Ayako Uehara birdied her 1st 5 holes in a row to start the final round of the Nichi-Iko Ladies Open with a bang, then followed them up with birdies on the 7th and 9th holes to post a 29 on the front 9 (it would have been lower, but she had to settle for pars on the front's 2 par 3s). Uehara's playing partner and 2nd-round leader Bo-Bae Song tried to keep pace with birdies on her 1st 2 holes, but didn't make another until the par-5 9th, which left her 3 shots back as they made the turn despite posting a bogey-free 33 on the front. Song cut Uehara's lead to 2 with a birdie on the short par-4 11th, but both players exchanged pars until Uehara bogeyed the long part-4 17th, so still had a 1-shot lead heading into the final hole, a short par 5. After neither player could manage to birdie it, Uehara had earned her 3rd career JLPGA victory. Defending champion Hyun-Ju Shin had to settle for 4th place, as her final round 70 brought her to double digits under par, but broke her run in the 60s.
1st/-16 Ayako Uehara (66-68-66)
2nd/-15 Bo-Bae Song (67-66-68)
3rd/-13 Ah-Reum Hwang (70-66-67)
4th/-10 Hyun-Ju Shin (68-68-70)
5th/-9 Yeo-Jin Kang (69-71-67)
T6/-8 Yuri Fudoh (68-70-70), Junko Omote (66-68-74)
8th/-7 Mayu Hattori (68-72-69)
T9/-6 Ji-Hee Lee (70-75-65), Akane Iijima (70-69-71), Yukari Baba (69-70-71)
T12/-4 Soo-Yun Kang (70-72-70), Ritsuko Ryu (70-71-71), Hiromi Mogi (69-71-72)
T15/-3 Sakura Yokomine (73-72-68), Na-Ri Lee (71-73-69), Esther Lee (73-70-70), Yumiko Yoshida (70-73-70)
T20/-2 Miki Saiki (72-72-70), Onnarin Sattayabanphot (71-73-70), Kumiko Kaneda (70-73-71), Megumi Kido (72-70-72)
T28/-1 Yuki Ichinose (76-69-70), Shiho Oyama (72-71-72), Miho Koga (73-69-73), Maiko Wakabayashi (72-70-73), Erika Kikuchi (71-71-73), Miki Uehara (73-68-74)
T37/E Ji-Woo Lee (75-70-71), Young Kim (74-71-71), Yuko Mitsuka (74-69-73), Kaori Aoyama (71-72-73)
T43/+1 Kaori Ohe (70-75-72), Ayu Komatsu (68-75-74)
T49/+2 Eun-A Lim (74-69-75)
T51/+3 Miki Sakai (70-73-76), Mie Nakata (71-71-77)
T53/+4 Tao-Li Yang (73-72-75), Ji-Na Lim (71-71-78)
The winner's late bogey meant that Uehara fired her 2nd 66 of the week, but the round of the day and the tournament belonged to last week's winner Ji-Hee Lee, who moved all the way to T9 on the strength of a bogey-free 65 that started with a 31 on the back 9. Sakura Yokomine's 5-birdie 68 moved her into the top 15, but if she birdied instead of bogeyed her last hole, the 519-yard par 5, she would have tied Lee. Neither could catch Yuri Fudoh, also high on the JLPGA money list, in T6 at -8 for the week, though. In the end, although #2 on the money list Miki Saiki barely climbed into the top 20, she maintained her position as Sun-Ju Ahn's lead chaser.
1. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥54.42M
2. Miki Saiki ￥46.83M
3. Ji-Hee Lee ￥46.58M
4. Sakura Yokomine ￥38.32M
5. Yuri Fudoh ￥35.35M
6. Hiromi Mogi ￥28.84M
7. Rui Kitada ￥25.01M
8. Inbee Park ￥24.33M
9. Ayako Uehara ￥23.71M
10. Chie Arimura ￥22.30M
11. Kumiko Kaneda ￥20.41M
12. Yukari Baba ￥17.00M
13. Bo-Bae Song ￥14.22M
14. Mayu Hattori ￥13.91M
15. Teresa Lu ￥13.83M
16. Momoko Ueda ￥13.77M
17. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥13.71M
18. Ji-Woo Lee ￥13.34M
19. Ritsuko Ryu ￥12.89M
20. Bo-Mee Lee ￥12.05M
21. Ah-Reum Hwang ￥11.92M
22. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥11.72M
23. Junko Omote ￥11.66M
24. Na-Ri Lee ￥11.42M
25. Saiki Fujita ￥10.86M
26. Ji-Yai Shin ￥10.67M
27. Young Kim ￥10.33M
28. Mie Nakata ￥10.25M
29. Rikako Morita ￥10.17M
30. Kaori Aoyama ￥9.61M
31. Esther Lee ￥9.42M
32. Akane Iijima ￥9.28M
33. Yumiko Yoshida ￥9.09M
34. Nikki Campbell ￥9.03M
35. Eun-A Lim ￥8.32M
36. Shiho Oyama ￥8.11M
37. Asako Fujimoto ￥8.04M
38. Akiko Fukushima ￥8.01M
39. So-Hee Kim ￥7.95M
40. Shinobu Moromizato ￥7.63M
41. Megumi Kido ￥7.58M
42. Yeo-Jin Kang ￥7.49M
43. Satsuki Oshiro ￥6.86M
44. Na-Ri Kim ￥6.42M
45. Yuki Ichinose ￥6.41M
46. Soo-Yun Kang ￥6.35M
47. Miki Sakai ￥5.01M
48. Ji-Na Lim ￥5.00M
49. Nachiyo Ohtani ￥4.95M
50. Kaori Ohe ￥4.85M
Next up is the Stanley Ladies, which Sun-Ju Ahn defends, but before that the top JLPGAers from last season--Ahn, Yokomine, Jeon, Baba, Moromizato, and Bo-Mee Lee (by virtue of her KLPGA performance last year), along with dual members Ji-Yai Shin, Ai Miyazato, Inbee Park, Momoko Ueda, Teresa Lu, Shanshan Feng, and Hee Young Park (all by virtue of their LPGA play from last year and/or Rolex Ranking)--play the U.S. Women's Open at the Broadmoor. I'm tempted to pick the long-hitting Ahn and Yokomine in the PakPicker competition at Seoul Sisters.com. We'll see!
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