Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Wegmans LPGA Championship Preview, Predictions, Pairings

It's Wegmans LPGA Championship week at Mostly Harmless. I'm writing this preview from the media tent at Locust Hill Country Club in Pittsford, NY, as steady rains have been trying to lull me to sleep for the past 3 and a half hours. To stay awake, I've been working up my notes from yesterday into an intro post, a look at Mika Miyazato, and a comparison of how Ya Ni Tseng and Suzann Pettersen are preparing for the LPGA's 2nd major of 2011. There's much more coming before I head back to Hamburg this afternoon--including an update of last year's hitchhiker's guide to Locust Hill (which I'm going to have to do without walking the back today, as it's raining harder than ever and I'm now hearing thunder) and plenty of rankings and predictions, but for now, check out my tournament previews from 2010, 2009, and 2008, along with those by LPGA.com, Brent Kelley, and Mick Elliott.

As for my picks from this week's field for the PakPicker competition at Seoul Sisters.com, I'm taking advantage of Hound Dog's rundown of key LPGA performance stats, the history of both the LPGA Championship and the Wegmans LPGA event that it's merged with for 2010-2012 at least, and my own feel for who can deal best with the now-changing course and weather conditions, here are my guesses:

1. Kim In-Kyung
2. Shin
3. Miyazato Mika
4. Kerr
5. Miyazato Ai
6. Creamer
7. Tseng
8. Pettersen
9. Choi Na Yeon
10. Pressel
11. Kim, Mindy
12. Lewis, Stacy

Alts: Webb; Stanford; Yang, Amy

Here are my favorite Thursday pairings:

1st tee, 9:05 am: Ya Ni Tseng, Ai Miyazato, Juli Inkster
10th tee, 12:48 pm: Ji-Yai Shin, In-Kyung Kim, Stacy Lewis
1st tee, 8:54 am: Cristie Kerr, Brittany Lincicome, Michelle Wie
1st tee, 9:16 am: Suzann Pettersen, Paula Creamer, Sandra Gal
10th tee, 12:59 pm: Na Yeon Choi, Se Ri Pak, Anna Nordqvist
10th tee, 1:10 pm: Karrie Webb, Laura Davies, Natalie Gulbis
10th tee, 9:05 am: Morgan Pressel, Amy Yang, Julieta Granada
10th tee, 9:16 am: Catriona Matthew, Katherine Hull, Mindy Kim
1st tee, 8:32 am: Seon Hwa Lee, Kristy McPherson, Candie Kung
1st tee, 8:43 am: Inbee Park, Brittany Lang, Hee-Won Han
1st tee, 12:26 pm: Song-Hee Kim, Sun Young Yoo, Amy Hung
1st tee, 12:48 pm: Hee Kyung Seo, Vicky Hurst, Pat Hurst
1st tee, 7:59 am: Moira Dunn, Pernilla Lindberg, Louise Stahle
1st tee, 8:21 am: Amanda Blumenherst, Mina Harigae, Beatriz Recari
10th tee, 7:37 am: Chie Arimura, Danielle Kang, Angela Oh
1st tee, 7:15 am: Harukyo Nomura, Ryann O'Toole, Jenny Suh
1st tee, 8:10 am: Sarah Jane Smith, Belen Mozo, Lexi Thompson

With Mika Miyazato going off the 1st tee at 12:37 pm, Jane Parl at 2:05, and Tiffany Joh at 2:16, I really wish I could spend the rest of the week here. But daddy duties are calling and it's about time I headed back to Hamburg. On the other hand, the rain's stopped so maybe I'll have time to just take a peek at the driving range before I go....

[Update 1 (5:29 pm): Emily Kay makes a great point about Ya Ni Tseng's far more impressive record than Rory McIlroy's, but could have augmented her case by pointing out that the LPGA's been benefitting from a global youth movement in women's golf for half a dozen years at least (and pointed out that Cristie Kerr's win at Locust Hill last year was every bit as dominating as Rory's).]

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