Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! By now, you've probably read all the fantastic posts on Hee Young Park's breakthrough win at the CME Group Titleholders, from bangkokbobby's great weekend reports to Happy Fan's amazing overview of The Rocket's career to Tony Jesselli's look at the implications of the 2011 season-ender for a variety of players on a variety of bubbles for 2012.
Me, I'm finally healthy enough to get back to a minimal blogging schedule, but The Full Metal Archivist and onechan have now been sick for days, so things won't be getting back to normal for me at Mostly Harmless for awhile, if this monster cold holds true to form. On the bright side, with Paula Creamer in contention last weekend, onechan and imoto were excited to watch the Golf Channel coverage with me; we got to see all of the final round and most of the 3rd round over the last few days. I was so impressed with the way that Park charged on Saturday and kept it going on the front nine on Sunday as 1st- and 2nd-round leader Na Yeon Choi was falling apart and then coming back, but I was even more impressed with The Rocket's 10 straight closing pars to seal the deal against charges from Creamer, Sandra Gal, and Suzann Pettersen--a very un-Rocket-like performance, in that she avoided the crash-and-burn that's so often undermined her chances for victory in the past, and on a course built to produce exactly those kinds of runs. I've gotta acknowledge that I let Park's reputation keep her out of my projected top 15 this time last week. And I was totally wrong. Way to go, Hee Young--hopefully the 1st of many wins on the LPGA!
Although my favorite players didn't do so well, I wasn't too disappointed because of how emotional the Rocket's victory turned out to be. Besides Choi and Creamer, nobody else I'm really crazy about was in the hunt; Ai and Mika Miyazato, In-Kyung Kim, Amy Yang, and Mina Harigae were at least respectable, but Tiffany Joh had another terrible tournament playing in LPGA bonus time for the 1st time in her career. Oh well, at least they'll all be back on tour full-time next year. Plus, Ai-sama broke the $1M barrier on the LPGA money list for the 3rd year in a row, Creamer came very close to doing it for the 6th time in her career, and Ya Ni Tseng ended up just short of crossing the $3M rubicon.
I'll have much more looking back on the 2011 LPGA season in a month or so, but for now I'm focusing on the JLPGA's final tournament of the season, the Ricoh Cup, along with JLPGA and LPGA Q-School--when health, work, and family permit, that is. Take it easy, and enjoy Tony Jesselli's blogging here!
2 comments:
Sandra Gal running up to Park after she holed out on 18, and Park sobbing in her arms, was one of the great moments of the season.
I agree! Right up there with Lexi and T-Joh giggling together after Lexi put her approach inside T-Joh's on 16!
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