Saturday, May 7, 2011

Salonpas Cup Saturday: Momoko Ueda Takes Slim Lead

Momoko Ueda turned a 2-shot deficit to Sun-Ju Ahn with 5 holes to go in the 3rd round of the Salonpas Cup into a 1-shot lead with a pair of birdies that lifted her to -8 for the week. But tomorrow's round is very unlikely to be a 2-player shootout, as there are 6 other golfers within 5 shots of Ueda's lead. Sakura Yokomine (66, -3 overall) and Miki Saiki (68, -5) made the most impressive moves of moving day, but don't count out potential Cinderella Teresa Lu (69, -6), JLPGA rising star Chie Arimura (71, -3), KLPGA superstar Bo-Mee Lee (72, -3), or JLPGA young gun Yuki Ichinose (70, -3).

Defending champion Morgan Pressel (71, -2 overall) and fellow LPGAer Inbee Park (72, E) will need to make huge charges tomorrow to put themselves in the mix, but at least they're in much better shape than other big-name players who have great records on other tours like Ai Miyazato (77, +8), Na Yeon Choi (75, +7), Hee Young Park (78, +5), Soo-Yun Kang (73, +5), Mika Miyazato (74, +4), Meena Lee (77, +4), and He Yong Choi (72, +4).

So here are the leaders and notables who will be looking to prevent Momoko Ueda from getting her 1st JLPGA victory since the 2009 season:

1st/-8 Momoko Ueda (70-68-70)
2nd/-7 Sun-Ju Ahn (71-67-71)
3rd/-6 Teresa Lu (70-69-71)
4th/-5 Miki Saiki (71-72-68)
T5/-3 Sakura Yokomine (74-73-66), Yuki Ichinose (73-70-70), Chie Arimura (75-67-71), Bo-Mee Lee (70-71-72)
T9/-2 Morgan Pressel (73-70-71), Mayu Hattori (70-70-74)

T11/-1 Ji-Hee Lee (75-69-71), Megumi Kido (72-69-74)
T14/E Mie Nakata (75-72-69), So-Hee Kim (72-74-70), Rui Kitada (73-72-71), Inbee Park (74-70-72)
T18/+1 Hyun-Ju Shin (75-71-71), Shiho Oyama (75-70-72), Nikki Campbell (71-73-73), Na-Ri Lee (75-68-74), Yuri Fudoh (69-73-75)
T23/+2 Maiko Wakabayashi (75-72-71), Miki Sakai (75-72-71), Tamie Durdin (75-67-76)
T27/+3 Shinobu Moromizato (76-72-71), Onnarin Sattayabanphot (76-71-72), Mika Takushima (74-73-72), Li-Ying Ye (72-75-72), Akiko Fukushima (73-72-74), Yuko Mitsuka (73-71-75)
T33/+4 Saiki Fujita (77-71-72), He-Yong Choi (76-72-72), Ayako Uehara (72-76-72), Hiromi Mogi (76-71-73), Mika Miyazato (72-74-74), Yumiko Yoshida (71-74-75), Meena Lee (73-70-77)
T41/+5 Soo-Yun Kang (76-72-73), Tao-Li Yang (73-75-73), Ji-Woo Lee (72-73-76), Lala Anai (74-70-77), Hee Young Park (70-73-78)
T46/+6 Esther Lee (75-73-74), Rikako Morita (76-71-75), Kaori Aoyama (75-72-75)
T50/+7 Na Yeon Choi (77-71-75), Julie Lu (73-74-76), Ji-Na Lim (75-70-78)
T55/+8 Ai Miyazato (76-71-77)
57th/+10 Na-Ri Kim (75-70-81)

I'm not gonna lie, I'd be much happier if Ai-sama or Mikan or NYC were at the other end of the leaderboard, but I'm still pretty psyched that Momoko has such a great chance to build her confidence, that Lu or Lee might break through, that Sakura could be back, that Ahn and Arimura might get back in gear, and that Morgan still has a chance to defend her title. Tomorrow should be cool!

4 comments:

Tony Jesselli (Tonyj5) said...

I really wish that the JLPGA boards were translated to english.
With all the off weeks on the LPGA tour I would be a much bigger fan of Asian golf if I were able to read the web-sites and get to know the players better. That said, your recaps are appreciated.

What is going on with Ai? +8? At the start of the year she was in a race for #1 in the world, after this weekend she will be trying to stay in the top ten.

Also wanted to note for our readers that LPGA rookie Christel Boeljon is leading this weeks LET tournament after three rounds.

Glen said...

Is anyone aware of a streaming video site for JLPGA?

The Constructivist said...

Tony, there is a live scoring page in English. I usually put it in the event title link in my posts, but you can get it right off the JLPGA site. I don't know of live streaming sites for the JLPGA per se, Glen, but I'm sure there are plenty of Japanese channels to be found out there. It's just a matter of finding the right one at the right time.

The Constructivist said...

Ai's going through a swing change and isn't sharp with her short game. There's not a huge gap between #1 in the world and struggling to make cuts.