Pet Peeves About Golf Channel's Day 1 International Crown Coverage

In no particular order:

There's No "Q" in Sakura!  And No "Mini"!!  Sa-koo-ra Yo-ko-mee-nay.  Say it fast with equal emphasis on each syllable and you'll be fine.  Never mind that the romanized "r" in Japanese is somewhere between an English "r" and "l"--too tough to learn for just one week.  Although if you can learn how to lisp "Atha" and "Motho," why not go the extra mile for one of the JLPGA's best players ever?  [Update (7/26/14, 9:33 am):  Also, Sakura's no "meanie" (although Kirk and Wright might beg to differ after that shot on 17 Friday!).  Yo-ko-mee-nay, people!]

Speaking of Sakura...  She's got a John Daly-esque swing.  And I think we saw it once on the 18th hole.  C'mon, people!

First-Tee Footage?!  Everyone talked about how emotional (in so many ways) the 1st drive of the 1st tee was this week.  Yet did Golf Channel shoot it, save it, and replay it for us?  Noooo!!!!!  I know playing every national anthem would have taken too long.  But how about a quick montage with the last 2 seconds of each country's anthem and reaction shots by the players during it and right after they knew where their 1st shots went?  Or feature the best reactions at the top of Day 2's coverage?

Show More Tee Shots!  When something even remotely dramatic happens on the tee--shot in the woods, player hits fairway after partner puts it in woods, one bomber outdrives another, whatever--we oughtta see it.  Everything matters in match play and with so few groups on the course, we should be able to get a good sense of how every match is unfolding and not have to rely so much on Juli Inkster's summaries of what happened.

Know Your Matches.  I can't believe that Anna Nordqvist and Caroline Hedwall--the Vikings of the Solheim Cup--struggled so much in the 1st 12 holes yesterday against struggling young Okinawans Mika Miyazato and Mamiko Higa.  So much for Solheim Cup experience and heroics, eh?  You know what else I can't believe?  That we barely saw a shot of the latter's great play and not even much of the former's great comeback.  This was a made-for-tv David vs. Goliath deal, but we saw very little of it.  (True, most of the fireworks from Team Japan occurred in the 1st 5 holes.  But this is what they make highlights for.)

Speaking of Balance...  Man, the cameras loved Teams USA and Spain, and I wholeheartedly endorse that decision.  But if 2 seconds per shot of golfers walking, standing, and consulting with each other and their caddies on non-pivotal shots were cut, just think of how much more could have been shown of the Vikings vs. the Okinawans, Karrie Webb and Minjee Lee taking it to Na Yeon Choi and In-Kyung Kim (with attendant speculation on how the pressure is affecting the half of Team ROK that isn't coming into this week with a whole lot of confidence), and Inbee Park and So Yeon Ryu lighting up the course?

And Now a Word from Our Sponsors.  Given how many commercials that GC gets to show at the end of each day, wouldn't it be nice if they cut back a little midway through the coverage?

[Update 1 (8:00 am):  Ruthless Mike wants more credit given where it's due to Team Taiwan.  HappyFan gives Judy Rankin credit for mentioning the Japan-Korea almost-annual team matches during an interview, but rightly criticizes the bulk of the coverage for pretending as if the Asian and other non-Solheim Cuppers have no professional team experience.  I wish I had thought of both (or, more accurately, remembered the latter).  I mean, nobody remembers the Lexus Cup?]

When the Personal Meets the Professional Meets the National Meets the Global: Lydia Ko Edition

There are so many layers to the most recent twist in the Lydia Ko story that it's no surprise onions are a New Zealand export.  If the break-up only a few days before Christmas of an 11-year player-coach mentoring relationship--one often compared to sibling or parental dynamics to convey its depth and scope--isn't enough to bring you to tears of sadness, maybe the paucity of hard facts and the complicated agendas of those who best know them but aren't sharing them are enough to evoke tears of frustration.  I mean, we should be used to the eagerness of onlookers and outsiders to quip and judge on what amounts to a whim--it is the intertubes, after all--but when a teenager the media has helped build up seems to turn on her on a dime, handing stones to the stoners....  Well, let's just say, welcome to the big time, Lydia Ko!

For those interested in the truth, very little of what's been said publicly stands up to much scrutiny.

• Ko's emphasis on the logistical complications of her moving to the States and competing full-time on the LPGA while her life-long coach Guy Wilson remains in New Zealand begs the question of whether she asked him to go with her, belies the fact that they had made a quasi-long-distance relationship work quite well during her amazingly successful amateur and early professional career, and fuels speculation that her new representatives at IMG are really behind the switch to Sean Hogan and David Leadbetter.
• Wilson's generous and moving statement in response to his firing (reprinted in full by Golfweek) is frankly undermined if Steve Williams was acting as his surrogate when he was interviewed on Radio New Zealand.  Williams's "I don't think he had any inkling" of the decision can't possibly be right when ONE Sport mentioned, in an article posted on November 21, that Williams was "among those stunned Lydia Ko has yet to sort out her coaching and management team."  (Matt Richens confirms that neither Ko nor Wilson had been acting normally over the past month.)  Williams's claim that Wilson has "had no compensation for his time and effort" similarly stretches credulity (particularly when we don't know the terms of their relationship, much less what kind of Christmas gifts or New Year's bonus the Kos are planning for Wilson).
• Leadbetter's claim that Ko and her family initiated contact with him is also a little hard to believe, given his partnership with IMG:

David Leadbetter knew the sensitivities involved w/ leaving Guy Wilson: "But when someone of that ilk asks, you don't turn them down."
— Randall Mell (@RandallMellGC) December 23, 2013

At least Leadbetter understands the catch-22 he's in.  As he told Randall Mell, "If she plays well, it will be because she's a great player....  If she doesn't, we will be the bad guys."

Probably the truth is a little embarrassing for all the parties involved.  Like contract negotiations with Wilson broke down when IMG refused to offer him enough to move to the States or make his trans-hemispheric travel worthwhile....

Rather than go down that speculative road myself, however, I'd rather focus on what others' speculations reveal about the intersecting personal/professional/national/global relationships brought out by Lydia Ko's meteoric rise to the top 5 in the world of women's golf.

Randall Mell is on to something when he points out that nationalism has a lot to do with the intensity of the reaction to Ko's decision coming out of many in the New Zealand media and golfing establishment:

There’s more behind the emotional reaction to Ko’s decision than just coaching implications. For New Zealanders, it’s about her Kiwi connections and nationalistic pride. In fact, in presenting news of the coaching change, a Television New Zealand reporter asked if it might “signal a shift away from New Zealand Golf.” 

Ko is something of a national treasure in New Zealand, and her rise in fame has brought with it concerns over loyalties and how she plans to align herself in the future. During Ko’s first news conference after announcing she was turning pro in October, New Zealand media peppered her with questions about where she planned to establish her professional base and even what nationalistic affiliation she planned for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. 

Ko was born in South Korea but her family moved to New Zealand when she was 6. She became a New Zealand citizen when she was 12. That evolved partly out of her former coach’s push for citizenship so Ko would become eligible for national funding. In fact, New Zealand Golf has funded Ko’s world travels the last three years. There are questions back in New Zealand over whether Ko will re-establish her connection to South Korea, where women’s golf is immensely popular and more endorsement opportunities for women abound.

Matt Richens is one of the New Zealanders raising such questions:

If this is a Ko decision, it seems an odd one. The pair have always seemed to get on well off the course and their success on it was first rate. 

Ko was the world's No 1 amateur as a 13-year old, a title she held until turning professional. She won four professional tournaments as an amateur and one as a professional and has never missed a cut in any of her 27 professional tournaments. 

She's brilliant and Wilson has played a huge part in that. It also continued while Ko was travelling and Wilson stayed in New Zealand. 

If it's not Ko's decision, but one from IMG, then there is more reason to worry for New Zealand. 

If IMG can persuade her to leave her longtime coach and someone with whom she shared more of a brother-sister relationship than a coach-player one, then what else can it do? 

In October, Ko said she would always play for New Zealand and wanted to represent this country at the 2016 Olympics. 

But should IMG start throwing its considerable weight around, what's to stop it working out it could get a far bigger bang for its buck in the Asian market if Ko played under the Korean flag and turned her back on New Zealand all together. 

If IMG is calling the shots, it could happen.

I can see why the worries are so intense that Ko might choose Kimchi Nation over Kiwi Nation as part of an IMG-led effort to turn her into a global brand, but it seems to me they're at least a bit overblown.  Let's face it, a huge part of what makes Ko so distinctive globally is precisely her New Zealand connection.  That video with her buddy from the All-Blacks in which she announced she's going pro?  Brilliant.  That accent and attitude?  Endearing.  Why would she reject her adopted country, her hyphenated identity, and national hero status to become one of at least a dozen world-class South Korean golfers?  Why would IMG think that's a more profitable path?  Yes, she's leaving the nest, moving to the U.S., and taking on the world via the LPGA.  But Ai Miyazato is no less Japanese for doing that.  Se Ri Pak is no less Korean.  Karrie Webb is no less Australian.  Suzann Pettersen is no less Norwegian.  Lorena Ochoa was no less Mexican.  Annika Sorenstam was no less Swedish.  And so on.

Admittedly, these players aren't perfect examples, as they lived in their home countries for a long time and are natural-born, not naturalized, citizens.  But who would be a good example?  Amy Yang didn't move to Australia until she was 15 and didn't stay Down Under long enough for a sense of pride in her accomplishments to turn into a widespread sense of betrayal or ingratitude at her departure.  Maybe the Wongluekiets/Songs?  Well, they chose their father's nationality when they turned pro instead of their mother's, while both Ko's parents are South Korean.  And therein lies the rub.  Already you can find in some corners of the intertubes the same criticisms of Ko's parents being floated and tried on for size as have been circulated ad nauseum about Michelle Wie's parents.  Greedy.  Controlling.  Clueless.

I guess personal and professional and national loyalty is a particularly touchy issue for immigrants-turned-citizens.  (And not just in New Zealand.)  It's almost as if someone who's chosen to become a citizen of another country has to keep making that choice whenever her circumstances change in the slightest.  Don't get me wrong:  this is a huge change.  And Ko's only been a New Zealand citizen for something like 4 years (or a quarter of her life), even though culturally she's been a Kiwi for almost 3 times that long.  Sure, the level of concern at possibly losing Ko helps outsiders understand how much she is valued and appreciated by her fellow citizens and how crucial her success is to building a new New Zealand identity.  But Kiwis who might be tempted to turn on Ko out of a feeling that she did one of their own wrong or who jump to conclusions about her parents' motivations or her future plans should understand that they run the risk of inflaming a backlash that could do more to drive her out of the country than anything else.

I think it's time for everyone involved to be their best selves and set an example for the rest of us.  The Kos ought to find as many ways as possible to thank the individuals and organizations who helped Lydia become the golfer and person she is, reassert her commitment to Kiwi Nation, and give back in tangible and intangible ways to golf in New Zealand.  Wilson ought to speak for himself, stick up for his former student, and encourage his mates to show a little more respect for Ko's decision.  Leadbetter and Hogan had better be praising Wilson effusively every time Ko does something good in 2014 (which should be quite often).

Let's face it:  what's done is done.  As much as onlookers, outsiders, and even insiders may wish New Zealand were closer to the places Ko will be competing, and that Ko could maintain an uncomplicated Kiwi identity for the rest of her life, that's not going to happen.  There will be complications no matter what she chooses.  For those who wish she had brought her entire New Zealand team with her to the States--bringing a little bit of home to her new base of operations in a time of transition--consider that her team would have been facing culture shock just as intensely as she would and would have had to be learning the ropes and putting down roots for themselves while allowing Ko to focus single-mindedly on golf.  For those who wish she had waited till after Christmas and New Year's to make her decision, consider that Wilson's holidays would have been ruined by stress, anxiety, and uncertainty as surely as they've been ruined by rejection and disappointment.  And given that the new LPGA season starts in January in the Bahamas, Ko couldn't have kept everyone on the hook for much longer.

The bottom line is that things are going to get more complicated for Ko down the road, not less.  I don't know whether she's a dual citizen of New Zealand and South Korea, but let's assume for the moment that she is.  If New Zealand's and South Korea's citizenship laws are anything like the U.S.'s and Japan's, Ko has about 4 years before she has to decide which one to keep and which one to drop; if they're more liberal (and sensible), she could remain a dual citizen for the rest of her life.  It gives me a headache to even start thinking about what country's (or which countries') tax laws are going to apply to her in 2014, much less beyond!

But that's part of the deal these days when it comes to trying to make history on a global stage, as Ko is no doubt focused on doing.  What's exciting about the attempt is that no matter how many scripts she's trying to write or how many the rest of the world is trying to impose on her, none of us know which ones will end up being performed and enacted, or for how long before they get disrupted or replaced.  All that's certain is that Ko will need every ounce of resilience and persistence she's accumulated over her 1st 16 years to make the next 16 truly amazing!

[Update 1 (1:28 pm): Paul Lewis of the New Zealand Herald makes very good points about Ko's future challenges.]

The World Is a Big Place Files: Lydia Ko Edition

So it seems Lydia Ko has split with Guy Wilson, her coach of 11 years.  Alarm bells are ringing for Geoff Shackelford, who's already shaping up a story of how IMG and David Leadbetter are about to ruin another young phenom.  But what if this is just about what Ko told New Zealand TV this is about?

With Wilson remaining in New Zealand and unable to join her throughout the 2014 LPGA Tour, the decision was a logical one for Ko.

"I'm going to be away from home and I'm not a player that likes to (not) have my coach out at tournaments, so it doesn't really work, him being here and him coming on the weeks that I'm not playing a tournament," Ko told ONE Sport at the Gulf Ha[r]bour Country Club today.

"That means I'd only see him like 10 times a year and to me that kind of situation didn't work out so that's why I thought it might be better to have a coach based somewhere in the States."

I mean, as Ji-Yai Shin's and Momoko Ueda's recent decisions to focus on the JLPGA make clear, the world is a big place.  Here's how Ko put it to TVNZ:  "Playing on the LPGA Tour it's going to be hard coming back home. Obviously it's so far to get from here to anywhere apart from Australia."  So unless Wilson is willing to uproot himself and move halfway around the world to keep coaching Ko, how can their partnership continue?  Wilson himself sounds a lot more resigned and accepting (or at least diplomatic) in the New Zealand, Australian, and Canadian media than in the U.S. media (although Golfweek has Wilson's complete statement).

Kris Shannon looks at the decision from both sides, calling the split "inevitable" but questioning the timing and possible repercussions on Ko's swing and game: 

Set to spend next season on the LPGA Tour, Ko will be based overseas for much of the year, but she already had a hectic travel schedule during her unprecedented amateur career. 

"I'm sad to hear it because they can do most of the coaching over the phone, with all the videos and different stuff," Lister said. "If [Wilson] was to see her once every three or four months, it would be plenty. She doesn't need somebody every day. 

"I'd be very reluctant to be changing anything with Lydia. She's done pretty damn well with what she's doing, and if it ain't broke don't go and fix it."

Ko herself is well aware of possible pitfalls but hopes to avoid them:

 "It's going to be a huge change. Swing-wise obviously not every coach has the same swing technique but even my parents and I said we don't want huge changes, just little changes, that if someone else saw my swing they wouldn't know that anything's changed. 

"Golf isn't really all about having the perfect swing, it's about getting out there and scoring well as well." 

She remains undaunted by stories about players falling on hard times after changing coaches and insists such speculation does not apply to her situation with Wilson. 

"Not really. I've heard those rumours and Tweets where people say lots of people have left their coaches after they've succeeded and stuff, but to me it's not like I left him because he was a bad coach. 

"It was because that situation, we knew there was going to be a problem. I know it's a change but fingers crossed that nothing bad happens."

The fact is, you never know how changes like these are going to turn out.  I'm reminded of how the size of the planet played a role in Ji-Yai Shin's slow-motion split with her long-time caddie Dean Herden back in 2011.

Bottom line is that it's Ko's career and her decision.  If she's convinced a long-distance relationship won't work for her, better to act on that conviction than draw out the transition.  It seems to me that all outsiders and onlookers can do is wish both Ko and Wilson the best.

[Update 1 (8:57 am):  Stevie Williams, a friend of Wilson's, strongly criticizes Ko's decision.]

[Update 2 (9:09 am):  I can only hope Lydia and her parents each have great Christmas presents for Wilson and that IMG is ponying up serious severance pay for him!]

[Update 3 (9:31 am):  Ladies on Tour notes that Ko's mother was talking about finding a U.S.-based coach at the CME Titleholders.]

[Update 4 (9:51 am):  Brent Kelley has a good overview.  But is nobody else seeing that Lydia mentions Sean Hogan by name in that TVNZ story?]

[Update 5 (11:16 am):  Randall Mell just tweeted:  "Just off phone w/ David Leadbetter, Lydia Ko will work w/ him & Sean Hogan of his staff. 'It's about guiding, not re-inventing the swing.'"]

[Update 6 (11:50 am):  Here's Emily Kay's Steve Williams-centered overview.]

[Update 7 (12:28 pm):  So much for this being a sudden decision.  There was even pre-decision blowback before Thanksgiving in the NZ media.]

[Update 8 (8:03 pm):  Randall Mell covers reaction from Kiwi Nation and statements from David Leadbetter.]

[Update 9 (8:07 pm):  And here's Stephanie Wei's recap.]

Solheim Cup Friday Afternoon: Fourballs Observations and Possible Saturday Matches/Sunday Strategies

I got to watch a few holes in the best ball portion of the Solheim Cup, but we went out to celebrate a cousin/nephew's 7th birthday, so I missed lots of action.  When I left, Carlota Ciganda had just stuck her approach and made her short birdie putt to pull her and Suzann Pettersen even with Stacy Lewis and Lexi Thompson, who got hot late on the front, but couldn't take advantage of their birdie opportunities early on the back.  Well, Pettersen went back to carrying her partner when she made her 3rd birdie of the day on the 16th, and that proved to be the decider.  Chalk Day 1 of the Solheim Cup up to the world #3!  Stacy's Solheim slide continues; it seems she could never adjust to the speed of Colorado Golf Club's greens.

Putting was also the downfall for Angela Stanford and Gerina Piller, who could never quite pull even with Caroline Hedwall and Caroline Masson, and ended up losing 2&1 when Masson became the lone player in the foursome to par the 17th.  The American Brittanys were even more successful than the European Carolines, as Lincicome birdied 2 holes in a row as they made the turn and Lang birdied their final 2 holes to close out a 4&3 victory over Anna Nordqvist and Giulia Sergas.  And even though Michelle Wie played very solid golf, it was Cristie Kerr who carried their team to victory over Catriona Matthew and Charley Hull.  The short story there is that Kerr's putter finally heated up in the afternoon.

So at the end of day 1, Team Euro leads Team USA 5-3.  Pettersen and Hedwall have accounted for 4 of Team Euro's points, while Lewis and Stanford have been on the losing end in both their matches.  I don't see how Captain Mallon can sit Lewis, but we may not see much of Stanford tomorrow.

I think it'll be up to Creamer and Pressel to lead Team USA on the comeback trail tomorrow, what with Kerr's elbow issues and Korda's wrist issues.  I can see putting Pressel and Korda out first in Saturday foursomes, followed by Creamer and Thompson, Salas and Piller, and Lewis and Wie (I really liked the way Michelle was swinging the club around this afternoon).  If Korda's feeling up to it, sending her and Pressel out first again in the afternoon would be my choice, followed again by Creamer and Thompson, then Lewis and Lincicome, and then Kerr and Wie.  If not, I'd reunite the Brittanys and pair Lewis with Pressel, unless she played awful in the morning and Piller played great.

For Team Euro, I'd reunite their winning teams from this morning and put Masson out with Matthew in place of Ewart Shadoff.  For the afternoon, I'd keep their anchors from this afternoon but mix up the partners, keeping Recari with Pettersen to lead off, keeping the Carolines to follow them, pairing Nordqvist and Hull next, and closing out with Matthew and Ciganda.

So if the captains' decisions actually coincide with mine, we'd see:

Pressel/Korda vs. Nordqvist/Hedwall
Creamer/Thompson vs. Pettersen/Recari
Salas/Piller vs. Matthew/Masson
Lewis/Wie vs. Munoz/Icher

and

Pressel/Korda [or Pressel/Lewis] vs. Pettersen/Recari
Creamer/Thompson vs. Hedwall/Masson
Lewis/Lincicome [or Lang/Lincicome] vs. Nordqvist/Hull
Kerr/Wie vs. Matthew/Ciganda

The idea here is that Captain Neumann would expect Captain Mallon to put out her hottest players 1st, so she'd counter them with her toughest teams early.  I don't think she has the luxury to rest any of her 4 anchors, as the key here is to protect or even extend Team Euro's lead heading into Sunday singles matches.  If her strategy works on Saturday, she can keep front-loading her toughest talent on Sunday in an effort to get a quick knockout and retain the cup.  The key is to deny Team USA any momentum and make them fight hard for every single point.  Yes, that leaves Team Euro's B-Team vulnerable to Team USA's B-Team if their A-Team can't hold, but that's why they're the A-Team.  If the strategy doesn't work on Saturday and Team USA comes back, then I'd front-load Team Euro's more vulnerable players and put Pettersen and Matthew in the final two matches.

[Update 1 (11:26 am):  Oh, the Saturday morning pairings were just released:

Pressel/Korda vs. Nordqvist/Hedwall
Lewis/Creamer vs. Munoz/Icher
Lincicome/Salas vs. Matthew/Masson
Wie/Lang vs. Pettersen/Recari

As you can see, I got Team Euro's line-ups exactly right, just in a different order than Captain Neumann decided on.  But Captain Mallon and I disagree on whether to ride the Brittanys in the morning and who to pair Lewis with to get her going.  She's the captain and her team has been following the action much closer than me and knows the players much better than I do....]

Futures Tour Road Trip, Day 2 (Hannah Yun, Lizette Salas, Laura Nochta-Martin)

With Hannah Yun unexpectedly making the cut at the Alliance Bank Golf Classic last Saturday in Syracuse, I decided to go to Drumlins East early Sunday morning to follow her, Lizette Salas, and Laura Nochta-Martin. On the way to the course I had some vague thoughts of switching over after 9 holes to Stephanie Kim, Ayaka Kaneko, and Izzy Beisiegel, who as it turned out were starting on the 1st tee at just the right time for me to do so (the 1st and 10th leave the clubhouse and putting area parallel to each other, so it would have been easy to do the switch at any time on or right after those holes), but I decided against it for various reasons.

First, Nochta-Martin's hard luck and mental toughness. I had noticed her on Saturday just ahead of the Yun/Dye/Sadekar group because her right knee was wrapped, but I only found out the next day what had happened from her parents. They told me that she had been driving a cart during a practice round when a course employee came screaming around a corner looking backwards and talking to a co-worker in the cart behind him; she had been able to respond quickly and stop her cart, giving her playing partner just enough time to bail out of the passenger seat, but he couldn't react in time and front-ended her, totalling both carts. Fortunately, her only serious injuries were bruises to her right knee, but she could barely bend it Friday morning and made 3 bogeys and a double in her 1st 5 holes on the tough back 9 in pouring rain. Refusing to withdraw, she built on her birdie on the par-4 14th with 3 birdies and only 1 bogey over the rest of her round, posting a gutsy 74. She had followed it up with another 74 the next day, putting her with Yun and Salas just on the right side of the cut line. By the time we reached the 10th hole Sunday, she was already +3 on her day, as she simply couldn't buy a putt on the front. Her pace was great and her reads were good, but the putts just weren't dropping. So one reason I stayed was to see if they would start to on the back for her.

Another reason was the chance to see a future star in the making in Salas. Here's someone who shot a 69 in the 1st round of the U.S. Women's Open and hung on for a T15 finish just after finishing a stellar college career at USC, where she was a teammate of LPGA rookie Jennifer Song. Although Salas had missed a tap-in for par on the easy par-4 3rd and needed a great up-and-down to save bogey on the tough par-3 6th, she had also made 3 impressive birdies (a virtual dissection of the par-5 2nd, a fantastic chip-in on the par-4 5th, and a laser to 4 feet on the uphill par-3 8th), and I wanted to see how she'd play the tougher back 9 after opening with a 35.

But besides not wanting to walk the front again and enjoying the feeling of being virtually alone on the course on such a nice morning (as the pacesetting twosome ahead of us has left us in the dust and the threesome following us had fallen a little further behind than usual), the main reason I didn't switch groups was Yun. She had struggled with her distance control and short game in her 73 the day before, but she was in the zone Sunday, making 5 birdies in her 1st 10 holes and either giving herself a great look at a birdie or making such a great attempt from afar on the other 5 holes that I wouldn't have been surprised if she had been -7 or -8 as she headed to the 11th tee instead of "only" -5. I simply had to see what happened next.

I got the feeling that Nochta-Martin and Salas felt the same way. The former made 10 pars in a row between the 8th and the 17th holes and must have been robbed half a dozen times, the most egregious coming when the pin bounced a perfectly-paced chip for birdie out of the hole on the 14th, but she stayed in great spirits and could only laugh at how bad her luck was that day. Salas, for her part, bogeyed the tricky uphill par-4 11th but bounced back with a great par save after she put her drive in the right trees on the tough par-4 15th and birdied the tricky downhill par-3 16th for an even-par 35 on the back, but something she did on the 14th green made me believe that even she had turned into a little bit of a spectator on the back. I'll get to that in a second, but let's go back to the 11th tee and proceed in chronological order.

When I'm walking Drumlins, I usually like to leave the 10th green a little early and get a head start on the players so I can walk about 2/3 of the way up the 11th's hill and watch their lay-ups or drives from above (the 2-tier fairway requires either an iron or hybrid to the end of the lower tier or the rough that separates it from the upper tier, or a bold drive that needs to thread the needle between trees on the left and high grasses very close to the right rough). But doing that that day would have meant interfering with the Kim/Kaneko/Beisiegel group's sight lines as they were putting on the 1st green, so I ended up being fairly close to the tee box when Yun pulled her drive a little bit left. From my angle, I couldn't see what happened to her ball after it entered the right edge of the left treeline, so there was quite a bit of suspense after her playing partners laid up and I sped up the hill, only to find that Yun had gotten a great break--a good lie and a good line to the front-right pin, without even an overhanging branch from the nearby trees to bother her. By the time Salas and Nochta-Martin had played their shots and Yun was ready to hit, I had a front-row seat to the left of the green, and I got to see exactly how aggressive a line she took, skipping her shot just past the pin and ending up near the front-right fringe, just a few feet away from the trap guarding that side of the green and about 10 feet above the pin. Both Nochta-Martin's dad and I were sure she was going to sink that putt for her 4th birdie in a row, but she just misjudged the line for the very careful pace she chose for her birdie try and had to settle for a par.

As the players took the long way to the next tee, I took a short cut to the green of the par-3 12th, a long and challenging uphill hole that features tree trouble all along the right side of the hole and a little valley below and to the right of the elevated green, which is big, firm, sloping, and tricky to read. Anything right is death, as the area near the green kicks everything into the trees and scrub below it, but Yun caught a lucky break when she missed her tee shot badly enough that it didn't reach that drop-off and instead stayed in the light rough about 20 feet short right of the green. Although she had plenty of green to work with, she hadn't had to chip since the 1st 2 holes, when she just missed both opening par 5s in 2, and she was coming off a previous round where she was something like 0-for-6 in those kind of up-and-down attempts, so I was worried for her as she was sizing it up. And lo and behold, she was just the slightest bit tentative on it, leaving herself an 8 footer for her par save, which she just barely missed. Her bogey-free streak had ended at 12 holes (going back to her par on the 18th from the round before) and she was now only -4 with 4 fairly tough and/or tricky holes to go before getting off the hill that gives Drumlins most of its difficulty.

The 13th is a wacky par 5, with a right turn that's uphill and almost perpendicular after a fairly straight downhill drive and is guarded by a line of tall, broad trees that force most players to lay up with a wedge or short iron. Yun, however, hit a perfect drive down the left side of the fairway, leaving herself with an interesting choice. She could go for the green in 2, as she had done successfully the day before, or try to lay up to about a hundred yards out, past and left of the trees blocking her way to the green. Given that she had stayed aggressive all day, sticking with her usual game plan of using a driver on the narrow 11th when probably 90% of the field was choosing to lay up, I thought she'd go for the green in 2, but at the last second she switched to a short iron and seemed to catch it a little heavy, catching a lucky break when it kicked a little left after catching the top of the leftmost and ending up in the right rough, about 130 yards out, from where she made a routine par. One hole down.

The next hole is a short par 4 featuring a chute the players drive out of to a slight dogleg to the right that's guarded by trees that run all along the right side of the fairway and circle around the the back and left side of the green. Many players lay up with a 3-wood or hybrid to give themselves a shot of about 115 to 135 yards from the left side of the leftwards-sloping fairway to the green, which is sharply pitched in the same direction, particularly in its front half. But many others take a driver down the right side of the fairway and try to get within 75 yards or closer to the green. Yun, of course, is in the latter camp, but this time she pulled her drive and it took her 1st unlucky kick of the day, bounding through the fairway left and over some knolls that separate it from the 15th teeing area. From my vantage point in the right woods overlooking the fairway, I assumed the ball had kicked far anough down the knolls to catch the cart path or end up on one of the tees, but when I got to it I was amazed to see it had been slowed down by wood chips surrounding a set of ornamental little trees that were placed behind a cute little flower arrangement, coming to rest near the trunk of one of them--and while the flowers were marked for a free drop, the trees weren't. Although Yun had an easy path to punch back into the fairway and give herself a 50-yard pitch to a front-left pin that most shots would funnel right down to--the trees were planted in rows that encouraged players to take their medicine in exactly that way--she saw a way to attack the green and went for it. Unfortunately, she caught a tree trunk and kicked backwards, downhill, and to the left onto one of the tee boxes. From there, it seemed to me that she both rushed and fluffed her pitch, catching some overhanging branches guarding the green from that angle on the way down and being fortunate to kick a little right into heavy rough short left of the green rather than left into jail. Then she got too cute with her next shot and left it on the fringe still short of the pin. Even though she almost saved a miracle bogey--her putt was right on line, but hit the hole a little too hard and spun out to the right--I was left shaking my head and her mom was left fuming as she moved to the 15th tee.

But before I take you there I should mention what it was that Salas did on the 14th green. Keep in mind that she was E on her round, had just missed a great birdie chance on the previous hole, and had played the 14th in textbook fashion while her partners were dealing out all kinds of drama (remember that Nochta-Martin was robbed of a chip-in birdie on precisely this hole!). But as Yun was trying to keep her composure after leaving her recovery shot from the left rough on the fringe and figure out how to get her ball in the hole, Salas asked her if she wanted her to putt first. From my vantage point, it looked like Salas's putt--a 10-foot downhill-sidehiller for birdie--was shorter than Yun's. Although I didn't have a good angle to see exactly how long Yun's putt really was, going by the fact that she was still off the green and that Salas volunteered to putt before her, I'm going with my hunch at the time that Salas really did want to give Yun a little extra time to size up her bogey putt. As it was, both players missed, but it seemed like a very nice gesture at the time and still seems that way as I write this.

OK, back to 15, which was the site of Yun's great par save from the right trees on Saturday and Salas's on Sunday. Would Yun, now only -2 and reeling after going +3 in her previous 3 holes, be able to right the ship on the toughest hole on the course? The 15th is a long par-4 whose 2-tier fairway pinches at exactly the place you'd like your drive to end up, with trees on the left and a cliff on the right (literally--there's a chain-link fence all the way down the right side of the upper tier of the fairway to keep you from looking for balls that go into the trees that guard it!). Oh, and the lower-tier fairway kicks everything left, so that it's very easy for even a good drive to get blocked by those trees that infringe on the fairway just as it angles up to a hill just high enough to make your approach shot a blind one to a big, inverted-bowl-style green that pitches sharply from right to left and is guarded by trees to its left and rear. But you can't blame the fairway's slope for where Yun's drive--her 3rd pull in the previous 4 driving holes--ended up, inches away from a tree trunk and completely blocked. I couldn't bear to watch her try to extricate herself from that trap and headed up the left treeline toward the green to watch the players' approach shots from atop the hill, so I only found out after the round from her dad/caddie that she had to play her chip-out lefty. I saw her hit a nice iron to the middle of the green, 20 feet away from the pin at least, but safe. So of course she steps up and sinks her par putt!

The last really dangerous hole on the course is the 16th, a par 3 that follows the 15th's cliff all the way down to a tiny elevated green guarded by a fairly deep front-right bunker. With their shots at the mercy of the winds that always seem to be swirling in this part of the course--and were up by the time we got there near noon, a real factor for virtually the 1st time that day--most players end up short of the green or in the trap. But Yun took an aggressive line and flew her tee shot right over the flagstick, and even got a little unlucky that the ball didn't spin back a little toward the hole. From behind where it stayed, it looked like a pretty straight putt, but as you circled it you could see that it was actually severely downhill and sloped sharply from right to left. Despite playing a lag as she needed to, Yun hit her only bad putt of the day, a big breaker that she just caught slightly too hard for the line she chose and which ran out 6 feet past the cup, and just as on the previous par 3, she couldn't get the par save to drop.

Normally on 17 I like to speed up the rough on its right side (and to the left of the 2nd fairway) to play forecaddie on players' drives. It's not like there's a lot of trouble on the short, uphill par 4 to an elevated green, but if players lose their drives a little to the right (say, because they're protecting against ending up in the scrub and trees on the hill to the left that starts rising sharply about even with the players' preferred landing area, or because they didn't take the left-to-right slope of the right side of the fairway enough into account), there are some tall pine trees that they can end up behind or under and the rough is actually pretty heavy past them and to their left. But once again, not wanting to disturb the putts of the Kim/Kaneko/Beisiegel group on the 7th green (and wanting to watch the drives of the Mo Martin, Allison Hanna, and Yu-Ling Hsieh from the 2nd tee), I hung back and as a result couldn't see exactly where Yun's drive, which was heading right near those big pines, ended up. But just as on 11, Yun caught a good break, as her drive carried over and just left of the leftmost tree and bounced 10 yards past the trees to its right instead of kicking into them. Although her ball was sitting down in the rough, at least the grass wasn't that high or that thick around it. So although this was the 1st time I hadn't seen her in the fairway on this hole, I wasn't too worried for her on the approach, which is pretty funny in retrospect as I hadn't ever seen her hit a good shot into this green even from the fairway. Instead of her usual miss short of the green, however, she put a great swing on the ball and gave herself a good birdie chance, which she missed.

So Yun was still -1 heading into the final hole, tied with Salas after their 2-shot swing on the 16th and Salas's missed birdie putt on 17 as well. Once again, Yun was the longest in the group off the tee, but ended up on the right side of the fairway instead of her usual spot in the left fairway or rough. With the pin tucked back right, she took an aggressive line just to its left and was able to spin it enough to keep it from running off the back of the green--and then calmly sank the 15-foot birdie putt for a roller-coaster 37 on the back. Her 69 moved her into the top 25, a good enough finish for her to stay at #40 on the money list, over $50K behind the Alliance Bank winner and money-list leader Kathleen Ekey (who had a pretty dramatic finish to her own final round after building up an insurmountable lead earlier in the day) but only just over $20K out of 5th place and more than halfway to 20th with only 4 tournaments left to play in the '11 FT season.

That video lesson Yun had with her coach in San Diego after her interview with imoto, onechan, and me Saturday evening must have worked well, as Yun's distance control was much improved by Sunday morning. I was interested in her view on when she felt herself slipping out of the zone and what she did about it. So after the round I ran my own theory by her that the adrenaline rush of pulling her drive on 11 and not knowing where it was for several minutes left her a little shaken and introduced an element of doubt about her swing, but her reply surprised me. She told me that making the long birdie putt on 10 when she didn't expect to scared her and she sped up her routine, getting out of rhythm for the next several holes. When I asked her about her decision on 14 to try to pull off the miracle recovery shot rather than just take her medicine and give herself a chance for par like she did on 15, she insisted that she'd do the same thing all over again because she was so far down the leaderboard and had nothing to lose. The only thing she'd do different was align herself better. Thanks in part to that amazing par on 15 and great birdie on 18, she was in a great mood and could keep that +4 stretch in that 5-hole stretch in perspective, rather than be kicking herself for letting a great round slip away.

Having done just that and much worse myself quite recently--shooting a 77 my 1st time at Harvest Hill despite going -3 over my 1st 12 holes--and having found it impossible to put 18 good holes together all year, I have a lot of sympathy for Yun's back-9 struggles. It was only in the 2 lowest rounds of my life--a 66 around this time 9 years ago and a 68 the August before on The Easiest Course in the World--that I've made about as many birdies early in my round and hung on for strong finishes, so I know full well how hard it is to stay in the zone and deal with having fallen out of it. But my perspective, then and now, is that Yun did more than speed up her rhythm on the back 9. I think she made some bad decisions, as well. I don't question her choice to stick with her usual game plan on the 11th and play it aggressively off the tee. I'd never seen her get in trouble with it before and there was no reason to back off after hitting her 1st 10 greens in regulation and having legitimate birdie chances on every one of those holes. And I don't fault her playing her chip on the 12th a little bit safe. Clearly, that part of her game, particularly out of the rough, is her only glaring weakness, but slightly misjudging a chip is not a strategic error. I think those kinds of mistakes came in playing it too safe on the par-5 13th and exposing herself to too much risk off the tee on the 14th and 15th. A great 2nd shot on the par-5 could have restored some confidence in her swing that must have been shaken a bit by her pull on 11 and push on 12, but if she was going to play it safe there she should have done the same on the next 2 holes by hitting a hybrid off the tee and staying short of their worst trouble--the only places that could derail her the rest of her round. Sure, her driver is clearly her favorite club in the bag, but the key that day was to get on the green as soon as possible and let her putter do its magic from however close or far she could get to the pin from a little further back in the fairway than she's used to. As it was, she hit 15 of 18 greens, but narrowly missed 2 disasters in a row in her last 2 missed greens. That said, she could have saved at least a stroke simply by doing on 14 what she did on 15--just chipped back into safety after putting her drive in jail.

But I think a big part of the reason she didn't do that was her lingering doubts over her distance control from 125 yards and in. For someone who's added so much distance in so short a time, those less-than-full wedges are particularly difficult shots to pull off. I wonder if a back-of-the-mind worry over messing up a relatively easy prospective 3rd shot contributed to her decision to attempt a near-impossible 2nd one. As it was, she gave herself 2 very difficult shots with exactly the club she had the least confidence in that week. I'm not sure whether this theory is right--much less my one at the time that she simply gave too much credence to the feeling of invulnerability that goes with being 19 and playing great golf for the 1st time in a long time--but the fact that she took a huge risk just to give herself an outside chance at her 6th birdie of the day is incontrovertible. What it suggests to me is that she was, in effect, trying to force herself back into the zone rather than accepting that that feeling of perfect flow was gone and doing the best with what she had left--an amazing touch on the greens.

Last year in Pennsylvania, Yun was bit by a tick and her reaction to the precautionary antibiotics she was taking to ward off Lyme Disease led her to withdraw from that event and not enter another one for the rest of the '10 season. In fact, it sparked a crisis of confidence and motivation that I'll let her explain in her own words from her interview with me that I'll try to post tonight or tomorrow. After her 2nd round Saturday, Yun and her family had been mulling over pulling the plug on her '11 FT season in order to work on her 125 yards and in game, particularly her distance control on her full swings and pitches, so as to be prepared for the 2nd stage of LPGA Q-School in late September. But she's on the field list for this year's Pennsylvania Classic, paired tomorrow with struggling veterans Briana Vega and Libby Smith, so I suspect she's hungry to get feedback under tournament pressure on her practice in those areas. The good news is, she's knows exactly what she needs to be working on to get even better results.

Meanwhile, Nochta-Martin is resting her injured knee and will need some great finishes in her last 3 events to move up from 69th place on the money list. Salas, at 44th on the money list in half as many FT starts as Yun, plays with Annie Brophy and long-hitting Lisa Ferrero, who couldn't chase Ekey down last week and stayed 2nd on the money list despite having 2 FT wins this season like her. She'll need to work on her focus and consistency to earn enough to avoid the 2nd stage of LPGA Q-School. Every part of her game seems strong to me: she's very accurate off the tee with at least average length; she's very good with her irons (with her only typical miss being a shot that slips off the clubface slightly to the right); she's got great touch around the greens; and she has all the tools to be a great putter. If it weren't for one missed tap-in and one really bad swing on an approach shot, she would have been hanging right with Hannah on the front and may have been able to sink a few more putts on the back than she ended up doing if she were a bit more excited about her round.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Yun, Salas, and of course Tiffany Joh do this week in Harrisburg. I wish them all the best!