Fujitsu Ladies Sunday: Sun-Ju Ahn Prevails Over Sakura Yokomine and Erika Kikuchi in Playoff

Sun-Ju Ahn got her 2nd JLPGA victory in a row, bringing her season total to 5 and career total to 18, by triumphing over Sakura Yokomine and Erika Kikuchi with a birdie on the 1st playoff hole that earned her the Fujitsu Ladies title.

The golfer I'm trying to get everyone to recognize as "Knockout" saved her best punch for last, but for a long time it looked like she had thrown away the tournament.  When Ahn made 3 bogeys in a 5-hole stretch midway through the front 9, she dropped to -9 and gave the lead to Kikuchi, who kept it even after bogeying the 193-yard par-3 8th to fall back to -10.  But after Ahn and Kikuchi both birdied the 533-yard par-5 10th, and Kikuchi bogeyed the 405-yard par-4 11th, they found themselves tied for the lead at -10.  Then, even as Ahn stalled, Kikuchi and Yokomine went on runs:  Kikuchi birdied 3 of her next 5 holes, while Yokomine got off her 15-hole par train (dating back to the end of yesterday's round) with birdies on 14, 15, and 16.  At that point, Kikuchi was -13, Yokomine was -12, and Ahn, who birdied the par-5 16th, as well, was -11.  But Kikuchi and Yokomine bogeyed 17 and Kikuchi, needing a par to win, bogeyed it.  We had a playoff, and the rest is history.

Even though it ended up being a 3-player race to the finish, a few other players had the chance to crash the party.  Asako Fujimoto got it to -9 with 12 holes to play, but was +2 and birdieless the rest of the way to settle for T5 at -7 with Rikako Morita and Soo-Yun Kang.  Onnarin Sattayabanphot was -9 with 8 to go, but bogeyed 11, 17, and 18 to fall to T8 at -6 with Megumi Kido.  Teresa Lu's bogey-free 69 earned her a solo 4th at -8, but as 2 of her birdies came in the last 3 holes, it really was too little, too late to put any pressure on Ahn, Yokomine, and Kikuchi.  The visiting Mika Miyazato (71, E) and Ai Miyazato (74, +2) were never factors.

Ahn's win made her the fastest player in JLPGA history to break the 600 million yen barrier, beating Yokomine's record by 48 starts.  It also extended her lead on the tour money list.

1. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥136.09M
2. Bo-Mee Lee ￥110.27M
3. Ji-Yai Shin ￥96.59M
4. Misuzu Narita ￥91.57M
5. Teresa Lu ￥84.34M
6. Miki Sakai ￥83.89M
7. Na-Ri Lee ￥69.39M
8. Erina Hara ￥59.05M
9. Esther Lee ￥55.06M
10. Ayaka Watanabe ￥53.76M
11. Onnarin Sattayabanphot ￥52.76M
12. Shiho Oyama ￥50.25M
13. Lala Anai ￥48.41M
14. Rikako Morita ￥46.17M
15. Ritsuko Ryu ￥43.86M
16. Ai Suzuki ￥43.35M
17. Ji-Hee Lee ￥41.13M
18. Momoko Ueda ￥39.55M
19. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥37.86M
20. Erika Kikuchi ￥34.97M
21. Sakura Yokomine ￥33.89M
22. Saiki Fujita ￥33.39M
23. Kaori Ohe ￥32.16M
24. Yuki Ichinose ￥31.61M
25. Phoebe Yao ￥30.40M
26. Mami Fukuda ￥30.05M
27. Mayu Hattori ￥29.60M

28. Yumiko Yoshida ￥29.34M
29. Junko Omote ￥29.01M
30. Asako Fujimoto ￥26.85M
31. Hikari Fujita ￥26.71M
32. Yeon-Ju Jung ￥25.68M
33. Soo-Yun Kang ￥24.16M
34. Rumi Yoshiba ￥23.92M
35. Kotono Kozuma ￥23.63M
36. Megumi Kido ￥23.62M
37. Na-Ri Kim ￥22.53M
38. Yukari Baba ￥22.47M
39. Mamiko Higa ￥21.42M
40. Natsuka Hori ￥21.31M
41. Rui Kitada ￥20.94M
42. Shanshan Feng ￥20.04M

43. Akane Iijima ￥20.01M
44. Yukari Nishiyama ￥19.29M

45. Miki Saiki ￥18.22M
46. Megumi Shimokawa ￥17.82M
47. Eun-Bi Jang ￥17.47M
48. Da-Ye Na ￥17.36M
49. Ah-Reum Hwang ￥16.24M
50. Nana Yamashiro ￥15.97M

Next up on the JLPGA is the Nobuta Group Masters GC Ladies, which Sakura Yokomine won last year.  Bo-Mee Lee and Ji-Yai Shin return to a very different tour than the one they took a break from.  Let's see if they fare better against Ahn's knockout punches than the Miyazatos and everyone else did this week!