Resort Trust Ladies Sunday: Teresa Lu Goes Low for 2nd JLPGA Victory

Teresa Lu fired a bogey-free 64 to blow away the field at the Resort Trust Ladies and secure her 2nd career JLPGA victory.

Lu beat Ji-Min Lee (69) by 5 shots, money-list leader Bo-Mee Lee (67), Na-Ri Lee (70), and 2nd-round leader Junko Omote (71) by 6 shots, and Misuzu Narita (66) and Natsuka Hori (69) by 8 shots.  Ji-Woo Lee (67), Ayaka Watanabe (70), and 18-year-old amateur Kotone Hori (70) rounded out the top 10, while Sun-Ju Ahn (69), Yuri Fudoh (69), Kaori Ohe (69), Sakura Yokomine (70), Mamiko Higa (70), Ji-Hee Lee (71), Rikako Morita (71), and Ritsuko Ryu (71) had to settle for T11.  1st-round leader Miki Saiki (73) fell all the way back to T19, tied with the likes of Mi-Jeong Jeon (72) and Maiko Wakabayashi (69).

For Lu, the victory ratifies her decision to stay on the JLPGA after winning the Mizuno Classic last November and declining the opportunity to rejoin the LPGA for 2014.  Both wins came from Sunday 64s and both came as bouncebacks from at least one bad preceding tournament.  Last season, it was an unexpected T34 after 4-straight top 10s (with her worst finish in that run a T7); this week, it was 2-straight missed cuts (her 1st since early September) that interrupted a 3-event top-22 run that included 2 top 10s.  Lu's 2 rounds in the 60s this week matched her entire output for the start of 2014 before this week.  They also lifted her from 26th to 12th on the JLPGA money list:

1. Bo-Mee Lee ￥60.43M
2. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥47.45M
3. Misuzu Narita ￥42.96M
4. Onnarin Sattayabanphot ￥36.13M
5. Ayaka Watanabe ￥34.14M
6. Erina Hara ￥33.37M
7. Yuki Ichinose ￥31.61M
8. Rikako Morita ￥28.06M
9. Miki Sakai ￥27.32M

10. Esther Lee ￥26.57M

11. Phoebe Yao ￥25.74M
12. Teresa Lu ￥24.45M
13. Ritsuko Ryu ￥23.70M
14. Ji-Hee Lee ￥20.43M
15. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥20.28M

16. Shanshan Feng ￥20.04M

17. Mayu Hattori ￥18.82M
18. Lala Anai ￥17.72M
19. Mamiko Higa ￥16.73M
20. Ji-Yai Shin ￥16.29M

21. Mami Fukuda ￥15.59M
22. Yukari Baba ￥14.76M
23. Asako Fujimoto ￥13.83M

24. Saiki Fujita ￥13.74M
25. Sakura Yokomine ￥13.57M

26. Yumiko Yoshida ￥13.05M
27. Junko Omote ￥13.04M

28. Soo-Yun Kang ￥11.32M
29. Na-Ri Lee ￥11.24M
30. Na-Ri Kim ￥9.74M

Next up is the Yonex Ladies, which features defending champion Junko Omote and most of the rest of the JLPGA's finest, along with 13-year-old amateur Suzuka Yamaguchi, 15-year-old amateurs Minami Katsu and Hina Arakaki, 17-year-old amateur Haruka Ikarashi, and 20-year-old amateur Marika Takada.  They just keep coming younger and younger, don't they?