Jamie Farr Toledo Classic Sunday: Move Over, Rory! So Yeon Ryu Smokes Field with Final-Round 62

So Yeon Ryu took control of the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic (otherwise known as the Se Ri Pak Shootout) as she made the turn with 6 consecutive birdies and cruised to a 9-under-par 62 that moved her to -20 for the week and secured her her 2nd career LPGA victory and 1st as a member of the tour.  Only Paula Creamer with a 60 and Eunjung Yi with a 61 have ever won with a lower score in this event. [Correction:  HappyFan over at Seoul Sisters.com reminds me that Se Ri Pak won in 1998 with a 61.  He also points out that in all 3 of Ryu's best LPGA finishes, she was paired with Hee Kyung Seo!]

How good was Ryu today?  Well, Angela Stanford opened and closed the tournament with 66s and ended up 7 back in distant 2nd.  Inbee Park shot 4 rounds in the 60s, including a Friday 65, and barely tied Chella Choi 8 behind Ryu.  In-Kyung Kim, Mika Miyazato, and Ji-Yai Shin were stuck in neutral after being at or within 1 shot of the lead after 54 holes and ended up barely making the top 10, getting tied or passed by Jennie Lee's solid 67.  Hee Kyung Seo did even worse and got caught at T9 by Beatriz Recari.  Stacy Lewis closed with a fine 66, but had to settle for T11.  (Blame the 17th and 18th, both par 5s, for her finish--she only made 3 birdies in 8 tries on those holes, against 3 bogeys and a double!)  Defending champion Na Yeon Choi was never a factor, as she finished T21 with Amy Yang, Sydnee Michaels, and Mo Martin, 1 shot behind 1st-round leader Pernilla Lindberg, among others.

Ryu has had several close calls since winning the 2011 U.S. Women's Open in dramatic fashion against fellow KLPGA superstar Hee Kyung Seo, so this 2nd LPGA win must be particularly satisfying to her.  Jee Young Lee, who finished T31 this week in one of her best tournaments in a long while, knows how hard it is to follow up on a non-member win--she's in her 7th season on tour and still hasn't lived up to expectations.  Now the question is, just how good can Ryu make her rookie season?  She's 8th on the money list with nearly 3/4 of a million dollars to her name, has almost lapped #2 Lexi Thompson in the Rookie of the Year Race, has leaped to 7th in the Player of the Year race (well behind leader Stacy Lewis), and is 6th in the race for the Vare Trophy (averaging .27 strokes per round more than Lewis, who just passed Ai Miyazato).  Only Lewis is averaging more birdies per round than Ryu (4.11 to 4.07), only Inbee Park and Lewis are more efficient than she is after hitting a green in regulation, and she's among the best on tour in top-10 percentage and rounds under par rate, as well.  With Ya Ni Tseng's slump deepening thanks to yet another uncharacteristic missed cut, with Lewis playing a bit like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of late, with Ai Miyazato missing her 2nd cut of the year, with Shanshan Feng and Inbee Park dealing with the rigors of trying to be in the elite of both the LPGA and JLPGA in 2012, and with Azahara Munoz also missing the cut this week, perhaps there's an opening for Ryu to make up some ground on those ahead of her in the weeks and months to come.

Well, Ryu's next order of business is to take on the well-rested defending champion of the Safeway Classic, Suzann Pettersen, not to mention the rest of the packed field for a 54-hole sprint in Oregon next week.  Let's see if this win opens the floodgates for her!

NEC Karuizawa 72 Ladies Sunday: Yumiko Yoshida Catches Eun-Bi Jang on 54th Hole, Wins Playoff for 1st JLPGA Victory

Eun-Bi Jang had a great chance to make the NEC Karuizawa 72 Ladies her 1st JLPGA win as she stood on the final tee of the tournament.  Despite a bogey-free 67 by Yumiko Yoshida, capped off by a birdie on the 385-yard par-4 18th that got her to -11 and dropped Jang's lead to 1, the relatively unheralded KLPGA transplant just needed a par to seal the deal.  Having made 5 birdies in her 1st 10 holes and not made a bogey in her previous 45 holes, Jang was in a great position to do it.  But when she hit her approach into the rough and failed to get up and down, she opened the door for the 25-year-old from Kanagawa.  And when Yoshida walked through it with a 7-foot birdie putt on the 6th playoff hole, she turned out to be the golfer celebrating her 1st career JLPGA win.

So in the end it came down to the "rebel alliance" that I blogged about yesterday, as the JLPGA's big names either got off to slow starts or were too far back to get into contention.  Still, the leaderboard ended up packed with the JLPGA's finest.  Living legend Yuri Fudoh ended up 2 shots out of the playoff, Sakura Yokomine, Sun-Ju Ahn, and Harukyo Nomura closed with 33s to catch Junko Omote at -8, Rikako Morita fired a bogey-free 66 to catch money-list leader Mi-Jeong Jeon and a host of others (including ex-LPGAer Teresa Lu) another shot back, and Ritsuko Ryu caught Bo-Mee Lee, Miki Saiki, Kumiko Kaneda, and Na-Ri Kim at -6 to secure a top-20 finish.  Chie Arimura had to settle for a T21 another shot away from the playoff duo.

With her win, Yoshida cracked the top 15 on the JLPGA money list for the 1st time in her career

1. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥80.46M
2. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥61.88M
3. Mayu Hattori ￥55.34M
4. Ritsuko Ryu ￥51.72M
5. Chie Arimura ￥51.45M
6. Miki Saiki ￥50.21M
7. Ji-Hee Lee ￥45.57M
8. Sakura Yokomine ￥40.60M
9. Shanshan Feng ￥40.48M
10. Bo-Mee Lee ￥40.20M
11. Rikako Morita ￥34.78M
12. Inbee Park ￥29.62M
13. Hiromi Mogi ￥29.05M
14. Yumiko Yoshida ￥28.94M
15. Soo-Yun Kang ￥28.10M
16. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥27.77M
17. Yuri Fudoh ￥26.69M
18. Mihoko Iseri ￥26.25M
19. Kaori Ohe ￥24.10M
20. Megumi Kido ￥22.44M
21. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥21.12M
22. Shinobu Moromizato ￥20.35M
23. Yuki Ichinose ￥20.24M
24. Esther Lee ￥19.75M
25. Erina Hara ￥18.30M
26. Ji-Yai Shin ￥17.78M
27. Ayako Uehara ￥17.53M
28. Yukari Baba ￥16.48M
29. Airi Saitoh ￥16.37M
30. Teresa Lu ￥16.01M
31. Bo-Bae Song ￥15.63M
32. Akane Iijima ￥15.59M
33. Eun-Bi Jang ￥15.54M
34. Erika Kikuchi ￥15.49M
35. So-Hee Kim ￥15.34M
36. Na-Ri Lee￥15.32M
37. Young Kim￥15.02M
38. Rui Kitada ￥14.90M
39. Miki Sakai ￥14.10M
40. Harukyo Nomura ￥14.04M
41. Yeo-Jin Kang ￥13.50M
42. Na-Ri Kim ￥13.25M
43. Yuko Fukuda ￥12.19M
44. Junko Omote￥11.60M
45. Kumiko Kaneda ￥11.38M
46. Da-Ye Na ￥10.59M
47. Asako Fujimoto￥9.45M
48. Li-Ying Ye ￥8.92M
49. Natsu Nagai ￥8.58M
50. Nikki Campbell ￥8.54M

Next up for the JLPGA is the CAT Ladies, where Chie Arimura will attempt to defend her title in Hakone.  From the field list, it doesn't look like there will be any surprise appearances by any dual LPGA-JLPGA members, except for Harukyo Nomura, who's probably looking to secure her place well within the top 50 (thus guaranteeing her a card for next season) before returning to the LPGA.  And with Sun-Ju Ahn apparently sitting this one out, the race for #2 is wide open.  Should be good!

Jamie Farr Toledo Classic Saturday: The Empire Strikes Back

Check out the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic leaderboard now that the dust has settled from moving day charges by Ji-Yai Shin and In-Kyung Kim.  Their 66s brought them to -11, tied with So Yeon Ryu (67) and Hee Kyung Seo (68) for the lead, and 1 shot ahead of Inbee Park (69), Mika Miyazato (69), and 2nd-round leader Chella Choi (70).  Choi is the only surviving rebel alliance leader that I focused on earlier today in my overview of the 1st 36 holes, although to be fair 1st-round leader Pernilla Lindberg and Jacqui Concolino are only 3 off the pace at -8, and Beatriz Recari, Karine Icher, and Jennie Lee aren't out of it at -7.  But every other player within 5 shots of the lead is a big name.  Yes, we have no Stacy Lewis, Na Yeon Choi, Paula Creamer, Brittany Lincicome, or Brittany Lang in the hunt, and Amy Yang and Natalie Gulbis will have to go super-low from -4 to be a factor tomorrow, but there's plenty of star power on the top of the leaderboard.  Who will shine brightly and who will go supernova tomorrow?  Time will tell!

NEC Karuizawa 72 Ladies Setup: More Rebel Alliance/Empire Action

I had some fun with my title's Star Wars analogy in my post on the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic on the LPGA, so I was surprised to see the same Rebel Alliance/Empire shootout theme holding true at the NEC Karuizawa 72 Ladies on the JLPGA.  32-year-old journeywoman Tomoko Kusakabe (-8), who's never broken into the top 40 on the year-end money list in her 1st 8 years on tour, leads a rebel alliance of young guns looking to deny the tour's biggest names a victory tomorrow, including 23-year-old Eun-Bi Jang (-7), 21-year-old Miki Sakai (-6), 22-year-old Kaori Ohe (-6), 24-year-old Teresa Lu (-6), 24-year-old Erika Kikuchi (-6), 25-year-old Yumiko Yoshida (-6), 19-year-old Harukyo Nomura (-5), 26-year-old Esther Lee (-5), and 26-year-old Na-Ri Kim (-4).  It's a tall order, as the empire is lead by living legend Yuri Fudoh at -7, flanked by Sun-Ju Ahn and Mi-Jeong Jeon at -5, and Sakura Yokomine, Chie Arimura, and Bo-Mee Lee at -4.  But Kusakabe's best career finish was a T6 here in 2009, so maybe she'll be up to the challenge!

Jamie Farr Toledo Classic Thursday and Friday: Rebel Alliance/Empire Shootout in Process

Scoring has always been low at Highland Meadows in the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic, which may as well be called the Se Ri Pak Shootout, what with her 5 wins at this event.  Paula Creamer hung on in 2008 after opening with a 60.  Eunjung Yi shocked the field with a moving-day 61 in 2009 and beat Morgan Pressel in a playoff.  In fact, the last player to win without breaking 65 was Mi Hyun Kim in 2006.

Given that history, everyone playing this week knew they'd have to go low or go home.  With the cut line at E, big names like Ya Ni Tseng, Ai Miyazato, Azahara Munoz, Anna Nordqvist, Michelle Wie, and Pressel have had to settle for the latter option, not to mention players of the caliber of Eun-Hee Ji, Mina Harigae, Jennifer Song, Mariajo Uribe, Lizette Salas, Nicole Castrale, Vicky Hurst, and Ryann O'Toole.  But plenty of other golfers have gone the former route, including many names we haven't seen in a long time near the top of the leaderboard. 

On Thursday, Pernilla Lindberg fired an 8-birdie, 7-under-par 64 to take a 2-shot lead on fellow members of the rebel alliance Meredith Duncan, Numa Gulyanamitta, Chella Choi, and Karine Icher (not to mention Mika Miyazato and Angela Stanford).  Joining them in the 60s were the likes of Ayaka Kaneko, Gerina Piller, Ilhee Lee, and Jenny Shin (and, oh yeah, Amy Yang and So Yeon Ryu) at -4, Jane Park, Jee Young Lee, Lizette Salas, Danielle Kang, Dewi Claire Schreefel, Danah Bordner, Jane Rah, Jacqui Concolino, Brooke Pancake, and Rachel Rohanna (whoops, also, Laura Davies, Stacy Lewis, Paula Creamer, Hee-Kyung Seo, Hee-Won Han, Jeong Jang, and Janice Moodie) at -3, and a huge group at -2 that included P.K. Kongkrapham, Valentine Derrey, Cindy LaCrosse, Mo Martin, Kathleen Ekey, Sydnee Michaels, Christine Song, Samantha Richdale, Jennie Lee, Nicole Hage, and Moira Dunn (oops, forgot Ji-Yai Shin, In-Kyung Kim, Inbee Park, Brittany Lincicome, Sandra Gal, Momoko Ueda, Natalie Gulbis, Katherine Hull, Lindsey Wright, and Candie Kung).

On Friday, the empire struck back to some extent, with Mika Miyazato, Inbee Park, and Hee Kyung Seo only 1 shot behind new rebel alliance leader Chella Choi, followed by So Yeon Ryu, Hee-Won Han, Karine Icher, and Pernilla Lindberg at -7, Ji-Yai Shin, In-Kyung Kim, Angela Stanford, Beatriz Recari, and Jacqui Concolino at -6, and Stacy Lewis, Mi Jung Hur, Lindsey Wright, Dewi Claire Schreefel, Sydnee Michaels, and Kathleen Ekey at -5. 

So as moving day beckons, will we see another Eunjung Yi-like performance by a rebel alliance leader, or will a big name bring a Se Ri Pak-like Death Star blast to the hopes of the rest of the field?  I'd say "stay tuned," but between the London Olympics and Tiger in contention at the PGA Championship, the decision by the tournament organizerts to save money and not pay for Golf Channel coverage is looking pretty smart (although maddening to LPGA junkies like me!).  I'm hoping for big moves by Momoko Ueda (E), 2010 champion Na Yeon Choi (-1), Amy Yang (-2), Tiffany Joh (-2), Ayaka Kaneko (-2), Paula Creamer (-3), and Jane Park (-3), rooting for Mika Miyazato to break through for her 1st LPGA win, and expecting at least a couple of golfers to go lower than Lindberg's opening 64 on the weekend.  How about you?