Munsingwear Ladies Tokai Classic Sunday: Ji-Yai Shin Wins for 4th Time in Her Last 9 JLPGA Starts

The cliche may go that "when the cat's away, the mice will play," but it didn't hold true on the JLPGA today.  With Bo-Mee Lee and Sun-Ju Ahn, the 1-2 players on the tour's money list, both deciding not to play this week at the Munsingwear Ladies Tokai Classic, 22-year-old Mami Fukuda had a great chance for her best-ever finish and possibly even a win.  But when you're being chased by #3 Misuzu Narita and #4 Ji-Yai Shin (who's also a former world #1!), you'd better bring your A-game.  Fukuda did not, making an early and a late double that knocked her out of contention.

Maybe the cliche should go, "when some cats are away, other cats will play," instead?  Because even as Fukuda fell from -10 to -7 with a birdieless 39 on the front, Shin birdied the par-3 6th and par-4 9th to move to -11.  That's around the time former LPGAer Na-Ri Kim bogeyed her last 3 holes on the front in a row to fall back to -8 and Na-Ri Lee caught Rui Kitada at -9.  While Esther Lee was making a charge from 8 groups ahead of the final threesome to move into contention--her 5 birdies in her 1st 7 holes on the back got her to -11--Shin kept making pars.  That also opened the door to Na-Ri Lee, who birdied the par-4 10th and par-5 12th from 2 groups ahead of Shin's to also move to -11, along with Kitada, who moved to -10 with a birdie on the par-3 11th.

Things got kicked up a notch after Esther Lee parred out to become leader in the clubhouse at -11.  Na-Ri Lee responded with an eagle on the par-5 15th to move to -13, which Kitada birdied to move to -11 and then Shin did the same to get to -12.  So it was a 3-player race over the final 3 holes to finish ahead of Esther Lee.  And who should win it but the Final Round Queen, who birdied the 194-yard par-3 16th and 331-yard par-4 17th to move to -14?  As first Na-Ri Lee and then Kitada parred out, all Shin needed for her 4th win in her last 9 JLPGA starts was a par on the 367-yard 18th hole.  When she did it, she had secured her 9th career JLPGA victory and joined Hyo Joo Kim as the 2nd 4-time winner in 2014 in the entire world of major-tour women's professional golf.

She also moved to #2 on the JLPGA money list.

1. Bo-Mee Lee ￥104.86M
2. Ji-Yai Shin ￥92.53M
2. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥90.51M
4. Misuzu Narita ￥86.06M
5. Miki Sakai ￥62.55M
6. Esther Lee ￥52.54M
7. Erina Hara ￥50.65M
8. Na-Ri Lee ￥47.84M
9. Teresa Lu ￥47.34M
10. Lala Anai ￥46.45M
11. Ayaka Watanabe ￥45.25M
12. Shiho Oyama ￥44.61M
13. Onnarin Sattayabanphot ￥44.56M
14. Ritsuko Ryu ￥38.35M
15. Rikako Morita ￥37.79M
16. Momoko Ueda ￥36.51M
17. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥36.01M
18. Ai Suzuki ￥33.05M
19. Saiki Fujita ￥32.23M
20. Yuki Ichinose ￥31.61M
21. Ji-Hee Lee ￥30.91M

22. Phoebe Yao ￥28.80M
23. Mayu Hattori ￥27.93M
24. Kaori Ohe ￥27.12M
25. Hikari Fujita ￥26.31M
26. Yumiko Yoshida ￥25.47M
27. Sakura Yokomine ￥24.42M
28. Asako Fujimoto ￥24.23M
29. Erika Kikuchi ￥23.22M
30. Yeon-Ju Jung ￥22.92M
31. Rumi Yoshiba ￥22.85M
32. Junko Omote ￥22.66M
33. Mami Fukuda ￥22.45M
34. Yukari Baba ￥22.10M
35. Kotono Kozuma ￥22.00M
36. Megumi Kido ￥21.42M
37. Mamiko Higa ￥20.81M
38. Na-Ri Kim ￥20.64M
39. Shanshan Feng ￥20.04M
40. Soo-Yun Kang ￥19.26M
41. Natsuka Hori ￥19.24M

42. Akane Iijima ￥18.72M
43. Rui Kitada ￥18.55M

44. Miki Saiki ￥17.84M
45. Megumi Shimokawa ￥17.25M
46. Yukari Nishiyama ￥17.03M
47. Eun-Bi Jang ￥15.92M
48. Nana Yamashiro ￥15.06M
49. Da-Ye Na ￥14.56M
50. Yuri Fudoh ￥14.29M

The Korean resurgence is a worldwide thing, as 5 Koreans are now in the top 8 on the JLPGA, while last years stars Rikako Morita, Sakura Yokomine, Yumiko Yoshida, and Miki Saiki are being left in the dust, along with returnee Momoko Ueda.  True, defending champion Yokomine charged into the top 10 today on the strength of a fine 67 and Saiki into the top 20 with a great 68, but they need to be getting themselves into contention down the home stretch with regularity if they want to have a shot at even the top 10 on the money list at season's end.  

Next up is the Miyagi TV Cup Dunlop Ladies Open, the last tune-up before the JLPGA's 3rd major and biggest tournament of 2014, the Japan Women's Open.  Looks like Shin is taking a break, but we should see Lee, Ahn, and Teresa Lu back in action.