Saturday, June 11, 2011

Suntory Ladies Open Saturday: Sun-Ju Ahn and Chie Arimura Share the Lead

Matching 67s by Sun-Ju Ahn and Chie Arimura leapfrogged them 1 shot ahead of Ji-Hee Lee and Hiromi Mogi on moving day at the Suntory Ladies Open. Arimura made 4 of her 6 birdies on the back, while Ahn topped her by making all 5 of hers on the same side and Lee birdied her last 4 holes in a row to recover from a weak start to her round today. The LPGA's Ai Miyazato and the KJLPGA's Bo-Mee Lee posted identical bogey-free 33s to close out their rounds, as well, but it will probably be too little, too late, as they both stand 6 shots back heading into tomorrow's final round. Defending champion Akane Iijima's 69 was definitely too little, too late, as she's 10 shots off the pace. Despite Rikako Morita's bogey-free 67, Young Kim's 5-birdie 68, and Sakura Yokomine's 69 (thanks mainly to a hole-in-1 on the 164-yard 17th), it wasn't all fun and games out there; money-list leader Miki Saiki and Inbee Park are near the bottom of the leaderboard after failing to break 75 and many others moved backwards in a big way, including Okinawan Ayako Uehara and dual LPGA-JLPGA member Shiho Oyama.

Here's how the leaders and notables stand after 54 holes:

T1/-12 Chie Arimura (70-67-67), Sun-Ju Ahn (67-70-67)
T2/-11 Hiromi Mogi (69-68-68), Ji-Hee Lee (71-64-70)
5th/-9 Esther Lee (67-70-70)
T6/-6 Eun-A Lim (71-71-68), Ai Miyazato (70-71-69), Bo-Mee Lee (71-69-70), Rui Kitada (71-68-71)
T10/-4 Eun-Bi Jang (73-70-69), Saiki Fujita (71-72-69), Soo-Yun Kang (70-73-69), Akiko Fukushima (71-71-70), Nikki Campbell (71-70-71), Midori Yoneyama (69-71-72), Jae-Hee Bae (71-68-73)

T17/-3 Rikako Morita (71-75-67), Sakura Yokomine (71-73-69), Ah-Reum Hwang (73-70-70), Yumiko Yoshida (71-70-72), Mayu Hattori (70-68-75), Chihiro Ikeda [a] (70-68-75), Ayako Uehara (69-69-75)
T25/-2 Young Kim (75-71-68), Akane Iijima (71-74-69), Kaori Ohe (70-72-72), Ji-Woo Lee (68-73-73)
T31/-1 Asako Fujimoto (70-73-72), So-Hee Kim (73-69-73), Shiho Oyama (70-70-75)
T34/E Tamie Durdin (75-70-71), Aoi Nagata (72-72-72)
T38/+1 Ritsuko Ryu (74-72-71), Miho Mori [a] (72-74-71), Mi-Jeong Jeon (72-73-72), Li-Ying Ye (73-70-74), Sakura Kito [a] (70-71-76)
T46/+2 Yun-Jye Wei (71-75-72), Kaori Aoyama (71-75-72)
T50/+3 Na-Ri Kim (70-72-77)
T52/+4 Miki Saiki (73-72-75), Hyun-Ju Shin (72-72-76)
T56/+5 Inbee Park (75-70-76), Onnarin Sattayabanphot (74-70-77)
61st/+6 Tao-Li Yang (71-75-76)

The final group in the final round consists of Ahn, Arimura, and Mogi; right before them are the Lees (Ji-Hee and Esther) and Lim; and right before them are Miyazato, Bo-Mee Lee, and Kitada. The winner's going to come from 1 of these groups--let's see who it is tomorrow!

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