Ginn Open Pairings

The pairings for the Ginn Open are an embarrassment of riches! Where to start? Let's look at the two sets of prime-time pairings first.

Off #1 in the late morning:

Start Time: 8:32 AM
Stacy Prammanasudh
Carin Koch
Mi Hyun Kim

Start Time: 8:43 AM
Cristie Kerr
Laura Davies
Brittany Lang

Start Time: 8:54 AM
Jee Young Lee
Juli Inkster
Louise Friberg

Start Time: 9:05 AM
Annika Sorenstam
Laura Diaz
Morgan Pressel

Start Time: 9:16 AM
Brittany Lincicome
Meg Mallon
Suzann Pettersen

Just a great mix of generations and nationalities and styles of play here, with many players in these groups on the comeback trail from rocky starts to the season. Kim and Kerr get to keep an eye on each other as they race to the $8M mark in career winnings; Sorenstam and Pressel get to reply their Solheim Cup singles match; just as playing with Annika might help Morgan pick her game up, perhaps playing with Pettersen will help defending champion Lincicome snapout of her half-year funk.

How about those going off #10 in the early afternoon?

Start Time: 12:10 PM
Sophie Gustafson
Seon Hwa Lee
Se Ri Pak

Start Time: 12:21 PM
Angela Park
Pat Hurst
Wendy Ward

Start Time: 12:32 PM
Yani Tseng
Karrie Webb
Angela Stanford

Start Time: 12:43 PM
Natalie Gulbis
Jane Park
Christina Kim

Start Time: 12:54 PM
Lorena Ochoa
Paula Creamer
Nicole Castrale

Lee and Pak playing together? Heavenly! (Only way it could have been improved would be to switch Gustafson and Park--I would have loved to see the two most recent rookies of the year paired with the most recent Hall of Famer, especially as all 3 have struggled by their standards in 2008.) Putting Tseng with Webb and Stanford is a great honor and a great experience for the rookie. Pairing Gulbis with two of the great personalities and raw talents on tour should be a lot of fun for all 3. And then allowing Creamer to face off with Ochoa from the start is a great idea--although unfortunately for her this is not a course on which she has a great track record--not to mention a great experience for Castrale to be a part of.

Plus, there are other great pairings starting on the back Thursday, such as Hee Young Park/Na Yeon Choi (going off unaccountably early at 8:32 am), Hee-Won Han/Lorie Kane (8:43 am), Grace Park/Ji Young Oh (8:54 am), Inbee Park/Meena Lee (9:05 am), and Karen Stupples/Lindsey Wright (9:16 am) in the morning, and Candie Kung/Teresa Lu (1:16 pm) and Sarah Lee/Birdie Kim (1:38 pm) in the afternoon. Off the front, standout pairings include Young Kim/Eun-Hee Ji (12:10 pm) and Jeong Jang/Catriona Matthew (12:32 pm).

Unfortunately, I think Ai Miyazato (off #1 bright and early at 7:26 am) and Momoko Ueda (off the back late at 1:49 pm) have earned their not-ready-for-prime-time pairings; fortunately, they may benefit from playing one round each in the relative calm of early morning. Just once, I'd like to see an all-NY pairing of Diaz or Moira Dunn (#10, 7:37 am) with Meaghan Francella (#1, 12:54 pm) and Danielle Downey (#10, 7:59 am)--preferably as a result of the last three playing up to Laura's level!

I'm really curious to see how the top 10 from the weak field of the Corona Championship fare in this excellent and largely well-rested field. Not to mention how much ground the rest--and practice--will have helped them gain on Ochoa. I'll probably regret my decision to leave Wright and Stupples off my Pakpickers list and keep some of the Young Guns from last week. But I doubt I'll regret picking Ochoa for the win and Sorenstam for the runner-up.

Ginn Open Preview/Predictions

The Ginn Open is coming and we're back to power-packed fields on the LPGA again. And we're also approaching some key anniversaries--Annika Sorenstam's withdrawal from this tournament and announcement of her serious neck and back injuries; this tournament's absolutely insane Sunday finish; Lorena Ochoa's gaining the top spot in the Rolex Rankings for the first time--not least of them the beginning of my serious LPGA blogging. (As with everything to do with Blogoramaville and my residence therein, Michael Berube is to blame. It's a long story that I won't go into here, but feel free to check the links and piece it together for yourself.)

If you're playing the Pakpicker this week, you should definitely check out the course map and results from 2006 and 2007 (although you might want to ignore the wind-blown final round last year). With so many top players taking a week off before the Ginn, it'll be interesting to see who comes back to competition rested and sharp and who needs a couple of rounds of get back into tournament golf. As a result, though, I have very little confidence in these picks, especially because the LPGA stats pages went haywire Monday. You may see some updates/revisions in the next couple of days, but for now, this is my story and I'm sticking to it!

1. Ochoa
2. Sorenstam
3. Lee Jee Young
4. Hjorth
5. Tseng Ya Ni
6. Pettersen
7. Lee Seon Hwa
8. Choi Na Yeon
9. Park Inbee
10. Kim Mi Hyun
11. Pak Se Ri
12. Han Hee-Won

Alts: Gulbis, Koch, Miyazato

[Update: Here's Hound Dog's preview!]

Meanwhile, on the JLPGA and KLPGA....

KLPGA legend Ji-Yai Shin struggled even more than Tiger did this week, opening the door for a 17-year-old rookie, So-Yeon Ryu, to run away with a win in her first start on tour at the Sports Seoul-KYJ Golf Ladies Open. For more, check out the Seoul Sisters discussion forum on the tournament, including Eric's comments on the significance of the two top Korean amateurs in 2007 finishing first and second as pros in the first event of the season.

Meanwhile, Hyun-Ju Shin held off Miho Koga for her first win of the season at the Studio Alice Ladies Open, after a couple of near-misses in Australia and Japan earlier this season. Here's the top 10:

1st Hyun-Ju Shin 68-71-71 -6
2nd Miho Koga 72-68-71 -5
T3 Ji-Hee Lee 72-73-68, Yuko Saitoh 71-73-69 -3
5th Saiki Fujita 72-72-70 -2
6th Yun-Joo Jeong 72-71-72 -1
T7 So-Hee Kim 73-73-70, Shinobu Moromizato 71-75-70, Eun A Lim 71-74-71, Mi-Jeong Jeon 72-71-73 E

With 2008's leading money winner Hiroko Yamaguchi struggling to a T21 finish, #2 Bo-Bae Song getting DQed in Korea, and most of the top-ranked JLPGA players skipping this event, Shin moves up to 3rd and Koga to 5th on the 2008 money list, sandwiching Sakura Yokomine. Rounding out the top 10 are Yuri Fudoh, Ji-Hee Lee, Yun-Jye Wei, Miki Saiki, and Ayako Uehara.

Corona Championship Sunday: Ochoa Qualifies for the Hall of Fame in Style

Hound Dog and Ryan Ballengee have already hit the high points of Lorena Ochoa's 4th consecutive sub-70 round to clinch the Corona Championship, so I guess it's up to me to emphasize that even this win wasn't as easy as her 11-shot margin of victory over Song-Hee Kim makes it seem. Standing on the 12th tee, Ochoa (-21) was facing a massive charge by Inbee Park (-17), who had made up 6 shots in the previous 4 holes, thanks to Park birdies on the 8th through 11th and an Ochoa triple-bogey on the 11th. Park hasn't been within 4 shots of Ochoa since the 14th hole on Saturday and momentum seemed to be on her side. But Ochoa proceeded to birdie 4 of her final 6 holes, the last one on the 18th hole to get her 69 and bring her to -25. And Park made 2 bogeys and a double-bogey 7 on the 18th to match her 8 the day before. What Park needed was a Sunday even better than Carin Koch and Kristy McPherson's 66's; what she got was a T3 in the tournament and a second in her class. What Ochoa got is an invitation to the Hall of Fame once she's completed 10 years on the LPGA in 2012.

With the win, Ochoa also becomes the fastest player in LPGA history to reach the $1M mark in season earnings, topping (who else?) Annika Sorenstam, who had done it in 6 events to Ochoa's 5. On the down side, she didn't get the LPGA 72-hole scoring record she said in her post-round interview that she was aiming for. Here's the ESPN Deportes story (en espanol) and video:



Congratulations, Lorena!

[Update: As always, Hound Dog's epilogue hits all the right notes.]

[Update (4/16/08): Hound Dog asks what Lorena's slam should be called if she wins the next two majors in mid-summer. And Daniel Wexler discusses the odds of Ochoa getting the Grand Slam.]

Tokyo from Memory

Stephen Wiltshire is an autistic artist who loves to draw panoramic views of cities. In this video he draws a panorama of Tokyo from memory; drawing starts at about 3 minutes in.