Salonpas Cup Sunday: Pressel Makes It Look Easy

Morgan Pressel's bogey-free 34 on the front gave her a huge cushion in the final round of the Salonpas Cup and she cruised to a 3-shot victory that would have been much larger if Sakura Yokomine hadn't closed out her round with 3 straight birdies.

With Mayu Hattori continuing her great round-terrible round pattern of the 1st 3 days today, the only players to make serious moves made them not on Pressel but on the rest of the field. Inbee Park's 68 ensured that her 1st finish as a JLPGA member worse than 2nd ended up being quite respectable, while Ya Ni Tseng's 69 guaranteed she'd make up some ground on both Ji-Yai Shin and Ai Miyazato (who settled for a 2-birdie 71 today) in the Rolex Rankings. Mi-Jeong Jeon's 68 gave her her 3rd-straight top 10, joining the LET's top player from last season, Sophie Gustafson (who birdied her 1st 5 holes and bogeyed 4 of her last 7!), and one of the JLPGA's other top players over the last several years, Ji-Hee Lee (who had a roller-coaster round of her own with 5 birdies and 4 bogeys scattered all over the course). Both Tamie Durdin (69) and Momoko Ueda (70) made a lot of early birdies (5 in her 1st 12 holes for the former and 4 in her 1st 8 for the latter), but they made only bogeys and pars the rest of the way.

From beginning to end, though, the day belonged to the only American in the field. Pressel's 70 was her 4th-straight under-par round. In a tournament where only 5 players finished under par and only 8 at par or better, Pressel made only 6 bogeys all week. For a short hitter to do all this on a longer course than the one Ryo Ishikawa played when he shot his 58 on the JGTO last week is truly impressive. Congratulations to Morgan!

1st/-9 Morgan Pressel (71-68-70-70)
2nd/-6 Sakura Yokomine (74-71-67-70)
3rd/-4 Ya Ni Tseng (69-73-73-69)
4th/-2 Mie Nakata (70-75-71-70)
5th/-1 Tamie Durdin (74-75-69-69)
T6/E Ai Miyazato (76-72-69-71), Nikki Campbell (73-73-71-71), Mayu Hattori (68-76-67-77)
T9/+1 Mi-Jeong Jeon (76-74-71-68), Sophie Gustafson (77-72-69-71), Ji-Hee Lee (72-75-71-71)

T12/+2 Momoko Ueda (71-80-69-70), Bo-Bae Song (71-76-70-73), Hiromi Mogi (73-72-71-74)
T15/+3 Inbee Park (72-75-76-68), Young Kim (74-70-71-76)
T18/+5 Shinobu Moromizato (75-75-73-70), Yuri Fudoh (75-74-71-73), Akane Iijima (75-73-72-73), Miki Saiki (70-74-76-73)
T22/+6 Ayako Uehara (76-74-73-71), Teresa Lu (72-72-75-75), Seon Hwa Lee (73-74-70-77)
T26/+7 Hee Kyung Seo (77-74-72-72), Hyun-Ju Shin (72-73-70-80)
T28/+8 Akiko Fukushima (75-76-70-75), Sun-Ju Ahn (74-77-72-75)
T32/+9 Yun-Jye Wei (73-78-73-73), Ritsuko Ryu (72-78-74-73)
T35/+10 Na-Ri Kim (76-75-76-71), Ah-Reum Hwang (76-76-74-72), Rikako Morita (74-75-75-74), Eun-A Lim (70-79-75-74), Na-Ri Lee (70-80-73-75), Rui Kitada (74-75-72-77)
T41/+11 Yukari Baba (78-72-73-76)
T43/+12 Erina Hara (73-78-74-75)
T45/+13 Maiko Wakabayashi (74-75-75-77)
T53/+16 Miho Koga (74-78-78-74)

Pressel's win, Ahn's uncharacteristically bad week, Shin's week off, Arimura's missed cut, and Koga's terrible play all week help ensure that Park will remain at the top of the JLPGA money list heap for just a little while longer while she returns to the LPGA.

1. Inbee Park ￥36.50M
2. Sun Ju Ahn ￥27.92M
3. Ji-Yai Shin ￥25.76M
4. Chie Arimura ￥24.97M
5. Sakura Yokomine ￥24.21M
6. Miho Koga ￥23.94M
7. Rui Kitada ￥21.59M
8. Mayu Hattori ￥21.18M
9. Yun-Jye Wei ￥18.03M
10. Mie Nakata ￥17.16M
11. Nikki Campbell ￥14.77M
12. Asako Fujimoto ￥14.06M
13. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥13.63M
14. Hiromi Mogi ￥13.24M
15. Bo-Bae Song ￥12.44M
16. Akane Iijima ￥12.38M
17. Ji-Hee Lee ￥11.45M
18. Kaori Aoyama ￥11.16M
19. Shinobu Moromizato ￥11.03M
20. Chieko Amanuma ￥10.88M
21. Young Kim ￥10.13M
22. Ai Miyazato ￥9.44M
23. Ah-Reum Hwang ￥9.39M
24. Tamie Durdin ￥9.39M
25. Yuri Fudoh ￥9.09M
26. Yuko Mitsuka ￥8.95M
27. Yukari Baba ￥8.94M
28. Hiroko Ayada ￥8.67M
29. Ayako Uehara ￥8.52M
30. Momoko Ueda ￥8.21M

On deck is the Fundokin Ladies. Let's see how the JLPGA's regulars do on their own!