LPGA Tour Championship Friday Sunday: Still Not Done with the 2nd Round, but the LPGA's Pennant Races Are as Hot as Ever

I don't know what the LPGA has done to get on the bad side of the golf gods. All I can say is that Michael Whan may want to start building an ark, if he hasn't begun already. Just got up this morning after our late-night return from Kitchener, Ontario, and Skate Canada (on which more later), expecting to see that the 3rd round of the LPGA Tour Championship had finally begun. But lo and behold, there are still groups with 5 holes left to play early this morning, before the original 1st cut can even be made! I guess I have to accept that this'll be a 54-hole deal, after all. (At least it allows Ji-Yai Shin and Ai Miyazato to compete in the JLPGA's final event and final major, the Ricoh Cup, later this week--provided they have the energy.)

It's really too bad the weather is overshadowing the golf. Kristy McPherson is putting in a serious bid--thanks to a bogey-free 67 that improved on her fine opening round by 2 shots--to play the spoiler in the brewing showdown between Lorena Ochoa and Ji-Yai Shin. Ochoa's 2nd-straight bogey on the par-3 17th has dropped her back to E on the day and -6 overall, giving Shin, who's -5 on the day with 2 holes left to play, a 1-shot lead.

But a host of other players could crash their party, as well. Anna Nordqvist's bogey-free 68 had brought her to -6, while Heather Bowie Young has 2 holes in which to pass her. Then there's Mikaela Parmlid's 8-birdie 66 and Helen Alfredsson's bogey-free 67, which have brought them even with Reilley Rankin at -5 for the moment, at least (Rankin is one of those players with 5 holes to go; she had been -7 overall after opening with 2 birdies, but she closed the front with 2 bogeys to drop back to E on her day). And guess what? Ya Ni Tseng, Na Yeon Choi, Chella Choi, and Taylor Leon all have at least a couple of holes in which to move within 3 of the lead.

In fact, I usually consider anyone within 5 shots of the lead heading into the final round to be in contention, so by that standard there are 22 golfers trying to deny McPherson her 1st career LPGA victory right now. 68s by Se Ri Pak (-4), Suzann Pettersen (-4), Ai Miyazato (-3), and Song-Hee Kim (-3) and 69s by Karen Stupples (-4) and Cristie Kerr (-3) give them some hope--and much-needed momentum--for a season-ending win. On the other end of the spectrum, Brittany Lang (74, +3, T73) is looking for some help to end up in the top 70, while all hope is gone for In-Kyung Kim (75, +4), Eun-Hee Ji (74, +6), Christina Kim (71, +6), Mika Miyazato (77, +11), and Vicky Hurst (82, +14).

LPGA.com helpfully summarizes the race for the Vare Trophy. Basically, Ai-sama needs to make like Chie Arimura today to have a hope of passing Cristie Kerr, Ji-Yai Shin, and Lorena Ochoa. As for the race for the top 80 on the money list, Il Mi Chung (E through 31 holes, #81, $110.4K), Kris Tamulis (+3 through 32 holes, #83, $99.7K), Taylor Leon (-4 through 33 holes, #84, $98.3K), Heather Bowie Young (-6 through 34 holes, #89, $91.6K), Mindy Kim (+2, #91, $87.2K), Sarah Kemp (+1, #93, $85.5K), Chella Choi (-4 through 34 holes, #94, $85.1K), Reilley Rankin (-5 through 31 holes, #100, $72.7K), and Sarah Jane Smith (-2 through 34 holes, #107, $62.2K) are all looking to pass Katie Futcher (-1 through 35 holes, #80, $112.9K), Irene Cho (+1 through 33 holes, #79, $115.3K), Moira Dunn (MC, #78, $116.5K), Sarah Lee (+3 through 33 holes, #77, $119.5K), and Alena Sharp (MC, #76, $122.3K). So that race is looking like a photo finish, just like the big one, where 1 stroke and 8 points is all that's standing between Lorena Ochoa and her 4th-straight Player of the Year award--or, conversely, what Ji-Yai Shin needs to preserve or extend to become the 1st Korean POY in LPGA history, not to mention the 1st player to sew up the POY, money-list title, and Rookie of the Year award in the same season since Nancy Lopez. No biggie!

Better check with my friends who have Golf Channel later this morning. Even though they're aiming for a 4 pm finish, coverage doesn't start till then. Weird....

[Update 1 (12:24 pm): Ah, time zones! Now I get it. Unfortunately, my Golf Channel source has family visiting this week. No chance to have dinner with them tonight and watch the final round together.

As for round 2's final results, the top players stayed mostly the same: McPherson maintained her 1-shot lead on Shin, 2-shot lead on Ochoa, Nordqvist, and Bowie Young, and 3-shot lead on Parmlid and Alfredsson. Rankin dropped all the way to T20 when she finished bogey-par-par-double for a 75 that left her at -2 overall. So in the end there were only 18 players within 5 shots of McPherson after 36 holes. The cut line did drop to +3, saving Brittany Lang but not In-Kyung Kim, Jennifer Rosales, or Shanshan Feng (who cancelled her trip to Japan for the JLPGA's 3rd stage of Q-School). Other victims include Sarah Lee and Allison Hanna (who was at #82 on the money list at $104.6K--somehow I missed her in my list this morning). With Katie Futcher moving up to T20 after a 69 today, it looks like Irene Cho (who made the cut by the skin of her teeth after ballooning to a 77 today), Moira Dunn, Sarah Lee, and Alena Sharp (who all missed the cut) are on the hot seat when it comes to staying within the top 80 on the money list, The biggest threats to pass them are Bowie Young, Choi, and Leon, although they'll need to make significant amounts of money to do so.]

[Update 2 (3:14 pm): Check the comments on Bill Jempty's piece on the Golf Channel's live coverage--it starts at 3, not 4 pm! So I'm missing it as I write! Cue Charlie Brown: "Auuuuwgh!"]

Daio Paper ElleAir Ladies Overview: Arimura Hits the -20 Mark, Gets Win #5 of '09

2nd-round leader Chie Arimura followed up on yesterday's scintillating 62 with a bogey-free 67, her 2nd of the week at the Daio Paper ElleAir Ladies, to reach -20 over the 54-hole event and match Shinobu Moromizato and Sakura Yokomine with 5 wins on the season. 3 birdies in her last 4 holes sealed an 8-shot margin of victory over amateur Harukyo Nomura, one of the largest in my memory of covering the JLPGA. Yuko Mitsuka, who's headed for LPGA Q-School in a couple of weeks, was the only other player in the field to break 70 all 3 rounds, and she ended up 9 behind Arimura.

1st/-20 Chie Arimura (67-62-67)
2nd/-12 Harukyo Nomura (67-66-71)
T3/-11 Rui Kitada (70-67-68), Yuko Mitsuka (68-69-68)
T5/-10 Michie Ohba (71-68-67), Mayu Hattori (72-66-68), Momoko Ueda (67-71-68), Nikki Campbell (66-70-70)
T9/-9 Shinobu Moromizato (68-71-68), Yuri Fudoh (70-68-69), Ah-Reum Hwang (68-69-70), Ji-Hee Lee (67-70-70), Toshimi Kimura (68-66-73)

T14/-8 Kuniko Maeda (70-68-70), Maria Iida (70-68-70), Julie Lu (69-69-70)
T18/-7 Bo-Bae Song (72-67-70), Yukari Baba (66-72-71)
T20/-6 Miho Koga (70-71-69), Hyun-Ju Shin (70-71-69), Miki Saiki (69-69-72)
T24/-5 Na-Ri Lee (72-69-70), Eun-A Lim (75-65-71)
T27/-4 So-Hee Kim (73-70-69)
T29/-3 Yumiko Yoshida (75-69-69), Mi-Jeong Jeon (70-73-70), Hiromi Mogi (75-67-71), Ji-Woo Lee (68-73-72)
T37/-2 Sakura Yokomine (74-70-70), Yuko Saitoh (72-69-73)
T40/-1 Esther Lee (73-69-73), Akane Iijima (72-70-73), Erina Hara (71-71-73)
T47/E Saiki Fujita (73-71-72), Yun-Jye Wei (74-69-73)
54th/+4 Yuki Ichinose (69-74-77)

With 1 week to go in the money-list race, Moromizato's 7-shot lead on Yokomine this week didn't translate into that much of a bigger lead in yen. And Arimura is right in the mix.

1. Shinobu Moromizato ￥155.43M
2. Sakura Yokomine ￥150.02M
3. Chie Arimura ￥138.39M

4. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥126.18M

5. Yuko Mitsuka ￥89.79M

6. Bo-Bae Song ￥71.21M
7. Ji-Hee Lee ￥69.86M
8. Miho Koga ￥69.70M

9. Yukari Baba ￥56.18M

10. Nikki Campbell ￥49.75M
11. Ayako Uehara ￥46.68M
12. Eun-A Lim ￥46.36M
13. Akiko Fukushima ￥45.79M
14. Yuko Saitoh ￥43.84M
15. Yuri Fudoh ￥43.49M
16. Rui Kitada ￥42.47M
17. Miki Saiki ￥41.92M
18. Ai Miyazato ￥41.06M

19. Ah-Reum Hwang ￥39.59M
20. Ji-Yai Shin ￥37.42M
21. Tamie Durdin ￥37.00M
22. Momoko Ueda ￥37.00M

23. Erina Hara ￥34.79M
24. Mayu Hattori ￥34.64M
25. Akane Iijima ￥32.80M
26. Hiromi Mogi ￥32.35M

27. Rikako Morita ￥30.40M
28. Michie Ohba ￥29.00M
29. Na-Ri Lee ￥28.29M
30. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥28.16M
31. Ji-Woo Lee ￥27.04M
32. Midori Yoneyama ￥26.91M
33. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥26.41M
34. Saiki Fujita ￥26.38M
35. Kaori Aoyama ￥26.05M
36. Li-Ying Ye ￥25.01M

37. So-Hee Kim ￥20.74M
38. Julie Lu ￥20.07M
39. Yuki Ichinose ￥19.21M

40. Nobuko Kizawa ￥17.81M
41. Hiromi Takesue ￥17.59M
42. Yui Kawahara ￥16.72M
43. Junko Omote ￥16.56M
44. Mie Nakata ￥16.52M
45. Tomoko Kusakabe ￥16.50M
46. Maria Iida ￥16.48M
47. Kuniko Maeda ￥15.75M
48. Yun-Jye Wei ￥15.32M
49. Natsu Nagai ￥15.06M
50. Tomomi Hirose ￥14.83M

So these players won't have to do JLPGA Q-School. The 2009 winners face off in the Ricoh Cup for all the marbles! Should be good!

[Update 1 (4:55 pm): Congrats to Hee Kyung Seo for her 5th win on the KLPGA. She runs the table on all their top awards, and she did it by making birdies in bunches down the stretch. The Kyoraku Cup should be awesome this season!]

[Update 1 (11/23/09, 7:17 pm): Here are the highlights, courtesy of reader John!



Onechan, imoto, and I heard Arimura mention "tanjobi" in her post-round itnerview, and, sure enough, she won on her 22nd birthday!]

Paging Bill Huffman...and Geoff Shackelford

Bill Huffman is a very angry man right now. And it's hard for me to blame him. If it were the Wegmans in Rochester that had bitten the dust and not the Phoenix event in his neck of the, uh, desert, I'd be far madder than he is. But with Geoff Shackelford egging him on, the twin targets of Huffman's rant are likely to be lost, with the spotlight likely to be on the "LPGA leaving Phoenix," as Shackelford puts it, and not on Huffman's more accurate "we will rue the day we let this tournament get away" line.

What Huffman inconsistently acknowledges is that it takes 2 to tango (see my 4th and 5th points in my own hitchhiker's guide to the 2010 schedule). If there's no LPGA tournament in Phoenix next season, they have only themselves to blame. Check the following lines from his piece where he as much as acknowledges this:

After all, it wasn’t that long ago--2005--that the LPGA left Tucson after a similar run ended with no corporate sponsor.

In fact, with no real group in charge of pushing to bring the women's tour back to the Valley any time soon, there was not even anyone to call locally for a reaction. I did try the Portland-based Tournament Golf Foundation, which had managed the event for the past six years, but its spokesperson failed to call back....

[W]hen the LPGA's shrunken 2010 sked was released Wednesday, there really were no surprises as far as Phoenix was concerned. Most people had expected Arizona to be left off the master plan chiefly because corporate sponsorship for golf in the Valley has been nil since the economy went belly up. Or did you forget that the Champions and Nationwide tours met a similar demise here, and that the FBR Open is desperately searching for a title sponsor?

So just who should Huffman be pissed off at here? Michael Whan for recognizing that the women's game has gone global? Uh, Bill, it was Marty Evans and Zayra Calderon who were in charge of salvaging the 2010 schedule after Bivens left town with 9 tournaments set in stone. How about the LPGA leadership for taking the tour where the most committed fans, sponsors, and tv entities are based? So they're supposed to pass up opportunities abroad out of, what, patriotism? OK, how about the tour for not having the financial resources to float the Phoenix event for the 2nd-straight year? Ah, now we're on to something! Huffman is mad because the LPGA wouldn't provide Phoenix with another year of corporate welfare. Let's see, they're losing revenues, laying people off, on the hook for the LPGA Tour Championship (which is riddled with TBAs and TBDs), and they should make their #1 priority doing for Phoenix what Phoenix can't do for itself?

Look, Bill, this is no time to wax nostalgic:

What's hard to believe is the LPGA in Phoenix died without a whimper despite it being so successful, annually drawing over 100,000 fans for the week. A truly amazing downward spiral considering all that’s happened here since one-time superstar Jan Stephenson captured the original event in Sun City way back in 1980.

I mean who can forget Annika Sorenstam's one-and-only 59 recorded here in 2001, one of her three victories in Phoenix? Or Laura Davies' record-breaking four in row at Moon Valley from 1994 to 1997? Or the fact that Lorena Ochoa helped propel herself to No. 1 in the world thanks in part to her back-to-back victories at Superstition Mountain in 2007-08, a stunning feat that thrilled her Hispanic following and created a truly rare moment in the lily-white sport of golf?

Don't mourn: organize! If Huffman would take a chill pill, stop, and think, he'd realize he should be talking to everyone in Phoenix (and, I suppose, some people in Portland) about putting in a bid to host the LPGA Tour Championship next season in Arizona. If the LPGA is going to lose domestic events in the short run, far better to upgrade the tournaments that have shown the most loyalty and support to the tour than to let them die. With the LPGA Championship coming to Rochester, NY--masking, as Hound Dog pointed out, a net loss of 1 tournament from the 2008 schedule--why doesn't Phoenix follow suit and put up some serious money to host the tour's season-ending event?

For the longer term, the issue is not globalization or the success of golfers of Asian descent. I'm a fan of both trends, but even I don't see all that much room for the LPGA to expand in the Asian Pacific. Let's say Whan follows my advice and seeks co-sponsorships with the tours in that region, so that, say, by 2012--following the return of the ADT Championship to Florida and the upgrading of the unofficial event in Rio to the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship in late January--the LPGA goes from Korea (with the KLPGA) to Thailand (with the JLPGA) to Taiwan (and now I'm really dreaming here, with the CLPGA) to Australia (with the LET and ALPG) to Singapore (with everyone) for 6 events in February and March--all regular full-field tournaments, with cuts. Wouldn't taking the risk on that kind of international travel be a better deal for the LPGA's rank-and-file than tuning up on the Cactus Tour and the SunCoast Series? After all, the top players can miss cuts just like everyone else. That's kind of how they stop being top players.

Not only could such globalization benefit American players, but so would moving the later Asian swing to follow fairly directly upon the European swing, as Happy Fan has suggested over at Seoul Sisters.com, and upgrading them to full-field events with cuts. The weather would be better in late August and early September than late October and early November in China, Korea, and Japan (and perhaps 1 or 2 more Asian countries, but more likely India than Malaysia or the Philippines, as Huffman snarks at the end of his piece), plus it would be a great follow-up to the annual mid-August synchronized Solheim/Kyoraku-Pinx Cup global showdown I've been calling for for awhile now. And best of all, doing this would allow the LPGA to concentrate its North American events--including the ones in Canada and Mexico, which almost everyone not named Bill Jempty is counting toward the international total when they're played in the same time zones as American ones--in a stretch run in the fall that could capitalize on the momentum from the late summer abroad and drum up more interest in what are just as likely to be tight pennant races then as now.

So even a globalization booster like myself can't envision more than 10-12 LPGA events in the Asian Pacific and South America in the medium term--and just about all of them would be co-sponsored with other women's tours, if I had my way. That puts the ball squarely in the court of the LPGA's North American sponsors. If they would step up and commit to doubling the number of events outside North America, the LPGA would have a minimum of 30-36 events by 2012 and globalization would end up being a win-win for everyone. I don't see why this scenario is any less realistic than Huffman's Chicken Little act.

In the meantime, there's nothing stopping American players from trying to get dual membership on the KLPGA (or, more likely) the JLPGA starting in 2011. Let's say you're a LPGA player or hopeful who doesn't finish in the top 100 on the money list or the top 20 in Q-School at the end of 2010. Why supplement your limited LPGA schedule in 2011 by playing the Futures Tour for peanuts when you could be making a half-million dollars on a minimal schedule on the JLPGA? Sure, the competition is tougher over there than on the FT, but the rewards are much much greater. And if you're tanking against LPGA competition, struggling to make $125K and keep your card for the following season by finishing in the top 80 on the money list, why not play more events and give yourself a fighting chance for the top 50 on the JLPGA (where you'll be making the equivalent of $150K or more)? Language barriers? Culture shock? Fear of the unknown? Ah, so you must really believe the Asian players who come over here are a lot better than you, eh?

The bottom line is, American sponsors and players are going to have to step up their games if they want to compete on a planetary scale. Enough ranting and joking, already! It's time to get serious!

[Update 1 (9:00 am): Are my eyes deceiving me? Is Sal Johnson making more sense than Bill Huffman? Well, Huffman remains the better writer, that's for sure. But Johnson is showing himself to be the better thinker, on the schedule and on Whan, in particular.]

[Update 2 (2:15 pm): Wonder if John Paul Newport has been drinking the Mostly Harmless koolaid, as well?]

[Update 3 (2:25 pm): Hmm, unofficial talks with ADT for 2011? The only change I'd want to see in the format is start with 64, get it down to 32 with a stroke-play cut, then do 2 rounds of match play, and have the final 8 play 18 for $1M.]

[Update 4 (2:30 pm): Nice job by Randall Mell on the players and Whan. And Wie's ankle.]

[Update 5 (11/23/09, 12:53 pm): Karen Crouse looks at how one bad season has affected Reilley Rankin's finances and how the 2010 schedule puts extra pressure on her to perform in her final events this season. Too bad for her she's +6 over her last 18 holes at the LPGA Tour Championship after putting herself in contention over the 1st 25....]

[Update 6 (3:12 pm): Just noticed Bill Jempty's critique of Huffman. Check his link to Dave Seanor's piece, too.]

[Update 7 (7:34 pm): Just got a chance to actually read Seanor's piece. Turns out it's literally SF. And Seanor makes the mistake of many bad SF writers of extrapolating from blips. His look at the "International LPGA" in 2019 is basically calling for all women's tours to merge (saving their national tours as developmental paths to the planetary circuit) and then to merge with the PGA Tour. I don't see it happening in this half of the 21st century. As anyone who paid attention to the globalization bust after the '90s bubble popped knows, there's nothing inevitable about it. Competitive nationalism, particularly among the Asian tours, will only increase with the run-up to the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. Barring a serious economic crisis in Asia, there's no way the fast-growing CLPGA and KLPGA would agree to merge with the JLPGA, much less the LPGA. Furthermore, Seanor's scenario is predicated on the LPGA continuing to decline domestically. I just don't see that happening.]

[Update 8 (1/4/09, 6:41 am): Don't know how I missed Jeff Skinner's mid-October call for the LPGA to embrace globalization.]

Daio Paper ElleAir Ladies Update: Arimura's 62 Today Makes Her the Player to Beat

At this time last year, Sakura Yokomine broke through for her 1st and only victory at 2008's last regular-season event, the Daio Paper ElleAir Ladies, with a convincing win over Midori Yoneyama, Ai Miyazato, Momoko Ueda, and Ji-Hee Lee that brought her into the 100 Million Yen Club for the 2nd straight season and gave her a shot at a money-list title that had been eluding her since 2005, when she finished 4th. But when Miho Koga walked away with a miraculous victory at the following week's final major of the season, the Ricoh Cup, thanks to an epic fail down the stretch by Mi-Jeong Jeon, Yokomine would once again have to settle for a top 3 finish.

Flash forward to the present, when Yokomine's wire-to-wire win last week pulled her within 4 million yen of money-list leader Shinobu Moromizato, and all the momentum seemed to be going her way. But she started her title defense with a lackluster 74 that put her 8 shots behind leaders Nikki Campbell and Yukari Baba and 6 shots behind Moromizato. Well, Yokomine bounced back today with a 70 that ensured she'd be playing tomorrow, but she's now 15 shots behind another player who can put herself in a great position to deny Yokomine yet another money title. Yes, Chie Arimura shot an amazing 10-birdie 62 to take a 4-shot lead on amateur Harukyo Nomura and a 5-shot lead on veteran Toshimi Kimura. But Yokomine is now only 5 behind Moromizato. Assuming neither of them makes a huge move tomorrow, an Arimura win would put her even with them at 5 wins on the season and give her a chance to take the money title with a victory at next week's Ricoh Cup.

But there are still 18 holes left to be played this week. Here's how the leaders and notables stand heading into the final round:

1st/-15 Chie Arimura (67-62)
2nd/-11 Harukyo Nomura (67-66)
3rd/-10 Toshimi Kimura (68-66)
4th/-8 Nikki Campbell (66-70)
T5/-7 Rui Kitada (70-67), Yuko Mitsuka (68-69), Ah-Reum Hwang (68-69), Ji-Hee Lee (67-70)
T9/-6 Mayu Hattori (72-66), Yuri Fudoh (70-68), Kuniko Maeda (70-68), Maria Iida (70-68), Tomomi Hirose (70-68), Miki Saiki (69-69), Julie Lu (69-69), Momoko Ueda (67-71), Yukari Baba (66-72)

T18/-5 Bo-Bae Song (72-67), Shinobu Moromizato (68-71)
T21/-4 Eun-A Lim (75-65)
T25/-3 Yuko Saitoh (72-69), Na-Ri Lee (72-69), Miho Koga (70-71), Hyun-Ju Shin (70-71), Ji-Woo Lee (68-73)
T31/-2 Hiromi Mogi (75-67), Esther Lee (73-69), Akane Iijima (72-70), Erina Hara (71-71)
T40/-1 Yun-Jye Wei (74-69), So-Hee Kim (73-70), Mi-Jeong Jeon (70-73), Yuki Ichinose (69-74)
T48/E Yumiko Yoshida (75-69), Sakura Yokomine (74-70), Saiki Fujita (73-71)

Some painful missed cuts for some young stars and living legends:

T57/+1 Kumiko Kaneda (75-70), Ayako Uehara (72-73)
T67/+3 Woo-Soon Ko (77-70), Rikako Morita (75-72)
T74/+4 Maiko Wakabayashi (73-75)
T84/+6 Sakurako Mori (79-71), Ai-Yu Tu (76-74), Da-Ye Na (74-76)

So Yokomine will be looking to chase down Moromizato, while Arimura will be looking to extend her lead on her nearest competitors. We'll see who achieves her goals tomorrow!

[Update 1 (2:41 pm): Hee Kyung Seo heads into the final round of the last KLPGA event of the season 2 shots back of a lesser-known player. Can she avoid getting beat like her rival So Yeon Ryu did last week?]

LPGA Tour Championship Friday: Houston, We Have a Problem!

LPGA official Doug Brecht said they got some "bonus golf" in on the Houstonian today when it appeared heavy rains would wash away the entire 2nd round of the LPGA Tour Championship. True, half the field didn't even get to tee it off and nobody in the morning pairings actually finished her round. So they're going to need the course to drain well, more rain to hold off, a lot of fast play from the remaining golfers in the field (Candie Kung, Seon Hwa Lee, and Silvia Cavalleri joined Michelle Wie in withdrawing), and a little luck to finish all 72 holes by Sunday afternoon now. But Brecht practically guaranteed that all 72 holes would be played, even if it takes a Monday finish:

Because this is our Tour Championship, it affects Player of the Year, it affects a lot of--all the major awards. If affects players going--who has to go to Q-School and who doesn't have to go to Q-School. It affects players on our priority list and where they fall on that priority list.

There's a ton of things riding on this tournament. Because of that and the importance of it, we are committed to playing 72 holes.

That's music to my ears! I can't tell you how many times over the last few years that the LPGA has annoyed me by cutting 72-hole tournaments back to 54 holes in response to bad weather. If they're not going to take themselves seriously, why should anyone else? This is definitely a step in the right direction.

Speaking of which, it seems that the players who could draw on a wealth of experience took the most steps in the right direction despite the challenging conditions yesterday. Wendy Ward and Helen Alfredsson were -3 on their rounds and for the tournament with 6 and 7 holes left to play on the back, respectively. Juli Inkster joined them at -3 overall after a bogey on the 1st hole brought her back to -1 on her round. They're all 1 shot behind Sophie Gustafson, who birdied 3 of her 1st 6 holes today and played her next 5 holes in +1. If she can finish strong and pass 1st-round leader Lorena Ochoa at -6, she'll be the leader in the clubhouse for quite some time. Meanwhile, Cristie Kerr and Suzanne Pettersen shot 35s on the back to move to -1 overall and are poised to turn up the heat on Ji-Yai Shin, Na Yeon Choi, Ya Ni Tseng, and Ochoa.

But it wasn't only the vets who played well yesterday. Haeji Kang has held steady at -3 overall as she started hot on her 1st 7 holes (playing them in -2) on the back and cooled off over her next 7 (playing them in +2). Jane Park shot a 33 on the front to join Kerr, Pettersen, Karen Stupples, and Mikaela Parmlid at -1 overall. Julieta Granada (-3 today with 3 left to play on the front), Jee Young Lee (-2 today with 6 to go on the front), and Ai Miyazato (35 on the back) lead the players charging to E overall. Amy Yang matched Park's 33 on the front and M.J. Hur is -3 with 6 holes left to play on the front as both players fight to improve on their +1 standing thus far. And if Paula Creamer can turn it around from Thursday and birdie every hole she bogeyed on the back the 1st time around, she'll birdie the par-5 18th and join them at +1 with a 33 this time around.

The 1st cut line will fall at the top 70 and ties. Fighting to be on the right side of it are Marisa Baena (-3 today through 16, but +4 overall, T85 right now with Catriona Matthew and Jennifer Rosales, among others) and Minea Blomqvist (-2 today with 5 to go on the front, T74 at +3 with Eunjung Yi and Shanshan Feng, among others). Unfortunately, Brittany Lang has fallen back to +4 overall and only has 8 holes left on the front to make up enough ground to make it possible to get into the top 30 through 54 holes, while Moira Dunn is at +6 with 5 to play on the front and will need a sharp turnaround just to keep playing on the weekend. With Taylor Leon, Heather Bowie Young, and Irene Cho off to solid starts, and others within $20K of her on the money list looking to play all 4 rounds this week, Moira needs to play great tomorrow morning to give herself a chance to control her destiny when it comes to staying in the top 80 on the money list.

Play is expected to start at 7 am and the plan is to start the 3rd round around 2 pm. Let's hope we've seen the last of the weather-related problems at the Houstonian this year!

[Update 1 (5:27 am): We've been in Kitchener following Daisuke Takahashi at Skate Canada since Thursday afternoon, so I haven't been able to read around the last couple of days. But I have to say I've been impressed by Jeff Skinner's LPGA blogging of late. Sure, he's been inspired by Michelle Wie, like all the LPGA irregulars, but check out his nice piece on Stacy Lewis. Michelle Wie has also gotten Stephanie Wei's attention. It's Lorena Ochoa who's brought Jamie RS back to the keyboard. And Bill Jempty saved a few zingers for Steve Elling. Good stuff--check it out! And if you think scoring conditions are tough in Houston, try the KLPGA's season-ending event!]

[Update 2 (7:41 am): Not a good sign--players tweeting about rain on the way to the course this am!]

[Update 3 (8:52 am): Just realized that Ai-sama's birdieless 37 on the back yesterday broke her 21-round streak of shooting par or better. Time to start a new one today! And break that pesky 6-event streak of failing to break 70. The Vare Trophy is still within reach! Gambatte!]