Thursday, September 10, 2009

Konica Minolta Cup Thursday: The Course Is Winning

Sure, a walkoff birdie gave Ayako Uehara a 68 and a 2-shot lead on Chie Arimura, who bogeyed 2 of her last 3 holes at the Konica Minolta Cup today. And yes, 3 other players went under par, while another 8 shot even par, including the pair at the top of the money list, Shinobu Moromizato and Sakura Yokomine. But man oh man were there a lot of high scores today! Momoko Ueda's 76 may sound like a deeply disappointing start to her extended tour on the JLPGA, but she matched Mi-Jeong Jeon and beat Yuko Mitsuka and Yuri Fudoh by 1 shot, Miho Koga and Eun-A Lim by 2, and Erina Hara and Akiko Fukushima by 5. Here's how the top 10 and notables stand after the end of the 1st round of the JLPGA's 2nd major:

1st/-4 Ayako Uehara (68)
T2/-2 Chie Arimura, Yasuko Satoh (70)
T4/-1 Yukari Baba, Miki Saiki (71)
T6/E Shinobu Moromizato, Sakura Yokomine, Li-Ying Ye, Na-Ri Lee, Ya-Huei Lu, Kurumi Dohi, Maria Iida, Yeo-Jin Kang (72)

T14/+1 Rui Kitada, Bo-Bae Song, Mayu Hattori (73)
T21/+2 So-Hee Kim (74)
T30/+3 Ji-Hee Lee, Mie Nakata, Maiko Wakabayashi, Hyun-Ju Shin, Julie Lu (75)
T46/+4 Momoko Ueda, Mi-Jeong Jeon, Rikako Morita, Midori Yoneyama, Akane Iijima (76)
T59/+5 Yuko Mitsuka, Yuri Fudoh, Yuko Saitoh, Tamie Durdin, Ah-Reum Hwang, Nikki Campbell, Hiromi Mogi, Woo-Soon Ko (77)
T77/+6 Miho Koga, Eun-A Lim, Ji-Woo Lee, Kumiko Kaneda (78)
T92/+7 Ok-Hee Ku, Saiki Fujita, Sakurako Mori, Yun-Jye Wei, Esther Lee (79)
T105/+8 Da-Ye Na (80)
T114/+9 Erina Hara, Akiko Fukushima (81)
T119/+10 Yuki Ichinose (82)
T128/+13 Mai Arai (85)
131st/+14 Ai-Yu Tu (86)

Let's see who has the mental toughness to bounce back and make the cut. It's looking like anyone who can get near par after the end of the 3rd round ought to be in contention on Sunday!

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