final leaderboard:

1st/-10 Yuri Fudoh (72-66-68)
2nd/-7 Ji-Yai Shin (68-70-71)
T3/-4 Miki Saiki (72-74-66), Chie Arimura (73-71-68), Yumiko Yoshida (73-68-71)
6th/-3 Momoko Ueda (72-72-69)
T7/-2 Rui Kitada (74-72-68), Soo-Yun Kang (72-74-68)
T9/-1 Miki Sakai (73-72-70), Mayu Hattori (70-73-72), Ji-Hee Lee (71-71-73), Bo-Mee Lee (71-71-73), Sakura Yokomine (70-71-74)

T14/E Lala Anai (70-74-72), Ji-Woo Lee (72-71-73), Saiki Fujita (69-72-75)
T18/+1 Ayako Uehara (73-69-75), Ji Na Lim (68-74-75), Hiromi Mogi (67-74-76)
T22/+2 Tamie Durdin (70-72-76), Na-Ri Kim (70-72-76), Mihoko Iseri (66-77-77)
T29/+3 Shinobu Moromizato (75-72-72), Ritsuko Ryu (69-78-72), Kumiko Kaneda (71-75-73), Kaori Ohe (70-75-74), Jae-Hee Bae (73-71-75)
T34/+4 Asako Fujimoto (74-71-75), So-Hee Kim (74-70-76), Akane Iijima (71-72-77)
T37/+5 Maiko Wakabayashi (75-73-73), Miho Koga (73-75-73), Yukari Baba (67-80-74), Yuki Ichinose (70-76-75), Mi-Jeong Jeon (70-73-78), Mie Nakata (70-72-79)
44th/+6 Riko Higashio (74-71-77)
T45/+7 Na-Ri Lee (70-76-77)
T50/+8 Hyun-Ju Shin (75-73-76), Erina Hara (73-75-76), Ah-Reum Hwang (75-72-77)
54th/+10 Yuko Mitsuka (76-68-82)
55th/+11 Yun-Jye Wei (76-72-79)
T56/+12 Julie Lu (73-75-80), He-Yong Choi (72-75-81)

The golfer who heads the JLPGA's career money list now leads its 2011 money list:

1. Yuri Fudoh ¥26.48M
2. Kumiko Kaneda ¥18.48M
3. Inbee Park ¥16.51M
4. Miki Saiki ¥12.44M
5. Ji-Hee Lee ¥12.28M
6. Ji-Yai Shin ¥10.67M
7. Yukari Baba ¥9.19M
8. Chie Arimura ¥7.91M
9. Saiki Fujita ¥7.84M
10. Ji-Woo Lee ¥7.62M
11. Bo-Bae Song ¥7.26M
12. Bo-Mee Lee ¥6.55M
13. Young Kim ¥5.64M
14. Sun-Ju Ahn ¥5.30M
15. Mi-Jeong Jeon ¥5.29M
16. Asako Fujimoto ¥5.20M
17. Momoko Ueda ¥5.20M
18. Yumiko Yoshida ¥5.17M
19. Shinobu Moromizato ¥4.99M
20. Rui Kitada ¥4.91M
21. Rikako Morita ¥4.17M
22. Sakura Yokomine ¥3.92M
23. Akiko Fukushima ¥3.84M
24. Shiho Oyama ¥3.75M
25. Lala Anai ¥3.53M
26. Hiromi Mogi ¥3.31M
27. Akane Iijima ¥3.09M
28. Megumi Shimokawa ¥2.97M
29. Na-Rim Kim ¥2.91M
30. Soo-Yun Kang ¥2.67M

Next up is the Salonpas Cup, the JLPGA's 1st major of 2011, which features defending champion Morgan Pressel, who's pledged half her winnings to Japan relief and reconstruction efforts. The field, as you'd expect, is packed: notables include other LPGAers Ji-Yai Shin, Na Yeon Choi, Ai Miyazato, Inbee Park, Mika Miyazato, Momoko Ueda, Hee Young Park, Shiho Oyama, Meena Lee, Teresa Lu, and Soo-Yun Kang, prominent KLPGAers Bo-Mee Lee and He-Yong Choi, 2010 LET money-list title-holder Lee-Anne Pace, the CLPGA's Tao-Li Yang, and the 2010 Korean Women's Amateur champion Su-Ryon Chang, along with pretty much everyone who's anyone on the JLPGA. This is going to be big!

[Update 1 (6:57 pm): Here's bangkokbobby's tribute to Fudoh's 50th win. Only mistake he makes is confusing her with Sakura Yokomine, who was the player to finish 2nd to Sun-Ju Ahn in last year's money-list title race. The rest if awesome!]

No comments: