Friday, April 24, 2009

Fujisankei Ladies Classic Friday: Arimura's Albatross Lifts Her to the Top of the Leaderboard

Chie Arimura is a 21-year-old in her 4th season on the JLPGA who made the top 15 on the money list in 2007 and got her 1st win in 2008, but has gotten off to a slow start this season, never finishing below par in 5 previous events heading into the Fujisankei Ladies Classic. So I'm sure she appreciates the 2 she made on the par-5 5th hole today, not to mention her 5 birdies that accompanied it. Her 65 lifted her into the lead, but she can't rest on her laurels. Sakura Yokomine, who's finished 1-2 the last 2 weeks on the JLPGA, had a chance to break 30 on the back if she could just birdie the par-4 18th. Instead, she bogeyed it and had to settle for a 68. And there are plenty of other strong golfers within striking distance of Arimura:

1st/-7 Chie Arimura (65)
2nd/-5 Ami Shiozaki (67)
T3/-4 Sakura Yokomine, Tamie Durdin, Makoto Takemura (68)
T6/-3 Julie Lu, Yuriko Ohtsuka, Tomoko Kusakabe (69)
T9/-2 Ji-Hee Lee, Ji-Yai Shin, Shinobu Moromizato, Kuniko Maeda, Yoshie Suzuki (70)

T14/-1 Miho Koga, Yuko Mitsuka, Ayako Uehara, Akiko Fukushima, Saiki Fujita, Sakurako Mori, Asako Fujimoto (71)
T25/E Na Zhang, Mie Nakata, Hiromi Mogi (72)
T36/+1 Ah-Reum Hwang, Bo-Bae Song, Akane Iijima, Midori Yoneyama, Hiroko Yamaguchi, Esther Lee, Namika Omata (73)
T50/+2 Miki Saiki, Yuko Saitoh, Yukari Baba (74)
T67/+3 Hyun-Ju Shin, Ji-Woo Lee, Nikki Campbell, Yun-Jye Wei, Maiko Wakabayashi, Kumiko Kaneda, Li-Ying Ye (75)
T79/+4 Erina Hara, Rui Kitada (76)
T86/+5 Ai-Yu Tu, Eun-A Lim, Rikako Morita (77)
T96/+6 Ritsuko Ryu (78)
106th/+10 Woo-Soon Ko

Can Arimura make like Ah-Reum Hwang earlier this season and run away from the field? Or will some of the JLPGA's hottest players make like Yokomine and try to overtake the 1st-round leader?

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