Many top women golfers aren't waiting for February to kick off their 2009 season. Whether in Australia, Brazil, or Florida, we got early peeks this past week at who's already ready to handle heat, rain, wind, and the other vicissitudes of competitive golf, well before the LPGA season begins. Among the LPGA regulars this season, it appears that Paula Creamer, Katherine Hull, Kristy McPherson, M.J. Hur, Laura Davies, Mollie Fankhauser, and Sarah Kemp are already pretty sharp, even if none of them could manage to get a win.
20-year-old Sarah Oh was the hometown favorite in New South Wales and she didn't disappoint, coming through for the biggest victory of her fledgling career by holding off Hull in the Women's NSW Open. As Liz Smith reports, another player's caddy asserted that Oh deserved penalties for seeking advice from her dad and improving her stance in a bunker, but the rules officials disagreed, so Oh's 3-stroke victory held. Others getting top 10s included Davies, Fankhauser, and Kemp. For the full results, you can download the spreadsheet off the Women's Golf New Zealand web page--a final-round 78 dropped Nocera out of contention, while her LET cohorts never really got much of anything going and Stephanie Na and Sunny Park settled for T45s.
Meanwhile, in Rio, as the LPGA has announced, Hound Dog has covered, and Jay Busbee has praised, Catriona Matthew will go down in history as the first champion of the inaugural HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup. Not only was Matthew the only one in the 15-player field to break 70, she did it twice in a row--a feat made even more impressive by the fact that she's 5 months pregnant and hadn't touched a club for a month leading up to the exhibition. That $100K winner's check will sure help make her 2009 a lot more pleasant, not least because she plans to play only 1 more tournament before taking a maternity leave from the LPGA. McPherson was the only other player under par for the tournament, so gets her season off on the right foot. Louise Friberg and Leta Lindley can take solace in the fact they bounced back from terrible opening rounds on Sunday. Everyone else got a good sense of just how much rust they have to scrape off in the next several weeks, ranging from a little (Angela Park, Laura Diaz, Allison Fouch) to a lot (Eun-Hee Ji, Christina Kim, Karen Stupples).
Last but not least, Creamer competed with several other LPGAers on the SunCoast Ladies Series at Forest Lake GC this past weekend. Of them, only Hur was really sharp, but still not sharp enough on Sunday to hold off the LET's Johanna Mundy (formerly Head), who got her 2nd win of 2009 on that tour by chasing her down. Creamer had to settle for a tie for 5th, after a pair of closing 71s weren't enough to make up for an opening 75 in terrible weather.
Starting tomorrow, Stacy Lewis is the big name in the SunCoast Series field, joining Mundy, Hur, and Moira Dunn--who played college golf in Florida--along with Hannah Yun, Jeehae Lee, and a number of other players you can expect to see on the LPGA, the Futures Tour, or both in '09. We'll see if more fans turn out after Dave Andrews criticized the lack of publicity for the 1st 2 events.
Later this week, the ALPG's New Zealand Women's Zealand Open kicks off. I haven't found a field list on their site, but the tournament organizers have announced that Hull, Davies, and the LET's 2008 money list leader Gwladys Nocera will be in it. Peter Thorley profiles one of the top amateur New Zealanders in the field, if you're looking for local talent to root for. For more on the event and the course, check out Liz Smith's post. Assuming Anna Rawson isn't in the field, maybe she can find a nice hat to wear on the LPGA this season by checking out the photos from 1908 that the local library has made available!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Mostly Harmless Synergy: Gackt Interviewed Miho Koga
Yes, you read that right. Gackt interviewed Miho Koga. It's not as surreal as I expected it to be--nor as fiery--but the transcript of their dialogue is an MH must-link.
Go, Go, Sarah Oh!
How cool would it be if Sarah Oh were able to hold off Katherine Hull, Gwladys Nocera, Laura Davies, and others in the final round of the Women's NSW Open today? As Liz White reports, Oh has a 4-shot lead on her nearest competitor (Hull) after following up her course-record 65 (matched by Nikki Garrett that day) with a 67. (For the full field's scores, check out The Daily Telegraph's game story.)
Why would a win on the ALPG be such redemption for Oh? Well, she inadvertently found herself in the middle of a controversy at LPGA Q-School, when the LPGA made 2 mistakes: holding a playoff for the last Category 11 spots in the tour's 2009 priority status list at all, and holding it among the players at T21 instead of at T25. Oh, a 2008 LPGA rookie, played just badly enough on the last day of Q-School to put herself in a position where the playoff needed to be at T25 for her to have a chance at Category 20 status. So she has no LPGA status in 2009. I'm waiting to see whether she has Futures Tour status; the Australian media leads me to believe she does, but I'm waiting for confirmation from the FT itself. In any case, I'm rooting for Oh to finish out the ALPG season in style and move up their Order of Merit. If she can start a winning streak this week and keep it going, she could even qualify for the HSBC Women's Champions event in early March--and if she wins that, she can apply for LPGA membership and play most any event she wants this season.
First things first, though. I'm hoping she nails down this win today.
Why would a win on the ALPG be such redemption for Oh? Well, she inadvertently found herself in the middle of a controversy at LPGA Q-School, when the LPGA made 2 mistakes: holding a playoff for the last Category 11 spots in the tour's 2009 priority status list at all, and holding it among the players at T21 instead of at T25. Oh, a 2008 LPGA rookie, played just badly enough on the last day of Q-School to put herself in a position where the playoff needed to be at T25 for her to have a chance at Category 20 status. So she has no LPGA status in 2009. I'm waiting to see whether she has Futures Tour status; the Australian media leads me to believe she does, but I'm waiting for confirmation from the FT itself. In any case, I'm rooting for Oh to finish out the ALPG season in style and move up their Order of Merit. If she can start a winning streak this week and keep it going, she could even qualify for the HSBC Women's Champions event in early March--and if she wins that, she can apply for LPGA membership and play most any event she wants this season.
First things first, though. I'm hoping she nails down this win today.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Momoko Ueda's Prospects in 2009
Having looked at my favorite golfer's prospects for the coming season last Saturday, I figured it would be fun to check out Momoko Ueda, the first of what may turn out to be many of her fellow countrywomen to follow her to the LPGA. Ueda's rookie season was nothing to write home about, even if she did finish it 3rd in her class and 13th in her generation.
In fact, Ueda earned more in her 13 JLPGA starts than she did in her 19 LPGA starts in 2008. Like Miyazato in 2006, Ueda won twice on the JLPGA in her rookie season, but the fact is that the rookie Miyazato outdid her in every other measure. Miyazato earned $532.1K in 21 starts (including 7 top 10s) against Ueda's $413.6K in 2 fewer starts (including 3 top 10s) on the LPGA; on the JLPGA, it was ￥58.60M for Miyazato in 7 starts against Ueda's ￥54.62M in 13. Miyazato also scored better than Ueda: 71.22 vs. 71.74 on the LPGA and 70.63 vs. 71.28 on the JLPGA. Ueda wasn't nearly as proficient on the greens as Miyazato was in her rookie season, either; Ueda was consistently near 3.19 birdies per round and 1.825 putts per green in regulation on both tours, while Miyazato was at 3.71 and 1.78 on the LPGA and even better in PPGIR on the JLPGA, at 1.728 (I still haven't been able to locate her JLPGA birdie rate in 2006). Although Ueda was slightly longer than Miyazato (by about 3 yards), Miyazato was much more accurate off the tee and with her approach shots. Where Ueda could only manage to hit 62% of her fairways and 63.6% of her greens in regulation, Miyazato was fantastic, at 75.3% and 69.3%.
Those last stats are the key to Ueda's 2009, in my opinion. I'm not so worried about her putting--she averaged 1.78 PPGIR and 3.47 birdies per round on the JLPGA in 2007, when she won 5 times--so she knows how to get the ball in the hole and perform under pressure. The challenge will be getting better at ballstriking and course management this season. If she can become just a little bit more accurate off the tee, she could end up in Hound Dog's top 20 for total driving rather than #71, as she was in 2008, and thereby increase the odds of hitting more than 2/3 of her greens in regulation and giving herself more--and better--birdie chances. Ballstriking is what really what separated Na Yeon Choi's 2008 from Ueda's (where Ya Ni Tseng outdid both of them was in total putting). There's no reason that Ueda can't be in their league in all these categories this coming season.
Like Miyazato, Ueda will need to get off to a fast start in 2009, given the temptations of relatively easier money on the JLPGA and the gaps in the LPGA schedule for those ineligible to compete in the Solheim Cup. But I'm going to be stubborn and put her, too, back in my top 30 for 2009 next week. I expect her sophomore season to be much better than her rookie one.
In fact, Ueda earned more in her 13 JLPGA starts than she did in her 19 LPGA starts in 2008. Like Miyazato in 2006, Ueda won twice on the JLPGA in her rookie season, but the fact is that the rookie Miyazato outdid her in every other measure. Miyazato earned $532.1K in 21 starts (including 7 top 10s) against Ueda's $413.6K in 2 fewer starts (including 3 top 10s) on the LPGA; on the JLPGA, it was ￥58.60M for Miyazato in 7 starts against Ueda's ￥54.62M in 13. Miyazato also scored better than Ueda: 71.22 vs. 71.74 on the LPGA and 70.63 vs. 71.28 on the JLPGA. Ueda wasn't nearly as proficient on the greens as Miyazato was in her rookie season, either; Ueda was consistently near 3.19 birdies per round and 1.825 putts per green in regulation on both tours, while Miyazato was at 3.71 and 1.78 on the LPGA and even better in PPGIR on the JLPGA, at 1.728 (I still haven't been able to locate her JLPGA birdie rate in 2006). Although Ueda was slightly longer than Miyazato (by about 3 yards), Miyazato was much more accurate off the tee and with her approach shots. Where Ueda could only manage to hit 62% of her fairways and 63.6% of her greens in regulation, Miyazato was fantastic, at 75.3% and 69.3%.
Those last stats are the key to Ueda's 2009, in my opinion. I'm not so worried about her putting--she averaged 1.78 PPGIR and 3.47 birdies per round on the JLPGA in 2007, when she won 5 times--so she knows how to get the ball in the hole and perform under pressure. The challenge will be getting better at ballstriking and course management this season. If she can become just a little bit more accurate off the tee, she could end up in Hound Dog's top 20 for total driving rather than #71, as she was in 2008, and thereby increase the odds of hitting more than 2/3 of her greens in regulation and giving herself more--and better--birdie chances. Ballstriking is what really what separated Na Yeon Choi's 2008 from Ueda's (where Ya Ni Tseng outdid both of them was in total putting). There's no reason that Ueda can't be in their league in all these categories this coming season.
Like Miyazato, Ueda will need to get off to a fast start in 2009, given the temptations of relatively easier money on the JLPGA and the gaps in the LPGA schedule for those ineligible to compete in the Solheim Cup. But I'm going to be stubborn and put her, too, back in my top 30 for 2009 next week. I expect her sophomore season to be much better than her rookie one.
Friday, January 23, 2009
LPGAers Competing Down Under at Women's NSW Open
There are a good number of LPGA regulars competing in Australia at the Women's New South Wales Open this weekend, along with the ones competing in Brazil. In today's round, Laura Davies and Wendy Doolan are playing with the JLPGA's Nikki Campbell, Sarah Kemp and Mollie Fankhauser with the LET's Marianne Skarpnord, and Katherine Hull with the LET's Nikki Garrett and amateur Julia Boland. In addition, Sarah Oh, Stephanie Na, and Sunny Park (familiar names from LPGA and LET Q-Schools) will be trying to jumpstart their careers down under (Oh will be playing with '08 LET money list leader Gwladys Nocera). Worth a look to see what kind of games they're all bringing to the '09 season.
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