Well, of course it wasn't really easy--Lorena Ochoa just makes it look like it.
Uno: The Women's British Open in St. Andrews, Scotland.
Dos: The Canadian Open in Edmonton, Alberta.
Tres: The Safeway Classic in Portland, Oregon.
The final margin of victory was much larger than Ochoa's lead had been for most of the round. Sophie Gustafson, down 2 shots to Ochoa for most of the day--matching her bad start, her hot comeback, and her subsequent steady play over the first 13 holes--started to press at the end and finished awfully as a result. Mhairi McKay, out to show Helen Alfreddsen she made a mistake to leave her off the European Solheim Cup team, almost got herself in the mix twice, but three consecutive bogeys on the front and a late double bogey kept her from putting any real pressure on Ochoa. As a result, she dropped back to a tie for second with Gustafson, In-Bee Park (who only shot a 64, the low round of the day and tournament to get there), and Christina Kim (whose 69 could have been a lot better if her 3 bogeys on the back hadn't erased her 3 birdies), all of them 5 shots behind the undisputed world #1.
It was a disappointing day for rookie first-round leader Ji-Young Oh (73, -6, 6th place), Angela Stanford (73, -3, T12), Minea Blomqvist and Lindsey Wright (74, -2, T22), and Diana D'Alessio and Natalie Gulbis (78, +1, T34), all of whom started the day with the hope of doing what In-Bee Park did. Although Laura Diaz, too, had a bad day--her 73 dropped her just out of the top 10--being named to the U.S. Solheim Cup team has to help her mood. The same, unfortunately, can't be said for Christina Kim, whom I believe played herself onto the team over the summer. Captain Betsy King chose Nicole Castrale instead.
In the Super Soph race, Morgan Pressel (76, +3, T50) had an uncharacteristic collapse while Seon Hwa Lee (69, +1, T34) put together another great Sunday charge. But it wasn't enough to catch Brittany Lang and Julieta Granada (73, E, T28), Blomqvist, or the surprising Super Soph winner of the week, Katie Futcher (70, -4, T9). Way to go, Katie!
And way to prove me wrong, Julieta! I can only hope Ochoa's winning ways continue when she returns to competitive golf in late September and that Se Ri Pak doesn't take advantage of her little sabbatical to pass the $10M mark first. Actually, I don't care that much about my silly predictions, but if they help motivate Granada and Pak in any way, I'll continue to stand by them. Something tells me Ochoa doesn't need my help for motivation--if she can win the inaugural Navistar LPGA Classic, she'll put herself in a position to surpass Annika Sorenstam's LPGA-leading victory streak, not to mention become the first LPGA player to break the $3M mark in single-season earnings. Here's the field, as of 8/7/07, by the way.
In the meantime, it'll be interesting to see who steps up in the State Farm Classic in Springfield, IL, next week, and the inaugural LPGA NW AR Championship in, well, northwestern Arkansas. But as the semester starts up later this morning, I'm going to be reserving most of my LPGA blogging for the last three Take Your Blog to the Course events. So unfortunately I won't be free to take part in Mulligan Stu's plan to celebrate Tiffany Joh's fine play this week. Too bad!
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