CN Canadian Women's Open Overview: 15-Year-Old Lydia Ko Makes 1st LPGA Win Look Easy

It's a good thing that I was too busy to blog about the CN Canadian Women's Open as it was happening.  Because I totally would have made a fool of myself by repeating how wonderful it was that 15-year-old Lydia Ko was playing so well right after winning the U.S. Women's Amateur, but that there was no way that she would be able to continue hanging in there against the LPGA's top guns.

On Thursday, I would have focused on the brewing showdown between Class of 2008ers Ya Ni Tseng and Na Yeon Choi.  I would have celebrated my junior golf buddy Moira Dunn's appearance on the leaderboard (and our TV screens), emphasized that Inbee Park's 68 put her in position to take the title of LPGA's hottest golf away from Mika Miyazato (71), So Yeon Ryu (73), and Shanshan Feng (75), noted that longer hitters like Jee Young Lee, Angela Stanford, Vicky Hurst, and Amy Yang were finding Vancouver Country Club congenial to their games, and--oh, yeah--praised Ko for a fantastic start (while hinting that I didn't think it would last).

On Friday, I would have been blown away by Chella Choi's near-course record 64, ecstatic that Moira Dunn was in the hunt, excited by the prospect of recent CWO champion Suzann Pettersen moving onto the 1st page of the leaderboard, and bemoaning the fact that Ai Miyazato, In-Kyung Kim, So Yeon Ryu, Danielle Kang, Momoko Ueda, and Ayaka Kaneko had missed the cut.  I think I would have made a pretty big deal of Ko sharing the 36-hole lead in a week when Lexi Thompson and Ariya Jutanugarn both missed the cut, but again, I would have been comparing her with other young phenoms, not at all suggesting that she would play as well on the weekend in the final group as she had when she was comparatively under the radar.

On Saturday, I would have sympathized with Ko's troubles on the green (the 3 3-putts and 2 missed tiny birdie putts), praised her for holding it together with a 72 nonetheless, and quickly turned my attention to the 4 golfers right behind her.  Stacy Lewis's 66 showed what the money-list leader is capable of when she gets on a roll.  Ji-Yai Shin's 69 gave the former world #1 a chance to reclaim her "Final Round Queen" crown.  Inbee Park was rolling along with her 3rd-straight under-par round of the week and 14th in a row since her weak weekend at Blackwolf Run forced her to accept her worst finish since the Wegmans LPGA Championship in early June (that is, T9).  And Chella Choi, despite her troubles backing up her super-low Friday round, was still in great position for her 1st LPGA victory.  I would have continued to praise Moira Dunn for following up my anxious advice from last Tuesday--"She needs to back up that T20 from Alabama--and soon!"--with some very good golf.  And I would have given a lot of credit to rookie Sydnee Michaels and one of my faves, Mina Harigae, for putting themselves in the mix alongside the likes of Anna Nordqvist, Na Yeon Choi, Angela Stanford, and Suzann Pettersen.  But I would have been strongly implying that Ko had no chance on Sunday.

It would have been even worse if I had been not-quite-live-blogging the final round.  Na Yeon Choi's charge, Anna Nordqvist's hot start, Ji-Yai Shin's comeback from her early implosion, Inbee Park's steady brilliance, Stacy Lewis's struggles, Chella Choi's mid-round burst...all would have taken on added significance when Lydia Ko fluffed her little chip from the back of the green on the par-3 7th and narrowly-avoided double bogey to drop back to -9 after starting with 2 birdies in her 1st 6 holes.  That was it, I would have written.  The moment when reality set in and the best golfers in the world took center stage away from the 15-year-old phenom had arrived.  But Ko flipped the script, making 4 birdies in a row to start the back 9 and 5 in her 1st 6 holes.  She left the LPGA's finest in the dust and made it look easy.  Youngest winner on the LPGA by well over a year?  No problem!  1st amateur to win on the LPGA in my lifetime?  Piece of cake.

I'll let finer writers than me put this all in perspective and close with one of Ko's favorite words from her absolutely charming victory speech:  "Awesome!"

Nitori Ladies Overview: Sun-Ju Ahn Outguns Mi-Jeong Jeon for 10th Career JLPGA Win

While Lydia Ko was making history on the LPGA (on which more in a sec) and Mirim Lee was winning the KLPGA's 1st major of 2012, Sun-Ju Ahn was busy reminding everyone on the JLPGA why she has been the money-list leader for the past 2 seasons, as she held off a charging Mi-Jeong Jeon yesterday in the final round of the Nitori Ladies for her 2nd win of the season and 10th of her not-even-3-year career on the JLPGA.  Ahn had leaped into the lead on moving day with a bogey-free 63, but Jeon, looking for her 2nd win in a row, birdied the 324-yard par-4 6th and 502-yard par-5 7th to catch her at -9.  This year's money-list leader continued to put pressure on Ahn with 4 birdies over her next 10 holes, but unlike last week, when that kind of charge was enough for her to cruise to her 20th career victory, it wasn't this week, as Ahn kicked it into overdrive, making 5 birdies between the 8th and 14th holes, then cruised home with 4 straight pars for a 2-shot victory.

It was a great week for Rikako Morita, who closed with a 65, Soo-Yun Kang, who tied her for 3rd, and Lala Anai, who opened with a 66 and rounded out the top 5, but the big story coming out of Japan was how Ahn and Jeon have separated themselves from the rest of the JLPGA.  Jeon became the 1st to break the 100M yen barrier with her runner-up finish, but who will have the last laugh?

1. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥100.06M
2. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥79.88M
3. Mayu Hattori ￥58.06M
4. Ritsuko Ryu ￥52.67M
5. Chie Arimura ￥52.08M
6. Miki Saiki ￥51.66M
7. Ji-Hee Lee ￥46.63M
8. Rikako Morita ￥45.64M
9. Bo-Mee Lee ￥44.97M
10. Sakura Yokomine ￥42.56M
11. Shanshan Feng ￥40.48M
12. Soo-Yun Kang ￥35.14M
13. Yumiko Yoshida ￥33.12M
14. Hiromi Mogi ￥31.36M
15. Inbee Park ￥29.62M
16. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥28.63M
17. Mihoko Iseri ￥27.18M
18. Kaori Ohe ￥26.76M
19. Yuri Fudoh ￥26.69M
20. Megumi Kido ￥22.44M
21. Esther Lee ￥22.28M
22. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥21.12M
23. Yuki Ichinose ￥20.75M
24. Shinobu Moromizato ￥20.35M
25. So-Hee Kim ￥18.84M
26. Erina Hara ￥18.68M
27. Ayako Uehara ￥18.55M
28. Airi Saitoh ￥18.35M
29. Miki Sakai ￥17.93M
30. Ji-Yai Shin ￥17.78M
31. Young Kim￥17.77M
32. Yeo-Jin Kang ￥17.50M
33. Akane Iijima ￥17.28M
34. Yukari Baba ￥17.10M
35. Erika Kikuchi ￥16.74M
36. Na-Ri Lee￥16.40M
37. Rui Kitada ￥16.17M
38. Teresa Lu ￥16.01M
39. Bo-Bae Song ￥15.63M
40. Eun-Bi Jang ￥15.54M
41. Harukyo Nomura ￥14.48M
42. Kumiko Kaneda ￥14.13M
43. Na-Ri Kim ￥14.11M
44. Junko Omote￥13.80M
45. Yuko Fukuda ￥12.52M
46. Da-Ye Na ￥10.59M
47. Lala Anai ￥10.26M
48. Shiho Toyonaga ￥9.85M
49. Natsu Nagai ￥9.59M
50. Asako Fujimoto￥9.45M

Next up on the JLPGA is the Golf5 Ladies, where Li-Ying Ye will attempt to defend her title.  It appears that both Mi-Jeong Jeon and Sakura Yokomine will be sitting this one out, but Ahn will be looking to make up serious ground on the money-list leader, Chie Arimura returns to action and will be trying to insert her name into the Player of the Year dialogue, and Shiho Oyama will continue her recovery from injuries that kept her out of action most of the season.

The Best on the LPGA: 1-Time Winners, August 2012 Edition

Since my last ranking at the end of June, the 1-time winners on the LPGA have lost Inbee Park and So Yeon Ryu but gained Mika Miyazato.  Here's my new take on who's most likely to join Park and Ryu in the 2-win club, ranked in the order I expect them to move on (if at all)....

Most Likely to Win (Again) in 2012


1. Mika Miyazato: If the LPGA were handing out medals instead of trophies in the run-up to, playing of, and aftermath of the London Olympics, Mikan would have garnered 1 gold, 2 silvers, and a bronze in her last 7 starts (none of which saw her finish outside the top 10 except for a T16 at the Evian).  She's Exhibit A in how to bounce back from a little early-season slump.  With all due respect to Shanshan Feng, who might well be having the best 2012 of anyone on the planet, I believe that Mikan is the hotter and more consistently contending golfer on the LPGA right now.


2. Shanshan Feng: Her final-round bogey-free 67 on Sunday at Locust Hill to win the Wegmans LPGA Championship was the single most impressive round of the week--and it shows what she's capable of when her putting comes close to keeping up with her ball-striking. She's got good distance and great accuracy even for a Cristie Kerr/Angela Stanford/Brittany Lang-type straight shooter. So it should come as no surprise that she's contended in about half her starts this year, followed up her breakthrough win in Pittsford by almost making the playoff in Waterloo and another T4 in Evian, and is riding a 6-event top-20 streak on the LPGA. Oh, and she's 10th on the JLPGA money list with a 71.06 scoring average and two wins in only 6 starts thus far this year. With her early-season LET victory, she the most worldwide wins of any female golfer!


3. Hee Kyung Seo: She won as a non-member at the 2010 Kia Classic, easily won the 2011 Rookie of the Year race despite her failure to secure her 1st LPGA major at the U.S. Women's Open (where she lost in a playoff to So Yeon Ryu), and has already put herself in contention a number of times this year, including at its 1st major. It looks like she's starting to bounce back from the disappointment of her Sunday back-9 travails at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, getting her accuracy with her approach shots and putting back in Waterloo and having several putts to win in regulation and in the playoff.  Although she broke her 5-event top-25 streak with a missed cut at the Safeway, I still believe she's very close to LPGA win #2.  All she needs to do is improve her approach shots to be a consistent contender on the top women's tour on the planet.


4. Azahara Munoz: Yes, she's had 4 of her worst 5 finishes of the year (3 MC and a T44 at the Safeway) in her last 7 starts, but she bounced back from missing 2 cuts in a row after her breakthrough win at the Sybase with a T2 at the Walmart and her performance stats this year remain very good.  So I believe she's capable of putting it all together any given week and building on her total of 5 top 5s this season.  The key for her is simply making more birdies!


5. Brittany Lang: She's riding a 6-event top-25 streak that includes her breakthrough playoff win at the Manulife, her performance stats are just what you'd expect of a classic straight shooter, and she's starting to figure out how to make more birdies and break 70 more often, plus she's entering a string of LPGA sites that I think suit her game quite well.  So watch out for her as summer turns into fall!

6. Lexi Thompson: She won once on the LPGA and once on the LET at the end of the 2011 season, but hasn't found the magic yet in 2012. She's surprisingly accurate off the tee for a full-fledged bomber (very close already to the kind of "straight-up bomber" moniker that only Annika and Lorena have achieved for any length of time in recent memory) and is also among the tour's best in greens in regulation, so you have to blame a still-unseasoned 100-yards-and-in game for the fact she's averaging only 3.60 birdies per round and taking 1.85 putts per green in regulation, has suffered 2 missed cuts in a row, and has only 2 top 10s all year.  But since both were top 5s (1 a runner-up!), I can't justify putting her any lower on this list.


The Contenders


7. Natalie Gulbis: Recurring back problems since her 2007 Evian Masters playoff victory over Jeong Jang have dropped her back where she was in her 1st 3 seasons on the LPGA--a player who makes her share of cuts but has trouble cracking the top 10. In fact, 24 of her top 10s and all 7 of her top 3s came between 2005 and 2007, when she was a regular on the top 20 of the money list. This season, she's healthy, her performance stats are excellent, and she followed up a couple of early top 10s with a great T4 at Evian, but she's suffered a surprising number of missed cuts (4) and a garnered a surprisingly small number of top 20s (5).  If the right Natalie shows up more often--that is, if she can give herself more birdie chances and convert them more efficiently--the rest of the season, she may surprise a lot of people with win #2.


8. Sandra Gal: She's starting to turn around what's been a pretty mediocre season thus far in 2012, with a 3rd-place finish at the U.S. Women's Open and 7 finishes of  T26 or better in her last 9 starts. Her putter has been the biggest culprit, but she's not hitting as many fairways or greens as the LPGA's elite tend to do.  Taken together, that explains why she's had a good number of respectable finishes this year, but only 1 top 10.  Still, I thought her game was on the rise last ranking and I still think it is this one.


9. Beatriz Recari: As a member of the rising Spanish Armada on the LPGA, she is playing with a lot of precision with every club this year except her putter (1.84 PPGIR, 30.58 putts per round, and 2.80 birdies per round are well below elite standards). Hence her inability to follow up on her season-opening top 10 or her opening 68 at Locust Hill--or even capitalize on the 3 66s she shot in Evian and Toledo.  Still, she got her best finishes of the year in both places (T9) and hasn't missed a cut all season, so it's just a matter of putting it all together for the right 4 rounds in a row for her.

Quantum Leap Candidates


10. Mi Jung Hur: Her struggles since getting her 1st LPGA win as a rookie in 2009 are one big reason I'm not jumping on the Korda bandwagon just yet. This may be a make-or-break year for Hur, who went from so-so to worse last season, but still managed to hang onto full membership for this one. It looks like it's going to be a "make" year, but whether it's "just barely" or whether she can build on her excellent top 10 at the Manulife (which featured 4 rounds in the 60s) depends on whether she can straighten out her driver. She's putting and scrambling so well that if she can do it, she could qualify for the late-season Asian swing and go on a real tear. But if not, she's going to be scratching and clawing to stay in the top 80 on the money list.


11. Jee Young Lee: It looks to me like the once-elite '06er got hurt in fall 2010 but whatever the reason she's been in free fall ever since. She's too good not to pull out of it, in my view, and soon, even from #131 on the 2012 Priority Status List.  Her performance stats this season aren't all that good but aren't horrible, either, and she's gotten 2 of her best 3 finishes of the year in her last 2 starts (T31 at the Farr and T12 at the Safeway to go with a T26 at the RR Donnelley).  I'd love to see Jelly get on a roll from here on out!


12. Nicole Castrale: Her comeback from her 2010 shoulder surgery was derailed last season, so she started this one on another medical exemption, earning enough to move to #116 on the current priority status list. It's looking like everything is pretty much back on-line for her except her putting, and even that seems to be coming around, as you can't go 70-70 over the weekend at Locust Hill without putting very well.  She followed up her T19 at the LPGA's 2nd major with a fantastic T9 at its 3rd, the U.S. Women's Open, so I wonder what she has in store for us at the Women's British Open?


13. Julieta Granada: She picked up 2012 right where she left off in 2011, going from worrying about keeping her LPGA card to fighting for her 2nd LPGA win.  So far she hasn't come close to matching her T2 at the Australian Women's Open or T5 at the Sybase, but she does have 4 other top 25s this season.  Unfortunately, most of them came in the 1st half of the season and she's suffered 5 of her worst 7 finishes of the year in her last 8 starts.  It's going to take improved iron play and putting to get back on the right track for the rest of the season.

14. Jessica Korda: Well, she's reverted to mean after her surprising season-opening playoff win, but if she can get her putter going, her combination of distance and relative accuracy for a bomber off the tee bode well for her future on the LPGA.  Still, with a 1st-round match-play win at the Sybase responsible for her only other finish in the top 35 this season, that promising future may be quite a ways off.

On the Bottom, Looking Up


15. Leta Lindley: Her extreme lack of distance off the tee is putting a lot of pressure on the rest of her game and despite making 7 of 10 cuts thus far this season hasn't yet cracked the top 40.  Time is running out for her to move up from #101 on the money list and secure her card for 2013.


16. Heather Bowie Young: She won at the Farr in 2005 and has collected 26 top 10s since joining the LPGA in 2000. 2011 was her 3rd season in a row without one, however, leading her to seek (and gain) dual LPGA-LET membership at LET Q-School. So far, her experiment in dual membership isn't working out so great: she's #137 on the LET money list with only 4 starts and although her LPGA performance stats are pretty strong (excepting some horrific putting), she's only made 6 cuts in 13 starts and is fighting to stay in the top 100 on the money list.

17. Meaghan Francella: She shocked the golf world with a win over Annika Sorenstam on the 4th playoff hole at the 2007 MasterCard Classic, but Annika's announcement a little later that season that she had been suffering significant back and neck injuries for some time put a little asterisk by that victory. To make matters worse, Francella had to deal with injury issues of her own over the next season and a half, but the '06er bounced back in 2009 by getting her 5th and 6th top 10s on tour, breaking the 73 barrier in scoring average for the 1st time in her career, and returning to the top 50 of both the money list and my Best of the LPGA ranking. She continued her comeback in 2010 with a top 10 at the LPGA Championship and stayed in the top 60 of both the money list and my ranking, despite her approach shots and expecially her putting holding her back. But she fell out of the top 70 last season and will be fighting to keep her card this one from her #102 spot on the Priority Status List. So far this year, she's had serious problems with her putting, but is only 1 good finish away from moving into the top 100 from #110 on the money list.

18. Moira Dunn: Her 2004 win at the Giant Eagle Classic was the high point of an LPGA career that dates back to 1995, but her best season was probably in 2001. My junior golf buddy's been struggling to keep her card each year since the 2006 season, and once again in 2011 she failed to add to her 23 career LPGA top 10s. But whereas she was a regular in the top 80 for most of her career, she dropped all the way down to #105 on the money list last season, so entered this one at #136 on the priority status list (and has since dropped to #139 in the latest reshuffle).  She's hanging around at #113 on the money list, but despite driving the ball well all year, she continues to do very little with it, with only 4 finishes in the money in 9 starts.  She needs to back up that T20 from Alabama--and soon!

19. Silvia Cavalleri: She's only had 10 top 10s in an career that started back in 1999 and in that span has only cracked the top 50 on the money list once--in 2007, when she won the Corona Championship. She had finished outside the top 100 on the money list the previous 3 seasons, and only improved to #96 in 2011. From #121 on the reshuffled Priority Status List, she has as much chance as anyone in this category to escape from Hound Dog's fluke victories list, which may not be saying much. She's only made 1 cut in 2012 and hasn't played on tour since missing the cut at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.  I don't see her name on the LET money list, either, so I have to assume she's injured or on maternity leave or something....

On the Outside, Looking In


20. Shi Hyun Ahn: Like Jee Young Lee, her only LPGA win comes with an asterisk, as she got it as a KLPGA member in 2003, but since then she's played roughly 20 events on the LPGA each year, garnering 27 top 10s in the process, with only 3 of them coming since the end of the 2007 season. Until last year, that is, when she fell off a cliff. It may have been injuries, but maybe it was love. The golfer known as "Cinderella" got married to Argentine-Korean star Mario last November. What that means for her golf career remains to be seen. She's #123 on priority status list, so she should be able to play just about whenever she wants to this season. Which, so far, is not at all....


21. Soo-Yun Kang: Her win at the Safeway Classic in 2005 was part of the best season of her career, where she got 6 top 10s and ended up #14 on the money list. But it was also the last season her stroke average dipped under 72. Of her 17 career top 10s since she started on the LPGA in 2001, only 2 have come after 2005. Now she's playing full-time on the JLPGA, where she finished #38 on the money list last season and is currently #15.


22. Young Kim: She joined the JLPGA in 2010 and ended up ranked 14th on tour; last season, she fell to 34th on their money list; this one, she's down to #40. Whether she'll return to the LPGA remains to be seen, but provided she does, if anyone on this list is going to follow in Jimin Kang's footsteps in breaking the Corning Classic jinx, I would expect her to be the next to do it!

23. Jin Joo Hong: After playing 3 seasons on the KLPGA, she won the jointly-sponsored event with the LPGA and switched tours for the next 3 seasons, ending 2009 ranked #10 among the '06ers. Since then, she's decided to focus on the KLPGA.

24. Joo Mi Kim: She came to the LPGA in 2005 with 3 KLPGA victories under her belt and made a lot of cuts in her rookie season, then followed it up with a playoff win at the SBS Open (over Lorena Ochoa and Soo Young Moon) and 4 top 10s in all the next season, where she ended up 27th on the money list. She stayed in the top 50 for the 3rd-straight season the following year, but saw her starts go down and her scoring average go up over the next 3 seasons. Since the fall of 2010, she's been focusing her efforts on the KLPGA.

25. Eunjung Yi: Her playoff victory over Morgan Pressel at the Farr in 2009 remains her only LPGA top 10 since her LPGA career began in 2008. She won Hound Dog's fluke victory of the year award that year, a dubious distinction. The only way things could be worse for her prospects in 2012 would be if her defeat of Pressel had come in a U.S. Women's Open (see Kim, Birdie, below). She got some starts early in the season on a medical exemption, but missed the cut all 4 times, so with the reshuffle is now #247 on the priority status list.

26. Birdie Kim: I had wanted to put her higher on this list, feeling that she had been coming back from the U.S. Women's Open jinx after her stunning 2005 win from the sand over then-amateurs Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang. But no, she's only made 6 cuts in her last 28 LPGA starts dating back to 2009, hasn't added to her career total of 4 top 10s in that span, and has never broken the 73 barrier in scoring average since she started on the LPGA in 2004. Now she finds herself at #230 on the reshuffled Priority Status List for the 2012 season and fighting for the top 10 on the Symetra Tour money list (she just dropped from #12 to #16 when she followed up her silver with a MC).

OK, So Now How Long Before Augusta Hosts an LPGA Event?

Let me join in the chorus welcoming Augusta National to the 20th century and to the many voices hoping that they'll decide to enter the 21st before it ends by hosting an LPGA event!  I know, baby steps, but a guy can dream, right?

Safeway Classic Sunday: Way to Go, Mikan!

Congratulations to Mika Miyazato on her 1st career LPGA victory at the Safeway Classic!  She played near-flawless golf for 44 holes, but had to gut it out over her last 10 after some hiccups midway through her final round gave new life to those chasing her. 

Her problems started when she missed a 4-foot birdie attempt on the par-5 9th.  Had she made it, she would have gotten to -14 and extended her lead on playing partner So Yeon Ryu to 4 shots (and put together her 3rd-straight 34 on the front!).  As it was, her lead remained 3 over Ryu and Haeji Kang.  No harm, no foul, right?  It certainly seemed so when Mikan put herself in great position to get it right back with a birdie on the par-5 10th.  She had a 25-yard wedge shot from a perfect position in the fairway, but babied the pitch and left it on the fringe 25 feet short of the pin.  From there, she decided to run a wedge, but carried it too far and put it more than 10 feet by the hole.  When she missed her par save and Ryu made her birdie, all of a sudden her lead was just 1.  And it looked like it was going to disappear on the par-3 11th when she pushed her tee shot right toward the water hazard that gives the Ghost Creek course its name.  But it landed right of the creek and got a huge bounce up and left into the rough just shy of the fringe, only 20 feet from the pin.  It looked like that would be the break that turned her round back around, but she actually had a terrible lie and when she babied her chip, it didn't make it past the top of a ridge and rolled back away from the flag, ending up at least 30 feet from the hole.  That's when Mikan made the putt that saved the tournament for her, a fantastic par save that never deviated from the center of the cup, prompting the most excited reaction I've ever seen from her.

Still, even though she put those 3 terrible chips behind her and seemingly righted her ship after the roller-coaster ride of the previous 3 holes, she couldn't do more than hang in there with par after par over the next several holes.  And the sharks continued circling her life boat.  Ryu matched her par for par early on the back, staying within 1 shot of the lead.  Kang got it to -11 when she birdied the par-3 16th.  Cristie Kerr was hanging around at -9 for most of the back 9.  And Brittany Lincicome and Inbee Park were putting it into overdrive as Mikan was stuck in neutral.  But then, amazingly--some might say, impossibly--the sharks blinked.  Kang doubled the drive-able par-4 17th and even a fantastic final-hole birdie left her with a 66 for the day and a -10 total for the week.  Ryu bogeyed the par-5 16th, unable to take advantage of her distance off the tee relative to Mikan.  Kerr, one of the best putters on tour, had trouble getting her putts to drop on the back 9 and had to settle for a -10 total.  Park drove the 17th and had a 10-foot putt for eagle to leap into a tie for the lead, but this fantastic putter, who couldn't miss a thing in the final round of her win at the Evian Masters a few Sundays ago, missed this one and failed to birdie 18.  Yes, she had birdied 5 of her last 11 holes--just as Lincicome before her birdied 5 of her last 12 holes--but both just ran out of real estate and finished at -11.

So when Ryu birdied 16 to join them and give herself a great chance to win her 2nd LPGA tournament in a row, Mikan came to the 17th tee with a slim 1-shot lead on a trio of major winners.  All she did was hit a perfect hybrid right into the neck of the fairway, just to the left of the green.  And all she had to do was hit a great little wedge--exactly the kind of shot that had given her so much trouble on the 10th and 11th holes.  But this time, she put it close and she made the putt for birdie to get back to -13.  When Ryu couldn't match it, Mikan had extended her lead to 2 shots, right where it had been at the start of the day.  And when Mikan split the fairway and Ryu pushed her drive into the water hazard to the right, all she had to do was keep her approach shot away from the pond guarding the front-right side of the 18th green.  Fittingly, she faced yet another tricky chip from the rough when she hit such a solid shot that it ran through the back left fringe.  After a long wait (Ryu had hit her 3rd shot into the back-left gallery and did well to save a bogey with a great chip-in after powering her previous pitch nearly into the pond!), Mikan chipped it to within a foot and tapped in for the win.

And what a great win it was.  Mikan not only had to go from cruising--a 40-hole bogey-free run from the 7th hole Friday to the 9th hole Sunday during which she made 11 birdies--to grinding, but she also had to bounce back from some heart-stoppingly bad pitches and chips in the midst of final-9 pressure with the tournament on the line.  She missed more greens in her final 10 holes than she had in her 1st 2 rounds, but managed to limit the damage to only 1 bogey (her 2nd of the tournament).  She definitely earned the win on a day when players much more accustomed to the LPGA winner's circle just couldn't put enough pressure on her.

There were certainly a lot of other great stories this week.  It was great to see Brittany Lincicome, Ya Ni Tseng, Michelle Wie, and Jee Young Lee playing good golf again (the bombers strike back!), exciting to see Sydnee Michaels and Haeji Kang experience being near the top of the leaderboard on the weekend, difficult to watch Cristie Kerr and Paula Creamer struggle with the burden of being winless since 2010 while trying to get into the hunt this week, great to see Kang, Michaels, and Lizette Salas get the best finishes of their careers, and nice to see Ai Miyazato close with a 67 to sneak into the top 20.  Stacy Lewis was flat this week, but she held onto the top spot on the money list.  Still, with 6 golfers already across the $1M barrier, Azahara Munoz poised to cross it, and Mikan and Ryu not far behind her, Lewis's lead is a slim one.  About half a stroke separates the 1st (Ai Miyazato) from the 10th (Ya Ni Tseng) player in the race for the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average.  Lewis's lead of 21 points over Ya Ni Tseng in the Player of the Year race is ample in comparison.

But the big story is that Mika Miyazato has put herself smack into the middle of all these races with her win yesterday.  She's 8th on the money list, 9th in scoring average, and 6th on the POY ranking.  Now the burden of being the best golfer on the LPGA without a win on tour falls squarely on the strong shoulders of Amy Yang.  Big hitters tend to win the CN Canadian Women's Open--maybe it'll be her turn next week?