Se Ri Pak opened the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic with a blistering 8-under-par 63. My title refers to her, of course, but also to Hound Dog, who's picked the last two winners and picked Pak this week. If there is such a thing as a Mostly Harmless jinx--and there certainly seems to be one--maybe there's such a thing as a Hound Dog bump?
In any case, Pak isn't running away with the tournament just yet. She leads streaky Canadian Alena Sharp by 2, non-exempt rookie Jin Young Pak by 4, and Carri Wood and Aram Cho by 5. What makes the presence of these unheralded players near the top of the leaderboard so significant is that the first two rounds of this tournament are a special qualifier for the year's last major. The top 5 LPGA members after 36 holes not already qualified for the British Women's Open will be going to St. Andrews! Given how inconsistent these players have been (none has made more than $75K this year), Moira Dunn (at E) is not out of the running in this qualifier within the tournament.
A bunch of big names had perfectly fine rounds, but will need inspired play and/or help from Pak to get into contention. Mi Hyun Kim and Morgan Pressel lead this pack with 3-under 68s, followed by Cristie Kerr, Brittany Lincicome, Jeong Jang, and Angela Stanford at 69, Seon Hwa Lee at 70, and most of the rest of the top 30 on the money list in the field at 71. More after I take onechan to yochien!
[Update 1 5:42 pm: OK, so the day has gotten away from me--but in a good way. Not only did I take onechan to yochien, I went with the tsuma and imoto to her and her classmates' swimming lesson, as well--the last (sob!) in Fukuoka this year--and did the dad thing by "videotaping" the whole cute and hilarious hour (what's the word when you save the moving images onto a HDD rather than a videotape, by the way?). Then I had non-stop conferences with students on their final papers. With the language barrier a higher or lower obstacle to leap over from student to student, it was a lot of mental exercise for all of us! Great fun, actually.
So anyway, here are a few more thoughts on the first round. Usually when you bogey your first hole, as Pak did, you don't follow up with 4 birdies on that side and 5 birdies on the next. And usually that second side is not a par 34, so you don't usually end up with a 29. That's how unusual her round was. It's not her tournament-record 61 from 1998, but it's pretty damn amazing. Se Ri doesn't know her namesake 4 shots behind her, but Jin Young is back from an injury that kept her away from the course for two months. She said she got lucky a lot on Thursday--well, if her luck keeps up for just one more round, she gets to try her luck on St. Andrews. Not a bad way to bounce back from an injury, eh? Speaking of Canadians, Alena Sharp has a great chance to overcome her difficulties this season in following up on a good round and really take her game to the next level. I know I've said dismissive things about her in the past on this blog, but seeing how I work only a couple hours from where she's from, I'd better shape up and start supporting a local golfer! Speaking of shaping up, Stacy Prammanasudh was 5 under through her first holes--until she gave all five shots back over the course of the next 6 holes--so if she can get back on that birdie train, she'll get on track for as strong a finish to 2007 as her start to it. Nicole Castrale, another player with a hot first half of 2007, did a similar thing as Prammanasudh--get it to 4 under and fall back to even par over a 16-hole stretch--so look to see if she can get hot and stay hot on Friday. Among golfers trying to break out of cold spells, the results were mixed--Jimin Kang (70), Kyeong Bae (71), Julieta Granada (71), Meaghan Francella (72), and Brittany Lang (72) hung in there, but the woes continued for Teresa Lu (80), Meena Lee (76), and Natalie Gulbis (75). Surprisingly, Paula Creamer (75), Hye Jung Choi (75), and defending British Open champion Sherri Steinhauer (73) joined the struggling masses on Thursday. With the cut line likely to fall between +1 and +4, they'll have to play well in round 2 to make sure they're still playing on the weekend.
OK, got to cut a page from my talk tomorrow and hightail it home! Later!]
[Update 2 6:46 pm: OK, dinner break time. Here's a list of who's already exempt for the Women's British Open--Moira is already in, so Friday's round matters just a little bit less. And to Alena Sharp, who's also already in!]
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