Stanley Ladies Overview: The Fog of Golf; or, How to Defend Your Title in Only 27 Holes

Chie Arimura defended her title today at the Stanley Ladies and she only had to play 9 holes to do it.  Dense fog delayed the start of the final round for so long that the tournament organizers ended up turning the planned 54-hole event into a 27-hole sprint.  1st-round leader bogeyed 2 of her 1st 3 holes and couldn't make a birdie coming in, opening the door to a charging Bo-Bae Song, who birdied 10 and 11 and 15 and 16 to get to -5, 1 shot behind Arimura, who made a lone birdie on the 14th to get to -6.  But a walkoff bogey by Song gave Arimura some margin for error, so even though she bogeyed the 17th and Tao-Li Yang birdied her final hole from the group ahead of her to get to -4, Arimura was able to avoid a playoff and seal her win in regulation with a par on the 536-yard par 5.

With such a shortened tournament, there was a lot of volatility on the leaderboard.  A 33 from Esther Lee, a 34 from money-list leader Mi-Jeong Jeon, and a 35 from Yeo-Jin Kang lifted them into a tie for 5th at -3 with Miki Saiki, who shot a 37.  Inbee Park's birdieless 37 dropped her back to a tie for 9th with Erika Kikuchi (34), Yuko Fukuda (34), Hiromi Mogi (35), and Akane Iijima (35).  A 40 by Erina Yamato and a 38 by Shiho Oyama dropped them all the way back to a tie for 14th with Shinobu Moromizato (36), Harukyo Nomura (36), and Ayako Uehara (37).  With Sun-Ju Ahn withdrawing, Mayu Hattori shooting a 37 to drop back to T24, and Sakura Yokomine shooting a 35 to move up to T34, Jeon extended her lead on the money list on her closest competitors.  More on that after I play some golf of my own this morning!

[Update 1 (7:35 am):  Good thing I checked weather.com before I hit the course--I've been so used to hot and dry conditions here that the idea of an early-morning cell moving through Hamburg didn't cross my mind, except that the morning was grayer than usual and a breeze was coming up, so my golf senses must have been tingling or something.  Anyway, while the rain does its part to alleviate our drought, I'll update my list of the top 50 on the JLPGA money list:

1. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥73.18M
2. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥51.53M
3. Mayu Hattori ￥51.29M
4. Ritsuko Ryu ￥49.10M
5. Miki Saiki ￥48.30M
6. Chie Arimura ￥47.64M
7. Ji-Hee Lee ￥45.19M
8. Bo-Mee Lee ￥36.23M
9. Sakura Yokomine ￥35.71M
10. Rikako Morita ￥30.92M
11. Inbee Park ￥29.62M
12. Hiromi Mogi ￥27.93M
13. Soo-Yun Kang ￥27.34M
14. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥25.42M
15. Mihoko Iseri ￥24.46M
16. Shanshan Feng ￥24.28M
17. Kaori Ohe ￥22.71M
18. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥20.54M
19. Yuki Ichinose ￥18.46M
20. Erina Hara ￥17.58M
21. Ayako Uehara ￥16.34M
22. Airi Saitoh ￥16.10M
23. Esther Lee ￥15.81M
24. Yukari Baba ￥15.44M
25. Akane Iijima ￥15.31M
26. Bo-Bae Song ￥15.15M
27. Teresa Lu ￥14.04M
28. Yumiko Yoshida ￥14.04M
29. Ji-Yai Shin ￥13.88M
30. Yuri Fudoh ￥13.84M
31. Shinobu Moromizato ￥13.24M
32. Erika Kikuchi ￥13.19M
33. Na-Ri Lee￥13.10M
34. Rui Kitada ￥12.73M
35. Miki Sakai ￥12.32M
36. Yeo-Jin Kang ￥11.90M
37. Yuko Fukuda ￥11.57M
38. Megumi Kido ￥11.17M
39. So-Hee Kim ￥10.72M
40. Young Kim￥10.63M
41. Na-Ri Kim ￥10.38M
42. Kumiko Kaneda ￥9.65M
43. Harukyo Nomura ￥9.60M
44. Da-Ye Na ￥9.42M
45. Junko Omote￥7.81M
46. Li-Ying Ye ￥7.68M
47. Shiho Toyonaga ￥7.49M
48. Nachiyo Ohtani ￥7.25M
49. Nikki Campbell ￥7.25M
50. Asako Fujimoto￥7.16M


Next up is the Samantha Thavasa Ladies, a new event on the JLPGA at Eagle Point Golf Club in Ibaraki.  I don't see a field list for it yet....]

[Update 2 (11:13 am):  Here's bangkokbobby's take on the final results!]