Konica Minolta Cup Sunday: 20-Year-Old Ai Suzuki Becomes Youngest Major Winner on JLPGA

20-year-old Ai Suzuki made her 1st career top 10 on the JLPGA a major victory as she held off Ji-Yai Shin, Misuzu Narita, Na-Ri Lee, and Lala Anai down the stretch to break Ai Miyazato's record and become the youngest winner of the Konica Minolta Cup.

The 1st player to put pressure on the youngster was Lee, who birdied 6 of her 1st 10 holes from 3 groups ahead of Suzuki, Momoko Ueda, and Kaori Ohe to move to -5 for the week.  But Suzuki responded with 4 birdies of her own in her 1st 7 holes to fight back to -7 with 10 holes left in the tournament.  In the group ahead of her Shin and Narita were playing catch-up, however, as Narita fired a bogey-free 33 to move to -5 and Shin also birdied 4 of her 1st 7 holes to also get to -5.  But a double on 9 knocked the former world #1 back on her heels.  Even though a bogey from Suzuki a few minutes later that forced her to settle for an opening 34 dropped her back to -6, it was enough to extend her lead on her playing partners, as Ueda's 36 and Ohe's 37 left them at -3 with 9 to play.

When Suzuki made 6-straight pars to start the back, she put the pressure on her pursuers to chase her down, and most of them couldn't handle it.  Ohe bogeyed 2 of her 1st 4 holes on the back and was out of it.  Ueda ended up shooting a birdieless 38 on the back.  Narita bogeyed the long par-4 13th to drop to -4.  Lee even bogeyed the medium-length par-4 14th to join her.  But Anai, playing from 2 groups ahead of Suzuki, birdied 3 of her 1st 7 holes on the back to catch them at -4.  As Lee and Anai parred in to become leaders in the clubhouse at -4, that's when things got really interesting.

And Shin was at the heart of things.  She birdied the par-5 16th to make it 4 players at -4.  Even as she bogeyed the par-3 17th, Suzuki bogeyed the 16th to drop to -5.  And then, as Narita made her 3rd-straight closing par and Shin birdied the long par-4 18th to also finish at -4, Suziki birdied 17 to take a 2-shot lead on her pursuers into the final hole.  And it was a good thing she had that cushion, as she bogeyed 18 to finish at -5, just barely good enough to secure the victory over the #3 and #4 players on the JLPGA money list.

Speaking of which, with Bo-Mee Lee withdrawing during the 3rd round and Sun-Ju Ahn sitting this week out, the race for that title just tightened up!

1. Bo-Mee Lee ￥104.86M
2. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥90.51M
3. Misuzu Narita ￥84.53M
4. Ji-Yai Shin ￥78.13M
5. Miki Sakai ￥61.77M
6. Erina Hara ￥50.65M
7. Teresa Lu ￥47.34M
8. Esther Lee ￥47.34M
9. Lala Anai ￥45.89M
10. Ayaka Watanabe ￥44.68M
11. Shiho Oyama ￥44.61M
12. Onnarin Sattayabanphot ￥41.96M
13. Na-Ri Lee ￥40.80M
14. Ritsuko Ryu ￥38.04M
15. Rikako Morita ￥37.79M
16. Momoko Ueda ￥35.37M
17. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥34.88M
18. Ai Suzuki ￥32.37M
19. Saiki Fujita ￥32.23M
20. Yuki Ichinose ￥31.61M
21. Ji-Hee Lee ￥30.91M

22. Phoebe Yao ￥28.43M
23. Mayu Hattori ￥27.93M
24. Kaori Ohe ￥27.12M
25. Hikari Fujita ￥26.31M
26. Yumiko Yoshida ￥25.47M
27. Asako Fujimoto ￥23.09M
28. Junko Omote ￥22.30M
29. Yeon-Ju Jung ￥22.24M
30. Yukari Baba ￥22.10M
31. Kotono Kozuma ￥22.00M
32. Sakura Yokomine ￥21.82M
33. Rumi Yoshiba ￥21.72M
34. Erika Kikuchi ￥21.69M
35. Megumi Kido ￥21.42M
36. Mami Fukuda ￥21.37M
37. Mamiko Higa ￥20.45M
38. Shanshan Feng ￥20.04M
39. Soo-Yun Kang ￥19.26M
40. Natsuka Hori ￥19.24M

41. Akane Iijima ￥18.36M

42. Miki Saiki ￥17.06M
43. Na-Ri Kim ￥16.64M
44. Eun-Bi Jang ￥15.24M
45. Megumi Shimokawa ￥14.65M
46. Yukari Nishiyama ￥14.43M
47. Yuri Fudoh ￥14.29M
48. Da-Ye Na ￥13.99M
49. Nana Yamashiro ￥13.92M
50. Rui Kitada ￥13.35M

Next up is the Munsingwear Yokai Ladies Classic, where Sakura Yokomine secured her 20th career JLPGA victory last year.  All the top players on tour are on the most current field list, so expect tensions to be high as the tour enters its final 3rd of the season!

[Update 1 (11:45 am):  Ai Ai bangkokbobby's Ai to Ai pun on Ai breaking Ai's record!  (Ai means love).]