Gang of Four Rains Terror on Corning

Then there were four in the sub-69 club at the Corning Classic: Beth Bader, Young Kim, Mi Hyun Kim, and Paula Creamer. They have achieved a little bit of separation from the field--the former two are tied for the lead at -16 through 14, while the latter two are two shots back through 17 and 16, respectively--mostly by playing the tougher back side better than just about anyone else.

To be sure, there are a couple of rookies--In-Kyung Kim (-5 through 17, -13 for the tournament) and Na On Min (-11, T6)--who could possibly overcome "never-been-there" Sunday jitters and get into contention. And there are a couple of Super Sophs--Seon Hwa Lee and Ai Miyazato--at -10 who know how to go very low and are looking to break out this season. Not to mention Natalie Gulbis (-11 through 17) and Becky Morgan (-10 through 16), who have a chance to stay or pull ahead of always-dangerous-on-Sunday Grace Park and Meg Mallon.

But I'm sticking by my prediction one of the Gang of Four wins this thing.

[Update 1 (5:09 am): Nice birdies on 18, In-Kyung and Mi Hyun! And on 17, Paula! Better get a birdie soon, Bader, or you ruin my Gang of Four hook. {Sorry, In-Kyung, my mistake: that was two bogeys in your last 6 holes. Hopefully you got your Sunday jitters out of the way today!--TC, 5:53 am}]

[Update 2 (5:16 am): Wow, nice finish, Paula! Way to get to -16.]

[Update 3 (5:28 am): Good finish for Morgan to salvage a disappointing round and bad finish for Gulbis who had a chance to get to -12 but finished at -10 instead. Looking further down the leaderboard, it's interesting to see that now only 21 players have met the Mostly Harmless minimum requirements for being in the mix (down from 43 after two rounds) and that only 13 have actually adhered to the Mostly Harmless Corning Classic Rules (although another 19 can do so by breaking 69 tomorrow and another 7 can do so by breaking 65).]

[Update 4 (5:50 am): Oops, then there were three in the sub-69 club. So it's Creamer, Bader, and Young Kim at -16, Mi Hyun Kim at -15, and In-Kyung Kim at -12 in the top 5. Maybe I should change this post's title to "A Good Day to Be a Kim"! Speaking of which, Seon-Hwa Lee and Grace Park will have to represent their namesakes alone at the top tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see if which Korean surname has the best average finish this week (Christina Kim is dragging down her namesakes, so it's actually close). But more interesting to see if big names like Ahn (-5, T38) and Jang (-7, T22) can play their way into the top 10, or at least beat Bae (-7, T22), Choi (-9, T13), Chung (-7, T22), Kang (-6, T29), and Yim (-6, T29). And don't forget the Sorenstam-Sharp "not a fluke" race.]

[Update 5 (6:30 am): It's too bad the weather is going to be a big factor tomorrow--a good chance of rain all night and decent odds of multiple thunderstorms moving through the Southern Tier the next day (especially in the afternoon) is the Weather Channel's forecast. So for all intents and purposes the players will be playing a different course tomorrow even than the past two days, which saw some rain, not least because the wind will be up. Whoever adjusts best wins. If the thunderstorms hold off, the wind is not blowing that hard snd is not that changeable, and the rain is intermittent or light, we could see some really low scores (although I've always found really wet greens to be more difficult to make putts on). Or we could see a Monday finish. Or they might get lucky and not get rained on at all. Hey, it's the joy of spring in NY! Anyway, here's the link to the Sunday pairings. They're going for an early start with threesomes off both sides to maximize their chances of finishing the round on Sunday. Someone in the last 5 groups off the front will win--I wonder who! With Mi Hyun dealing with a nagging knee injury that forced her to withdraw after the third round last week, Creamer has to be the favorite. But I'm picking Young Kim in the upset--and I think Ai-chan will make a run at them. We'll see....]