Yonex Ladies Weekend: Mi-Jeong Jeon Will Not Be Denied

Mi-Jeong Jeon took a 4-shot lead over Mika Miyazato into today's final round of the Yonex Ladies and with 6 holes left to play has extended it to 5 over Ayako Uehara and 6 over Miyazato. Even though Jeon has coughed up some pretty big leads in her very successful JLPGA career, I'm calling this one for her. Her pursuers have simply made too many mistakes to be viable threats. Although Uehara has birdied 3 of her last 4 holes, that's just brought her back to where she stood before she bogeyed 3 of her 5 closing holes on the front. Meanwhile, Miyazato hasn't made a birdie all round. Let's put it this way: we're going to need to see eagles from Jeon's pursuers on the short par 5s down the stretch (#13 and #18) for anyone to have a chance of denying her her 14th career JLPGA victory.

[Update 1 (12:54 am): Here's where the top 10 and notables stood after round 2, after Nikki Campbell was the only notable to make a move on Jeon:

1st/-8 Mi-Jeong Jeon (68-68)
2nd/-4 Mika Miyazato (72-68)
T3/-3 Ayako Uehara (71-70), Yuki Ichinose (71-70)
T5/-2 Nikki Campbell (76-66), Toshimi Kimura (74-68), Junko Omote (72-70), Sakura Yokomine (71-71)
T9/-1 Yukari Baba (73-70), Eun-A Lim (73-70), Shinobu Moromizato (70-73)

T12/E Yuri Fudoh (71-73)
T15/+1 Mie Nakata (77-68), Akane Iijima (73-72), Miki Saiki (71-74)
T19/+2 Miho Koga (73-73), Mayu Hattori (73-73), Hiromi Mogi (73-73), So-Hee Kim (72-74)
T25/+3 Maiko Wakabayashi (76-71), Ritsuko Ryu (75-72), Momoko Ueda (73-74), Asako Fujimoto (72-75)
T34/+4 Chie Arimura (77-71), Rikako Morita (75-73), Ji-Woo Lee (75-73), Yuko Saitoh (74-74), Na-Ri Kim (74-74), Na-Ri Lee (71-77)
T44/+5 Akiko Fukushima (77-72), Esther Lee (76-73)
T50/+6 Kaori Aoyama (74-76), Ah-Reum Hwang (74-76), Li-Ying Ye (74-76), Hyun-Ju Shin (73-77), Rui Kitada (73-77), Young Kim (72-78)

MC: Erina Hara (77-79)

Wow, Hara is really struggling, isn't she? That's now 8 missed cuts in 11 starts. This from a player who's never finished outside the top 25 on the money list in her 1st 3 JLPGA seasons....]

[Update 2 (7:30 am): I called it! Congrats to Jeon on a convincing title defense! Here's how it ended up:

1st/-9 Mi-Jeong Jeon (68-68-71)
2nd/-4 Ayako Uehara (71-70-71)
3rd/-3 Mika Miyazato (72-68-73)
T4/-1 Yumiko Yoshida (75-73-67), Ikue Asama (76-71-68), Miho Koga (73-73-69), Junko Omote (72-70-73)
T8/E Na-Ri Lee (71-77-68), Mie Nakata (77-68-71), Hiromi Takesue (72-72-72), Shinobu Moromizato (70-73-73), Sakura Yokomine (71-71-74)

T13/+1 Mayu Hattori (73-73-71), Miki Saiki (71-74-72), Yuri Fudoh (71-73-73), Yukari Baba (73-70-74)
T19/+2 Momoko Ueda (73-74-71), So-Hee Kim (72-74-72), Nikki Campbell (76-66-76), Yuki Ichinose (71-70-77)
T23/+3 Kaori Aoyama (74-76-69), Akiko Fukushima (77-72-70), Ritsuko Ryu (75-72-72), Eun-A Lim (73-70-76)
T28/+4 Ah-Reum Hwang (74-76-70), Yuko Saitoh (74-74-72), Maiko Wakabayashi (76-71-73)
33rd/+5 Asako Fujimoto (72-75-74)
T34/+6 Hyun-Ju Shin (73-77-72), Na-Ri Kim (74-74-74), Hiromi Mogi (73-73-76)
T39/+7 Chie Arimura (77-71-75)
T44/+8 Rui Kitada (73-77-74), Young Kim (72-78-74), Rikako Morita (75-73-76)
T47/+9 Li-Ying Ye (74-76-75), Esther Lee (76-73-76), Akane Iijima (73-72-80)
T51/+10 Ji-Woo Lee (75-73-78)

Some nice moves up the leaderboard--but not from anyone close to Jeon. It ended up being a walk in the par for her.]

[Update 3 (7:40 am): Here's the new money list:

1. Sakura Yokomine ￥41.05M
2. Inbee Park ￥36.50M
3. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥31.53M
4. Chie Arimura ￥29.61M
5. Miho Koga ￥28.02M
6. Rui Kitada ￥26.84M
7. Yuri Fudoh ￥26.50M
8. Ji-Yai Shin ￥25.76M
9. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥25.56M
10. Mayu Hattori ￥22.67M
11. Yun-Jye Wei ￥19.24M
12. Mie Nakata ￥18.48M
13. Asako Fujimoto ￥17.10M
14. Nikki Campbell ￥16.43M
15. Shinobu Moromizato ￥15.99M
16. Hiromi Mogi ￥15.79M
17. Ayako Uehara ￥15.58M
18. Young Kim ￥14.26M
19. Akane Iijima ￥13.74M
20. Yukari Baba ￥13.27M
21. Ji-Hee Lee ￥12.99M
22. Bo-Bae Song ￥12.98M
23. Saiki Fujita ￥12.84M
24. Kaori Aoyama ￥12.59M
25. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥11.72M
26. Na-Ri Kim ￥11.46M
27. Tamie Durdin ￥11.04M
28. Chieko Amanuma ￥10.88M
29. Esther Lee ￥10.75M
30. Ah-Reum Hwang ￥10.44M

Jeon joins the top 10, but very few idle players were passed this week. Call it missed opportunities for Chie Arimura and Shinobu Moromizato--and for Momoko Ueda, who only moved up to #37 on the list--in particular.]