Konica Minolta Cup Sunday: Saiki Fujita Gets 1st JLPGA Major

Saiki Fujita played a flawless final round in the Konica Minolta Cup, shooting a bogey-free 69 despite a 32 on the front that her chief challenger Nikki Campbell threw at her. Fujita turned a 2-shot lead into 4 on the final hole, when she birdied the par 5 and Campbell bogeyed it. And just like that, she had won her 1st JLPGA major.

Here are the final results for the leaders and notables:

1st/-13 Saiki Fujita (67-68-71-69)
2nd/-9 Nikki Campbell (71-72-68-68)
T3/-7 Young Kim (74-70-68-69), Sun-Ju Ahn (73-71-68-69)
T5/-6 Maiko Wakabayashi (72-70-69-71), Yukari Baba (71-72-67-72)
7th/-5 Sakura Yokomine (71-68-72-72)
T8/-3 Ah-Reum Hwang (72-70-75-68), Bo-Bae Song (71-72-69-72)
T10/-2 Rui Kitada (73-67-73-73), Hiromi Takesue (72-69-71-74)

T12/-1 Mayu Hattori (70-73-74-70), Chie Arimura (69-74-73-71), Shinobu Moromizato (66-74-75-72), Hiromi Mogi (69-70-74-74)
16th/E Li-Ying Ye (73-72-73-70)
T17/+1 Akiko Fukushima (71-77-70-71), Tamie Durdin (76-68-72-73), Na-Ri Kim (74-69-72-74)
20th/+2 Mi-Jeong Jeon (73-71-73-73)
21st/+3 Yuri Fudoh (73-69-77-72)
T22/+4 Hyun-Ju Shin (72-73-73-74), Eun-A Lim (71-73-74-74), Ji-Woo Lee (71-71-75-75)
T25/+5 Miki Saiki (73-74-75-71), Miho Koga (76-73-72-72), Na-Ri Lee (73-70-74-76)
T30/+6 Yun-Jye Wei (72-76-73-73)
T35/+7 Shiho Oyama (79-72-75-69), Yuko Mitsuka (75-76-75-69), Ayako Uehara (78-73-73-71)
T39/+8 Kaori Aoyama (74-70-76-76)
T40/+9 Akane Iijima (74-71-74-78)
T42/+10 Mie Nakata (73-69-80-76)
T47/+11 Chieko Amanuma (74-76-75-74)
T52/+13 Yuki Ichinose (72-74-79-76)
58th/+14 Jae-Hee Bae (76-75-75-76)
T59/+15 Momoko Ueda (76-72-76-79)
68th/+27 Ok-Hee Ku (74-77-78-86)

Thanks to a sizzling weekend, money-list leader Sun-Ju Ahn extended her lead on Sakura Yokomine, while Fujita ascended from 17th to 3rd with her win:

1. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥72.13M
2. Sakura Yokomine ￥59.07M
3. Saiki Fujita ￥53.17M
4. Akane Iijima ￥52.46M
5. Yukari Baba ￥51.78M
6. Yuri Fudoh ￥49.48M
7. Nikki Campbell ￥48.46M
8. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥47.69M
9. Rui Kitada ￥44.49M
10. Ji-Hee Lee ￥43.58M
11. Chie Arimura ￥43.48M
12. Inbee Park ￥36.50M
13. Young Kim ￥35.13M
14. Miho Koga ￥34.53M
15. Shinobu Moromizato ￥33.45M
16. Mie Nakata ￥32.58M
17. Mayu Hattori ￥32.07M
18. Ayako Uehara ￥31.41M
19. Hiromi Mogi ￥28.63M
20. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥28.29M
21. Hiromi Takesue ￥27.82M
22. Akiko Fukushima ￥27.46M
23. Ji-Woo Lee ￥26.21M
24. Ji-Yai Shin ￥25.76M
25. Na-Ri Kim ￥25.10M
26. Bo-Bae Song ￥25.07M
27. Asako Fujimoto ￥23.41M
28. Eun-A Lim ￥21.68M
29. Yun-Jye Wei ￥21.58M
30. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥20.99M

2010 is now Fujita's best chance to break into the top 20 (and higher) on the season-ending money list for the 1st time in her 6-year JLPGA career. She's already earned more than at any other season in her life. In addition, Nikki Campbell moved up 4 spots into the top 10 and Young Kim 8 to the top 15. Meanwhile, Momoko Ueda stayed in the top 50 by the skin of her teeth, despite suffering her worst finish on the JLPGA since she missed 4 cuts early in her rookie season in 2006. It's not quite time to push the panic button for Momo-chan, but consider that she has 1 top 10 in 10 starts on tour--and that was when she kicked away the chance for a wire-to-wire win with a final-round 76 at the Nishijin Ladies Classic back in April. If this keeps up, we may not see her on the LPGA until they come to Japan!