Saturday, May 28, 2011

Yonex Ladies Saturday: Inbee Park Falters, Ji-Hee Lee and Sakura Yokomine Pounce

Inbee Park loves playing golf in Japan, but after an opening 68 that gave her the 1st-round lead in the Yonex Ladies just days after competing in 3 rounds of match play in New Jersey, I'm guessing she was feeling the effects of jet lag just a little bit today, as she stumbled to a 6-bogey 75 that dropped her 4 shots behind Ji-Hee Lee and 3 shots behind Sakura Yokomine and Miki Sakai. Although Yokomine matched Park's eagle on 18 from yesterday's round, the round of the day today belonged to former JLPGA money-list title-holder Shiho Oyama, who improved 10 shots on yesterday's disastrous round with a scintillating 6-birdie 68.

Heading into the final round, here's how the leaders and notables stand:

1st/-5 Ji-Hee Lee (69-70)
T2/-4 Miki Sakai (71-69), Sakura Yokomine (69-71)
T4/-3 Hiromi Mogi (70-71), Ritsuko Ryu (69-72)
T6/-2 Mi-Jeong Jeon (72-70), Eun-A Lim (72-70), So-Hee Kim (72-70), Ayako Uehara (71-71), Hyun-Ju Shin (70-72), Yukari Baba (69-73)

T12/-1 Akane Iijima (74-69), Rui Kitada (74-69), Eun-Bi Jang (74-69), Inbee Park (68-75)
T16/E Miki Saiki (71-73), Yuki Ichinose (71-73), Kaori Aoyama (70-74)
T19/+1 Young Kim (76-69), Li-Ying Ye (72-73)
T22/+2 Shiho Oyama (78-68), Yuri Fudoh (75-71), Asako Fujimoto (73-73), Julie Lu (73-73)
T30/+3 Mie Nakata (75-72), Esther Lee (74-73)
T33/+4 Na-Ri Lee (79-69), Rikako Morita (77-71), Kumiko Kaneda (76-72), Megumi Kido (73-75), Miki Uehara (73-75)
T42/+5 Mayu Hattori (78-71), Yumiko Yoshida (77-72), Erina Hara (74-75), Mika Takushima (74-75), Yun-Jye Wei (73-76), Rui Yokomine (72-77), Erika Kikuchi (72-77)
T50/+6 Maiko Wakabayashi (77-73), Miho Koga (76-74), Teresa Lu (74-76)

MC: Lala Anai (76-75), Shinobu Moromizato (75-76), Tamie Durdin (74-78), Tao-Li Yang (81-72), Pei-Ying Tsai (79-76), Kaori Ohe (78-79)
WD: Bo-Bae Song (76-WD)

Will Lee or Yokomine break what for them is a long spell without a win on the JLPGA (nearly a full year for the former and just under half a season for the latter), or will we see one of the other 18 players within 5 shots of the lead (including defending champion Mi-Jeong Jeon) take the crown tomorrow? There's only 1 way to find out....

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