Yamaha Ladies Open Overview: Ritsuko Ryu Gets 2nd Career Win

Ritsuko Ryu birdied 3 of her last 4 holes to take the weather-shortened Yamaha Ladies Open today for the 2nd JLPGA victory of her 6-year career.  Just like last August, when she won the Nitori Ladies with a late-Sunday birdie barrage, Ryu zoomed past some talented golfers down the home stretch, beating Hiromi Mogi by 2 shots over the last 4 holes, 1st-round leader Mayu Hattori by 4 over the last 4, and Mi-Jeong Jeon by 5 over the last 9.  In so doing, she kept ahead of fellow Sunday chargers Yuki Ichinose and Li-Ying Ye.

Here's how the leaders and notables finished the 36-hole event:

1st/-3 Ritsuko Ryu (73-68)
T2/-1 Li-Ying Ye (76-67), Yuki Ichinose (75-68), Hiromi Mogi (72-71), Mayu Hattori (69-74)
T6/E Young Kim (75-69), Mi-Jeong Jeon (74-70)
T8/+1 So Hee Kim (73-72), Nikki Campbell (72-73)
T10/+2 Harukyo Nomura (76-70), Hiroko Fukushima (75-71), Erina Hara (74-72), Miki Saiki (73-73), Yuko Fukuda (73-73), Ayako Uehara (72-74), Mihoko Iseri (72-74)

T21/+5 Sakura Yokomine (77-72), Sun-Ju Ahn (76-73), Maiko Wakabayashi (75-74), Bo-Mee Lee (72-77)
T29/+6 Onnarin Sattayabanphot (75-75), Da-Ye Na (75-75)
T31/+7 Na-Ri Kim (78-73), Soo-Yun Kan (77-74), Erika Kikuchi (77-74), Miki Sakai (77-74), Kumiko Kaneda (76-75), Yumiko Yoshida (75-76), Megumi Kido (75-76)
T39/+8 Ji-Woo Lee (76-76), Saiki Fujita (75-77), Teresa Lu (74-78), Lala Anai (74-78), Shinobu Moromizato (73-79)
T47/+9 Rikako Morita (78-75), Kaori Ohe (75-78), Nao Honda [a] (75-78), Eun-Bi Jang (74-79)

MC: Tamie Durdin, Hyun-Ju Shin, Kotono Kozuma, Mika Takushima, Tao-Li Yang, Ming-Yen Chen, Sakurako Mori, Kaori Aoyama

Here's how the 2012 JLPGA money list currently looks:

1. Ritsuko Ryu ￥20.89M
2. Ji-Hee Lee ￥19.26M
3. Bo-Mee Lee ￥16.79M
4. Airi Saitoh ￥14.40M
5. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥12.83M
6. Soo-Yun Kang ￥12.00M
7. Hiromi Mogi ￥9.55M
8. Mayu Hattori ￥8.82M
9. Ayako Uehara ￥8.52M
10. Akane Iijima ￥8.00M
11. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥7.73M
12. Yuki Ichinose ￥7.06M
13. Yuko Mitsuka ￥6.32M
14. Li-Ying Ye ￥6.32M
15. Sakura Yokomine ￥6.23M
16. Erika Kikuchi ￥6.14M
17. Eun-Bi Jang￥4.88M
18. Young Kim￥4.60M
19. Na-Ri Lee￥4.08M
20. Teresa Lu ￥4.05M
21. Harukyo Nomura ￥3.92M
22. So-Hee Kim ￥3.81M
23. Rui Kitada ￥3.74M
24. Yuri Fudoh ￥3.58M
25. Na-Ri Kim ￥3.58M
26. Mina Nakayama ￥3.34M
27. Rikako Morita ￥2.84M
28. Junko Omote ￥2.75M
29. Kaori Ohe ￥2.68M
30. Miki Saiki ￥2.59M

Next up is the Studio Alice Ladies Open, which Chie Arimura won when it was last played in 2010 and where she will be making her 2012 debut.  It looks like Ji-Yai Shin will be jetting over to Japan to see how her game stacks up against the JLPGA's finest, as well.  Let's see is Sun-Ju Ahn and Sakura Yokomine can finally bring their A-games next week!