Almost All LPGA, Almost All the Time: Colonial Williamsburg Edition

Yeah, the weather has been over 60 for over a month here in Fukuoka and I've got serious spring golf fever. So sue me. Anyway, the new issue of Seoul Sisters is out and the LPGA.com site has another great tournament preview, this time for the terribly named Michelob ULTRA Open at Kingsmill (but the purse is $2.2M, so I'll bite my tongue). And thanks to Seoul Sisters, I found out about this SI piece and this charity event. So there is hope for the tour in the media. (Mi Hyun Kim's $100K donation to the recent tornado victims is getting some well-deserved attention, too.)

All of which is a set-up for the official Mostly Harmless link to the leaderboard. With the morning group all in, the bar has been set high--or rather, to combine golf and limbo, very low. Readers who haven't skipped over or fallen asleep during my previous LPGA blogging will notice the name of Sarah Lee, the current leader at -8, cropping up quite a bit. Last week's winner, Mi Hyun Kim is only one back. There are many other familiar names who went low--Suzann Pettersen, Brittany Lincicome (-5); Stacy Prammanasudh, Morgan Pressel, Grace Park, Natalie Gulbis (-4); Karrie Webb, Jee Young Lee, Meena Lee, Juli Inkster (-3)--but the real surprise is Siew-Ai Lim, who's only three back, thanks to a 31 on the front (her last nine). (She hasn't made a cut this year, has 1 career top ten since she joined the tour in 1999, and has never finished in the top 50 on any year's money list in that stretch.)

This bodes well for Ai Miyazato, who's 2-under on the back and heading into what looks like an easier front. Laura Davies is the only person behind Ai-chan in the afternoon group doing better than her--she's -3 through 8, with the front ahead of her, as well. By comparison, Lorena Ochoa could only manage 1 birdie and 1 bogey on the back, so she needs to kick it into gear on the front if she wants to be within striking range come the weekend. (Whoops, here's how fast things change and how slow I write: Ai-chan bogeyed 1 and Ochoa birdied it, and now they're both at -1 through 11. Is it just me, or have they been pairing those two together a lot this year? They're not grooming Ai-chan for superstardom at all, are they?) Meanwhile, like Seon Hwa Lee, Shi Hyun Ahn, and Angela Park, who are also over par on their rounds so far, Moira Dunn is going to have to shoot a Kim/Pettersen-like number on the back to make up for her slow start.

This post commemorates my decision not to go to that JLPGA event today. Oh, and Happy 400th, Jamestown!

[Update 1 (5:40 am): It's too soon to tell with three tough closing holes to play, but it's worth asking if Birdie Kim (-5 so far) is getting her game back. And what the heck is happening to Brittany Lang--she's already missed more cuts than she's made, and she'll need a great one to keep from missing her fourth in a row. And if Lorena and Ai-chan can finish better than -2 in their closing holes on the front. And, with Moira +3 through 14 and the cut line looking like it may well be under par at the end of the day tomorrow, whether she will miss her second cut in a row this week. Oh, and congrats to Sarah Lee for tying the course record!]

[Update 2 (5:48 am): Hey, Lang just eagled the third--is that Mostly Harmless motivational feed I bought at the same 100-yen store that I got our crystal ball at actually working?]

[Update 3 (8:00 am): So the first round is, as they say, history, and Birdie Kim and Laura Davies finished strong to shoot matching 65s, only two shots off the lead. There were a couple of -4s and a bunch of -3s in the afternoon, but what's most interesting to me is that Ai-chan (-2) beat Lorena (-1) head-to-head over this 18--we'll see how tomorrow goes. Angela Park turned her round around and finished T25 with Ai-chan and the 11 other players who barely broke 70. Brittany Lang bounced back from her +3 start to finish at -1, tied for 39th with 15 others who got under par on the day, including Paula Creamer, Julieta Granada, Se Ri Pak, Jeong Jang, and a bunch of rookies. And Shi Hyun Ahn got it back to even to join Meaghan Francella, Kyeong Bae, Teresa Lu, and 9 others tied at 57th who gave themselves a good chance of making the cut and a decent chance of playing their way back into contention. Moira held it together and stayed at +2, but she'll need to break 70 tomorrow to make the cut. Stay tuned!]