Nichi-Iko Ladies Sunday: Young Kim Holds Off Mayumi Shimomura for 1st JLPGA Victory

Young Kim bounced back from a bogey on the par-4 13th with 2 birdies in a row to hold off Mayumi Shimomura by 1 shot and Erika Kikuchi and Eun-Bi Jang by 2 shots in the final round of the Nichi-Iko Ladies to secure her 1st JLPGA victory since joining the tour in 2010.  Kim's win was the 1st for the South Korean contingent on tour since Na-Ri Kim took the Studio Alice Ladies in mid-April.  In fact, with Mi-Jeong Jeon, Bo-Mee Lee, and Na-Ri Lee finishing at -10 for the week, this was probably the best combined finish for the Seoul Sisters in Japan all season.  Still, with Kim's win moving her into the top 25 on the money list, Jeon is still the only Korean golfer in the top 15 thus far in 2013.

The JLPGA's young guns did well for themselves, as well, with 20-year-old Misuzu Narita joining Jeon and the Lees at T5 and Megumi Kido and 21-year-old Sae Yamamura getting top 10s.  Money-list leader Rikako Morita could manage only a 72 in the final round and finished T20, but with Natsuka Hori missing the cut and Miki Saiki taking the week off, she extended her lead on her closest pursuers.

1. Rikako Morita ￥89.34M
2. Natsuka Hori ￥58.16M
3. Miki Saiki ￥56.46M
4. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥49.68M
5. Sakura Yokomine ￥46.54M
6. Mamiko Higa ￥45.47M
7. Yumiko Yoshida ￥36.45M
8. Hiromi Mogi ￥35.88M
9. Ritsuko Ryu ￥33.20M
10. Onnarin Sattayabanphot ￥32.79M
11. Yuki Ichinose ￥30.43M
12. Kumiko Kaneda ￥29.93M
13. Junko Omote ￥29.29M

14. Teresa Lu ￥26.40M
15. Yukari Baba ￥26.19M
16. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥24.28M

17. Bo-Mee Lee ￥22.88M

18. Mayu Hattori ￥22.63M
19. Shiho Oyama ￥22.34M
20. Na-Ri Lee ￥22.19M

21. Erika Kikuchi ￥21.91M

22. Young Kim ￥21.12M

23. Misuzu Narita ￥20.07M

24. Megumi Kido ￥19.56M
25. Asako Fujimoto ￥19.32M

26. Kaori Ohe ￥19.10M
27. Na-Ri Kim ￥19.07M
28. Miki Sakai ￥18.32M
29. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥18.10M
30. Esther Lee ￥16.75M
31. Soo-Yun Kang ￥15.82M

32. Phoebe Yao ￥15.47M
33. Yuri Fudoh ￥15.42M

34. Ji-Hee Lee ￥15.41M
35. Kaori Nakamura ￥15.26M
36. Rui Kitada ￥14.89M
37. Erina Hara ￥14.74M
38. Yuki Sakurai ￥14.47M
39. Harukyo Nomura ￥13.02M
40. Eun-Bi Jang ￥13.00M

The JLPGA takes a week off for its mid-season break and resumes with the Samantha Thavasa Ladies from July 19th through 21st.  We'll see if the tour's youth movement can keep rising or whether Kim's win signals the return of the Seoul Sisters....