After all the anticipation, Valentine's Day on the LPGA certainly had its share of thrills and spills! I'll let Hound Dog offer his usual more-than-professional synopsis and break down the first round of the 2008 season by career cohorts.
The Vets
Annika Sorenstam isn't the only one facing a career crossroads this season. Among her peers in the field this week, Cristie Kerr is fighting to reestablish herself as the best American in the world; Lorie Kane is struggling to regain the game that put her among the world's best for 3 years; Pat Hurst, Sherri Steinhauer, and Laura Diaz on the American side and Sophie Gustafson and Maria Hjorth on the European side are looking to qualify for at least one more Ryder Cup Team and burnish their formidable reputations; Rachel Hetherington, Carin Koch, Wendy Ward, Wendy Doolan, Kelli Kuehne, Moira Dunn, and Janice Moodie are fighting to rescue their careers; and a host of others are testing the LPGA waters to see how regularly they should plan to play in 2008, including big names like Meg Mallon, Michelle McGann, Brandie Burton, Liselotte Neumann, Helen Alfreddson, Michelle Redman, and Jill McGill.
Feel free to click on the names of your faves to track the ups and downs of their rounds; I'll give a quick rundown to save you some time. Kuehne (-5) has to be the happiest of the bunch--it's been a long time since she broke 70 in an opening round (counting the Canadian Open last August, she's only done it 7 times in the last 4 years, and then usually towards the end of the season), much less held a first-round lead, but she's picking up where she left off in Q-School. Ward (-3, T3) and Mallon (-2, T10) are probably the next-most-thrilled, although the former has the memory of a 68-75 start here last year and the latter has the memory of a 69-82 start at last year's Tournament of Champions to temper their excitement. Steinhauer (-3, T3) is probably the only other vet who can look back on Valentine's Day with unadulterated satisfaction; her bogey-free round contrasts sharply with the double bogeys that will probably stand out more for Kerr (-3, T3) and Sorenstam (-2, T10) than anything else they did that day. Of the rest, only Hurst and Doolan (E, T35) can find real bright spots in their day; the less said of many of their rounds, the better.
The Mid-Career Professionals
With many of the top vets skipping the SBS, along with Lorena Ochoa, who will be starting her season in Singapore at the HSBC Champions inaugural event at the end of the month, the stage was set for the rest of the mid-career cohort to bask in the spotlight. Who stepped up and who stepped back among their top 20 on the career money list?
#17 Meena Lee (-3, T3) lead the charge with a bogey-free round, finishing one stroke ahead of #5 Paula Creamer (who matched Sorenstam's birdie-double-birdie finish) and #7 Gloria Park (who posted a bogey-free round herself), 2 ahead of #10 Angela Stanford (who responded to a double on the treacherous 17th with a 33 on the front) and #20 Becky Morgan, and 3 ahead of #3 Jeong Jang, #4 Hee-Won Han, and #11 Dorothy Delasin.
Among the disappointed are #14 Jennifer Rosales (78, T126); #2 Grace Park (76, T103); #9 Suzann Pettersen, #13 Stacy Prammanasudh, and #16 Brittany Lincicome (74, T65); and #6 Natalie Gulbis, #8 Candie Kung, #12 Christina Kim, and #18 Young Kim (+1, T44).
It can't feel good for the majority of these stars to have been outplayed by the previously free-falling Jacqueline Yang (-4, 2nd place), Patricia Meunier-Lebouc, and Michelle Ellis (-2, T10), the steadily-improving Lindsey Wright, the golf babes Erica Blasberg and Mikaela Parmlid, or the out-of-nowhere Russy Gulyanamitta, but at least the law of averages is in their favor....
The Young Guns
Some of the biggest surprises and disappointments can be found among my top 25 from the classes of 2006-2008. Who would have predicted that Ji-Young Oh (-3, T3) would be the top Young Gun in the field thus far? Or that all of my "Sure Things"--Seon Hwa Lee (74), Morgan Pressel (73), Jee Young Lee (75), or Angela Park (75)--would be over par? My "Great Bets" fared better, for the most part: In-Kyung Kim (70), Jane Park (70), and Momoko Ueda (71) went under par, but Ai Miyazato (76) and Eun-Hee Ji (75) will have to make a charge to make the cut. Only Ya Ni Tseng (70), Sandra Gal (70), and Shanshan Feng (72) stood out among my "Good Bets," "Pretty Darn Good Bets," and "Not Bad Bets At All," respectively. Who would have predicted that no one among Julieta Granada, Inbee Park, Hee Young Park, Brittany Lang, Meaghan Francella, Na On Min, and Sun Young Yoo (+1, T44), Na Yeon Choi (+2, T65), H.J. Choi and Linda Wessberg (75, T88), Kyeong Bae (76, T106), and Karin Sjodin (77, T118) would have broken par?
Looking forward to seeing if newbies Paige McKenzie (70), Katie Futcher, Liz Janangelo (71), and Carolina Llano (72) can continue to stay roughly even with KLPGA superstar Ji-Yai Shin and the rest of their peers who got off to a good start, but I suspect they'll struggle to stay ahead of the majority of their cohort. Youth and consistency don't usually go together.
Overall, I'm off to a worse start than usual in the PakPicker competition, mostly because my picks among the Young Guns and Mid-Career Professionals are letting me down. And I certainly feel bad for Moira (74) and Ai-chan, who never got it going on Thursday. But one round does not a tournament--or a season--make. I'm certainly not in Macbeth's To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow soliloquy mode yet. But, I'll tell you, it's harder being a golf fan than a Bills fan--way more chances for disappointment over the course of a season!
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