Here's why you should always be checking out the local media for an LPGA event and skipping the AP stories. Tommy Hicks found out the southern swing will be moving to early October 2009, if all goes as planned. He also teamed up with Mike Herndon for some great tournament notes, including an Anna Rawson wardrobe malfunction and how happy Bell Micro is with the event.
[Update 1 (4:14 pm): Hound Dog lists all 16 events known to be on the schedule thus far.]
Monday, September 15, 2008
Ai Miyazato Schedule Update
I know for sure Ai Miyazato is committed to the Japan Women's Open, which is being played opposite the LPGA's Samsung Championship. Which makes me wonder if she'll be hanging with Momoko Ueda between now and then, playing in the 2 tune-up events before the JWO. And how she'll set her schedule for the rest of October. Looking over the rest of the JLPGA schedule, it strikes me that there are a heck of a lot of yen on the table in October and November. Of course, there's a lot at stake in the ADT Championship, as well, and Ai-chan's about to be on the bubble for it after next week's event's results knock her out of the top 10 of the second-half money list. Conceivably, she could wait for the LPGA to come to Asia before leaving the JLPGA, but that sure puts a lot of pressure on her to qualify for the ADT in a limited amount of time.
Momoko Ueda Schedule Update
Looks like Momoko Ueda is committing to the JLPGA for the rest of September and into October. She's listed in both this week's Munsingwear Ladies Tokai Classic and next week's Miyagi TV Cup Dunlop Ladies Classic, the tune-up events heading into the JLPGA's 3rd major of the season, the Japan Women's Open. Which raises the question of when she'll return to the LPGA. Will she fly all the way back to California for the final playing of the Longs Drugs Challenge (at least under that name), to Hawaii for the Kapalua LPGA Classic, or to Hainan Island for the Grand China Air LPGA event? It's highly unlikely she'll drop out of the top 51 on the LPGA money list by skipping the last leg of the LPGA's southern swing next week....
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Bell Micro Sunday: Way to Go, Angela!
No time now for a post on the final round of the Bell Micro LPGA Classic, so I'll send you over to Hound Dog for a great play-by-play of just how close this ended up being. Congratulations to Angela Stanford for holding it together just well enough to hold off Shanshan Feng, Kim Hall, and Katherine Hull.
[Update 1 (9/15/08, 3:48 am): And, for that matter, congratulations to Feng, Hall, Hull, Hee Young Park, Danielle Downey, Mollie Fankhauser, and Irene Cho for their great finishes. Nice job by LPGA.com spreading the love. Feng is now in the thick of the race for the top 50 and she and Park are in great position to qualify for the ADT Championship. Hull is definitely one of the hottest players on tour, despite her disapppointing Sunday. Hall's 3rd-place finish gives the Stanford Junior Mint that one good finish she needed to secure her card yet again (for the second straight year). Downey is now is Moira Dunn territory on the top 80 bubble, which means I now have 2 NYers to agonize over this fall (Cho got off it with her top 20 this week). And Fankhauser joins Michelle Ellis in getting new life on the race for the top 100, at least (although the weekend was not kind to Ellis, who lost ground to Reilley Rankin).
Didn't see the kinds of moves I was hoping for from Seon Hwa Lee, Angela Park, Paula Creamer, Jeong Jang, or Stacy Lewis today. With Song-Hee Kim's and Sun Young Yoo's coming too little, too late, I came in last in this week's Pakpicker! Bad weekend and all, it was Cristie Kerr who saved me from getting shut out. Ouch. Better luck in 2 weeks, eh?]
[Update 2 (10:14 am): Hound Dog's epilogue puts the peak performances this week in perspective.]
[Update 1 (9/15/08, 3:48 am): And, for that matter, congratulations to Feng, Hall, Hull, Hee Young Park, Danielle Downey, Mollie Fankhauser, and Irene Cho for their great finishes. Nice job by LPGA.com spreading the love. Feng is now in the thick of the race for the top 50 and she and Park are in great position to qualify for the ADT Championship. Hull is definitely one of the hottest players on tour, despite her disapppointing Sunday. Hall's 3rd-place finish gives the Stanford Junior Mint that one good finish she needed to secure her card yet again (for the second straight year). Downey is now is Moira Dunn territory on the top 80 bubble, which means I now have 2 NYers to agonize over this fall (Cho got off it with her top 20 this week). And Fankhauser joins Michelle Ellis in getting new life on the race for the top 100, at least (although the weekend was not kind to Ellis, who lost ground to Reilley Rankin).
Didn't see the kinds of moves I was hoping for from Seon Hwa Lee, Angela Park, Paula Creamer, Jeong Jang, or Stacy Lewis today. With Song-Hee Kim's and Sun Young Yoo's coming too little, too late, I came in last in this week's Pakpicker! Bad weekend and all, it was Cristie Kerr who saved me from getting shut out. Ouch. Better luck in 2 weeks, eh?]
[Update 2 (10:14 am): Hound Dog's epilogue puts the peak performances this week in perspective.]
Konica Minolta Cup Sunday: Hyun-Ju Shin Holds On
With Typhoon Sinlaku affecting most of the east Asian coastline and islands, playing conditions must have been incredibly difficult in the final round of the Konica Minolta Cup, but--incredibly--they finished all 72 holes in the JLPGA's 2nd major of the year. And the winner is...Hyun-Ju Shin. It's her 2nd win of the season, 4th of her career, and her 1st major.
She made it interesting for everyone, however, with bogeys on 3rd and 4th holes to fall back to -8 and a tie with Ji-Yai Shin, who had begun the day with birdies on the 1st and 2nd. But then the Women's British Open champion started making bogeys of her own--on the 6th, 8th, and 9th--to fall 3 back. With Sakura Yokomine bogeying the 3rd and doubling the par-5 9th to drop all the way back to -2, the tournament was Shin's to lose. On the back, however, Ji-Yai Shin made par after par to remain at -5 and Yokomine made back-to-back birdies on the 14th and 15th to get back to -4. Meanwhile, Hyun-Ju Shin made bogeys of her own on the 10th...and 13th...and 15th to fall back to -5. The threesome stayed this way until the 18th, when Ji-Yai Shin blinked first, bogeying the tough par 4, while Hyun-Ju Shin matched Yokomine's par.
The Saturday Kyodo News story reports that Ji-Yai Shin finds this course tugheer than the U.S. Women's Open and that she plans to play on the LPGA regularly, but I haven't found a Sunday game story just yet. I'll post that when I do.
In the meantime, here are the top 10 and notables:
1st/-5 Hyun-Ju Shin (67-71-68-77)
T2/-4 Sakura Yokomine (73-71-67-73), Ji-Yai Shin (72-70-68-74)
T4/+1 Esther Lee (70-71-76-71), Momoko Ueda (68-78-69-74)
6th/+2 Maiko Wakabayashi (73-75-72-70)
T7/+3 Miho Koga (73-75-72-71), Mi-Jeong Jeon (74-75-70-72), Ai Miyazato (74-73-71-73), Midori Yoneyama (72-74-72-73), Ji-Woo Lee (73-72-71-75)
T12/+4 Kaori Higo (74-76-71-71), Mayu Hattori (75-73-70-74)
T15/+5 Ayako Uehara (77-70-73-73), Akane Iijima (75-72-72-74), Erina Hara (69-73-75-76)
19th/+7 Nikki Campbell (73-72-76-74)
T20/+8 Rui Kitada (73-73-78-72), Hiromi Mogi (71-75-77-73), Hiroko Yamaguchi (70-74-76-76), Yuko Mitsuka (72-73-71-80)
T25/+9 Tamie Durdin (73-73-75-76),
T30/+10 Yun-Jye Wei (74-77-76-71)
T34/+11 Yuri Fudoh (76-75-76-72), Bo-Bae Song (77-72-77-73), Akiko Fukushima (78-74-73-74), Chie Arimura (72-76-74-77)
T56/+16 Ritsuko Ryu (78-71-75-80)
A few notable details about other rounds than the final threesome's: Mitsuka eagled the 1st to get to -2 for the tournament, but took an 11 on the par-4 8th hole; Arimura also made an eagle on the way to her 77; Jeon made 4 birdies in a row on the back but sandwiched them between an earlier double and bogey and a final-hole bogey; Lee and Ueda made a late bogey and a late double, respectively, to fall back over par; Wakabayashi and Yuko Saitoh's 70s were the low rounds of the day.
With the money list leader mired in the middle of the pack, the race for the top spot is tightening:
1. Akiko Fukushima ￥82.05M
2. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥71.94M
3. Miho Koga ￥70.96M
4. Ji-Hee Lee ￥69.16M
5. Sakura Yokomine ￥64.78M
6. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥64.20M
7. Erina Hara ￥56.10M
8. Ayako Uehara ￥50.80M
9. Yuko Mitsuka ￥49.72M
10. Eun-A Lim ￥46.18M
11. Shinobu Moromizato ￥42.04M
12. Bo-Bae Song ￥41.97M
13. Shiho Oyama ￥41.85M
14. Chie Arimura ￥40.00M
15. Hiromi Mogi ￥39.41M
16. Yukari Baba ￥39.28M
17. Akane Iijima ￥39.27M
18. Yuri Fudoh ￥39.23M
19. Hiroko Yamaguchi ￥35.47M
20. Miki Saiki ￥34.14M
21. Ji-Woo Lee ￥33.71M
22. Esther Lee ￥29.77M
23. Rui Kitada ￥29.33M
24. Midori Yoneyama ￥29.10M
25. Saiki Fujita ￥26.14M
26. Momoko Ueda ￥24.67M
27. Ji-Yai Shin ￥24.18M
28. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥23.16M
29. Mayu Hattori ￥21.85M
30. Mie Nakata ￥19.29M
Check out the bunching between #2 and #4 and between #11 and #18. Wonder how long Ai-chan (debuting at #94) and Momo-chan will decide to stay in Japan?
She made it interesting for everyone, however, with bogeys on 3rd and 4th holes to fall back to -8 and a tie with Ji-Yai Shin, who had begun the day with birdies on the 1st and 2nd. But then the Women's British Open champion started making bogeys of her own--on the 6th, 8th, and 9th--to fall 3 back. With Sakura Yokomine bogeying the 3rd and doubling the par-5 9th to drop all the way back to -2, the tournament was Shin's to lose. On the back, however, Ji-Yai Shin made par after par to remain at -5 and Yokomine made back-to-back birdies on the 14th and 15th to get back to -4. Meanwhile, Hyun-Ju Shin made bogeys of her own on the 10th...and 13th...and 15th to fall back to -5. The threesome stayed this way until the 18th, when Ji-Yai Shin blinked first, bogeying the tough par 4, while Hyun-Ju Shin matched Yokomine's par.
The Saturday Kyodo News story reports that Ji-Yai Shin finds this course tugheer than the U.S. Women's Open and that she plans to play on the LPGA regularly, but I haven't found a Sunday game story just yet. I'll post that when I do.
In the meantime, here are the top 10 and notables:
1st/-5 Hyun-Ju Shin (67-71-68-77)
T2/-4 Sakura Yokomine (73-71-67-73), Ji-Yai Shin (72-70-68-74)
T4/+1 Esther Lee (70-71-76-71), Momoko Ueda (68-78-69-74)
6th/+2 Maiko Wakabayashi (73-75-72-70)
T7/+3 Miho Koga (73-75-72-71), Mi-Jeong Jeon (74-75-70-72), Ai Miyazato (74-73-71-73), Midori Yoneyama (72-74-72-73), Ji-Woo Lee (73-72-71-75)
T12/+4 Kaori Higo (74-76-71-71), Mayu Hattori (75-73-70-74)
T15/+5 Ayako Uehara (77-70-73-73), Akane Iijima (75-72-72-74), Erina Hara (69-73-75-76)
19th/+7 Nikki Campbell (73-72-76-74)
T20/+8 Rui Kitada (73-73-78-72), Hiromi Mogi (71-75-77-73), Hiroko Yamaguchi (70-74-76-76), Yuko Mitsuka (72-73-71-80)
T25/+9 Tamie Durdin (73-73-75-76),
T30/+10 Yun-Jye Wei (74-77-76-71)
T34/+11 Yuri Fudoh (76-75-76-72), Bo-Bae Song (77-72-77-73), Akiko Fukushima (78-74-73-74), Chie Arimura (72-76-74-77)
T56/+16 Ritsuko Ryu (78-71-75-80)
A few notable details about other rounds than the final threesome's: Mitsuka eagled the 1st to get to -2 for the tournament, but took an 11 on the par-4 8th hole; Arimura also made an eagle on the way to her 77; Jeon made 4 birdies in a row on the back but sandwiched them between an earlier double and bogey and a final-hole bogey; Lee and Ueda made a late bogey and a late double, respectively, to fall back over par; Wakabayashi and Yuko Saitoh's 70s were the low rounds of the day.
With the money list leader mired in the middle of the pack, the race for the top spot is tightening:
1. Akiko Fukushima ￥82.05M
2. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥71.94M
3. Miho Koga ￥70.96M
4. Ji-Hee Lee ￥69.16M
5. Sakura Yokomine ￥64.78M
6. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥64.20M
7. Erina Hara ￥56.10M
8. Ayako Uehara ￥50.80M
9. Yuko Mitsuka ￥49.72M
10. Eun-A Lim ￥46.18M
11. Shinobu Moromizato ￥42.04M
12. Bo-Bae Song ￥41.97M
13. Shiho Oyama ￥41.85M
14. Chie Arimura ￥40.00M
15. Hiromi Mogi ￥39.41M
16. Yukari Baba ￥39.28M
17. Akane Iijima ￥39.27M
18. Yuri Fudoh ￥39.23M
19. Hiroko Yamaguchi ￥35.47M
20. Miki Saiki ￥34.14M
21. Ji-Woo Lee ￥33.71M
22. Esther Lee ￥29.77M
23. Rui Kitada ￥29.33M
24. Midori Yoneyama ￥29.10M
25. Saiki Fujita ￥26.14M
26. Momoko Ueda ￥24.67M
27. Ji-Yai Shin ￥24.18M
28. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥23.16M
29. Mayu Hattori ￥21.85M
30. Mie Nakata ￥19.29M
Check out the bunching between #2 and #4 and between #11 and #18. Wonder how long Ai-chan (debuting at #94) and Momo-chan will decide to stay in Japan?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)