ElleAir Ladies Open Sunday: Sakura Yokomine Wins for 1st Time in 2014, Becoming 2nd Golfer in JLPGA History to Break the Billion-Yen Barrier in Career Winnings

Sakura Yokomine's 23rd career victory on the JLPGA may be one of her sweetest.  Not only was her win at the ElleAir Ladies Open her 1st of 2014, it may well be her last as a JLPGA member--at least for awhile--as she's one of the favorites at LPGA Q-School's final stage in early December.  Of course, she can go on to win the final event of the JLPGA season, the Ricoh Cup, next week.  But let's stay in the present for now!

Yokomine entered the final round 2 shots behind 20-year-old sensation Ai Suzuki, who bounced back from a bogey on the 197-yard par-3 3rd with birdies on the 4th and 6th holes, both short par 4s.  At that point, Suzuki was -17 and led her playing partner, 23-year-old Miki Sakai, by 2 shots; Yokomine, the last member of the final threesome, was one more shot behind.   But around the time that Sakai birdied the 148-yard par-3 7th to pull within one shot of Suzuki, some players from a few groups ahead of them entered the fray.  Rikako Morita, last year's money-list title-holder, was the 1st to catch Yokomine at -14, as she opened with a bogey-free 33.  Yokomine responded with back-to-back birdies to close out the front 9 and tie Sakai for 2nd at -16, but Morita had already moved to -15 with her 2nd birdie in a row, this one on the long par-4 10th.

But it was a burst by Teresa Lu, which began with an eagle on the short par-5 9th and continued with birdies on the short par-5 11th and the long par-3 13th, that made the final threesome pay attention to what was going on 3 groups ahead of them.  Combined with a pair of early birdies (and her lone bogey of the day on the long par-4 8th), Lu moved from -10 to -15 in the space of 13 holes.  And when Suzuki bogeyed the long par-4 12th to fall back to -16, in a tie for the lead with Sakai and Yokomine, Lu had gone from 6 down to 1 down.  Which was exactly where her playing partner Erina Hara got to when she made her 6th birdie of the day (against only 1 bogey) on the 338-yard par-4 14th, her 3rd in her previous 4 holes.

So with a few holes to play there were 6 golfers who could win this thing.  Lu was the 1st to strike, sprinting past Hara with back-to-back birdies to close out her round and become the leader in the clubhouse at -17.  (Both players dashed the hopes of Na-Ri Lee, who had birdied 7 of her 1st 13 holes to fly to -15 very early in the day, but fallen to earth with a double bogey on 12 and finished at -14.)  Right behind them, Morita followed suit with birdies on the 273-yard par-4 16th and 535-yard par-5 18th to join Lu atop the leaderboard.  And when Yokomine and Sakai both responded with birdies on the 385-yard par-4 15th--Yokomine by making a 30-footer--we had 4 players tied for the lead at -17, 1 shot ahead of Suzuki.

The tiny 16th hole proved to be the difference-maker, as Yokomine birdied it, Sakai doubled it, and Suzuki parred it.  When Yokomine parred out and Sakai finished bogey-birdie to tie Hara at -15, that meant that Suzuki needed to birdie out to force a playoff.  In the end, her walkoff birdie secured her a tie for 2nd place with Lu and Morita.  Yokomine's bogey-free 68 proved just good enough to beat Lu's 65, Morita's 66, and Suzuki's 71.

What's more, Yokomine's victory pushed her past the billion-yen mark in career winnings.  Yokomine joins Yuri Fudoh as the only 2 golfers in JLPGA history to accomplish that amazing feat.  Speaking of amazing feats, Sun-Ju Ahn's top-10 finish was enough to secure her 3rd money-list title on the JLPGA.  This one was the hardest for her, as she played through severe pain in her right wrist since the last week of October to hold off Bo-Mee Lee and Ji-Yai Shin.

So congratulations to Yokomine and Ahn.  Here's how the JLPGA money list looks heading into the Ricoh Cup:

1. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥152.56M
2. Bo-Mee Lee ￥118.58M
3. Ji-Yai Shin ￥100.44M
4. Teresa Lu ￥98.17M
5. Misuzu Narita ￥95.23M
6. Miki Sakai ￥91.90M
7. Shiho Oyama ￥79.29M
8. Na-Ri Lee ￥77.45M
9. Erina Hara ￥74.96M
10. Momoko Ueda ￥70.60M
11. Ayaka Watanabe ￥65.72M
12. Ai Suzuki ￥59.97M
13. Esther Lee ￥59.01M
14. Sakura Yokomine ￥57.89M
15. Rikako Morita ￥55.18M
16. Onnarin Sattayabanphot ￥54.80M
17. Lala Anai ￥51.29M
18. Ritsuko Ryu ￥47.75M
19. Yumiko Yoshida ￥46.68M
20. Ji-Hee Lee ￥43.08M
21. Kotono Kozuma ￥41.80M
22. Junko Omote ￥40.51M
23. Erika Kikuchi ￥40.27M
24. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥39.72M
25. Saiki Fujita ￥38.94M
26. Mami Fukuda ￥37.06M
27. Kaori Ohe ￥35.78M
28. Asako Fujimoto ￥32.45M
29. Yuki Ichinose ￥31.61M
30. Phoebe Yao ￥31.35M
31. Mayu Hattori ￥30.32M

32. Soo-Yun Kang ￥29.53M
33. Rui Kitada ￥29.39M
34. Yoko Maeda ￥29.21M
35. Yeon-Ju Jung ￥28.43M
36. Na-Ri Kim ￥28.21M
37. Megumi Kido ￥27.89M
38. Hikari Fujita ￥27.14M
39. Yukari Baba ￥26.44M
40. Rumi Yoshiba ￥25.74M
41. Akane Iijima ￥23.32M
42. Da-Ye Na ￥23.06M
43. Yukari Nishiyama ￥23.03M
44. Natsuka Hori ￥22.60M
45. Mamiko Higa ￥22.44M
46. Shanshan Feng ￥20.04M
47. Megumi Shimokawa ￥19.74M

48. Miki Saiki ￥18.67M
49. Eun-Bi Jang ￥18.14M
50. Ji-Woo Lee ￥17.61M

Next week's event, the Ricoh Cup, is the last major of the JLPGA season, in addition to being its season-ending tournament.  It features this year's winners, anyone in the the top 25 on the tour money list without a win, anyone in the top 25 of the Rolex Rankings who hasn't otherwise qualified and wants to participate, and any Japanese player with a win on the LPGA.  That means that teenager Minami Katsu and world #1 Inbee Park will be competing against the JLPGA's finest!