It was her second win of 2009. From ChannelnewsAsia-
South Korea’s Choi Na-Yeon fired a final round 67 to win the USLPGA Hana Bank Kolon Championship on Sunday by a stroke from Taiwan’s Yani Tseng and Sweden’s Maria Hjorth.
Choi, runner-up to Tseng as Rookie of the Year in 2008, closed it out to take the 255,000 US dollars winners’ cheque, sinking five birdies for her first win on the LPGA Tour since joining.
Fellow Korean Ran HongThe was four shots back in third while Kim Song-Hee was fourth and Shin Jiyai fifth.
Tseng and Choi finished respectively 1-2 in the 2008 LPGA Rookie of the Year race. Tseng won twice on tour before Choi got her first victory. Which was the Samsung Championship in September. Now Choi and Tseng are even victory wise.
Choi’s win was the tenth by a South Korean golfer this year on the LPGA.
The article doesn’t mention Choi having to birdie 18 to win by one shot. Tseng also birdied 18 but Hjorth could only make a par 5 on the finishing hole.
With her fifth place finish, Ji Yai Shin solidified her lead for both Player of the Year and leading money winner for 2009. She holds a 10 point lead in the first and an almost $200,000 lead in the later. Shin is the defending champion of next week’s LPGA Mizuno Classic.
Sorry for the hurried post. I have plans for today that will keep away from the computer almost all day.
The Constructivist is also blogging about Na Yeon Choi’s victory.
The search for Carolyn Bivens replacement took barely three months. From AP-
The LPGA Tour has picked Michael Whan to be its new commissioner, turning to a former marketing executive in golf and hockey equipment to rebuild the tour’s relationships with sponsors.
Whan previously worked for TaylorMade and Wilson golf companies and most recently was president of Mission-Itech Hockey.
“I was that crazy high school kid cutting greens at 5:30 in the morning so he could play free golf in the afternoon and caddying on Sundays,” Whan said Wednesday, during an introductory news conference at Madison Square Garden.
He was selected following a three-month search to replace Carolyn Bivens, whom the players forced out in July as the LPGA Tour kept losing sponsors.
Whan will start in his new job next January. In the meantime, acting Commissioner Marta Evans will continue to run the LPGA.
Sal Johnson at Golf Observer notes how the LPGA’s PR department dropped the ball on the announcement of their new Commissioner and maybe attributing this to their recent letting go of VP Connie Wilson. Sal, whose views I have come into disagreement with in the past, may be right. Connie did a mostly thankless job at LPGA HQ for a long time. I had some interaction with her on the phone and via email, and for the most part it was good. She would always answer my inquiries promptly. If Connie was still around in Daytona, the announcement about Whan would most likely have been handled better.
That said, I’m going to cut the LPGA and its new Commissioner some slack at this time. The Bivens era was a disaster, and I was very critical almost from the beginning. Ladies professional golf right now is facing its worst ever crisis. I want the LPGA to succeed and prosper. Whan has a very difficult road ahead of him to accomplish that. At this point I don’t know if he’ll be successful, but I do wish him good luck.
Also blogging on the hiring of Michael Whan- Ryan at Waggleroom and Stephanie Wei.
It is her 3rd win in 2009. From AP-
Lorena Ochoa successfully defended her Navistar LPGA Classic title, overcoming early troubles to shoot a 2-under 70 on Sunday for a four-stroke victory over Michelle Wie and Brittany Lang.
Ochoa finished at 18-under 270 on The Senator course at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail’s Capitol Hill complex to snap an 11-start winless streak dating to the Corona Championship in late April. The top-ranked Mexican star has three victories this year and 27 overall on the LPGA Tour.
Ochoa wiped out her three-stroke lead coming into the day with a bogey and double bogey in the first five holes. She erased any drama with a birdie on No. 17.
Wie overcame a gimpy left ankle to close with a 66, while Lang had a 70.
After winning 8 times in 2008, most members of the golf media have labeled Ochoa as being in a slump this year. True she didn’t win for 11 tournaments this year, but has anyone looked how competitive the LPGA is right now? There hasn’t been this wide open a money and player of the year race in a decade at least. Ochoa is unlikely to win the former but still has a shot at the later. Why is it bad for ladies professional golf when you have exciting races rather than one player dominating?
Michelle Wie finished in a tie for 2nd. She probably won’t get a victory in 2009 but I’ll be surprised if she don’t get her first professional triumph in 2010.
The World Championship had been sponsored by the Korean conglomerate for 15 years. From The Golf Channel-
Amid a rash of positive sponsorship news on the LPGA front, GolfChannel.com learned via a memo from acting commissioner Marty Evans that the circuit will lose Samsung as the title sponsor of its World Championship held last month at Torrey Pines.
According to the memo the tour was “surprised” to learn of Samsung’s intentions early Oct. 2 because, “all indications during tournament week were to the contrary.”
IMG Golf, which owns the event, is optimistic they will find a replacement sponsor before next year’s event, which was won this year by Na Yeon Choi.
“Samsung was a terrific title sponsor of this event for 15 years, which is an incredible run,” Jon Wagner, the senior vice president of IMG Golf, told the Sports Business Journal. “This tournament is one of the gems of the LPGA Tour schedule and we will begin actively talking to new potential title sponsors as the World Championship heads into its 30th year of play.”
Holes continue to appear in the LPGA schedule almost as quickly as acting Commissioner Marta Evans gets one plugged. Her successor has their work cut out for them.
Note- State Farm did renew its LPGA tournament sponsorship this week.
The 21-year-old South Korean finished one shot ahead of Japan’s Ai Miyazato. It was Choi’s first ever win on the LPGA Tour.
Before today, Choi was best known for her steady but winless play since beginning play on the LPGA in 2008. Choi’s best ever finish was a playoff loss to Helen Alfredsson at the 2008 Evian Masters. She was also runner-up to Yani Tseng in last year’s Rookie of the Year race.
Before Samsung, Choi had won over $700,000 in 2009. She had two third place finishes early in the year and eight top-10 finishes. Also Choi has never missed a cut in over 45 LPGA events in 2008 and 2009.
Choi began Sunday with a two-shot lead over Jiyai Shin. Shin who had a four-shot lead herself at one point on Saturday, continued to struggle today and finished in solo third place.
After six holes, Choi looked headed to a easy win. She had built her lead to seven shots. By the time Choi teed off 15, she stood one shot behind Miyazato. A 8-shot swing taking place over a period of eight holes. The opportunity to get her first win appeared to have gotten Choi out of sync. She would admit in press interviews after the tournaments she would admit to becoming mentally weak during the round.
Miyazato remained ahead by one till the 18th hole. This year’s Samsung Championship was played at the famed Torrey Pines golf course. The same place Tiger Woods won the dramatic 2008 U.S. Open in a playoff against Rocco Mediate. Torrey Pines 18th hole is a drivable par-5. Woods had to make birdie on 18 to both tie Mediate at the end of regulation play and to during the playoff to keep his championship hopes alive.
While 18 provides a chance for a closing birdie, it doesn’t come without risk. A large pond fronts the final green. Miyazato decided to go for the green in two but found the water instead. She finished with a closing bogey and suddenly Choi again had a piece of the lead.
Choi hit a perfect drive on 18. She too went for the green, using a fairway wood for the approach shot. While her 2nd shot caused Choi to grimace, the result was far from bad. Her approach finished short right but not in the water. Choi hit her chip shot to five feet and drained the putt for her first ever LPGA win.
The win was worth $250,000 to Choi and moved her to ninth on the money list for 2009. Choi’s win today was a breakthrough for this golfer. Much like wins for Eun-Hee Ji and In-Kyung Kim in 2008 were. Ji and Kim built on those victories and solid play overall to have even more successful 2009 campaigns. Ji won the U.S. Open, and Kim has been in the mix of golfers for both Player of the year and leading money winner for 2009. I think Choi could do similarly in 2010.
Jiyai Shin is still at the top of the lists for money and Player of the Year. She however has one very serious challenger closing on her. It is Ai Miyazato. Going back to last July’s U.S. Open where she finished 6th, it is impossible to find a LPGA golfer who has played better than Miyazato. In her last 6 tournaments, she has a win, two seconds, a third, a fourth, and her worst finish a 10th. If anyone is to stop Shin, I’m betting it is Miyazato. At this point, I’m not predicting either Shin or Miyazato or anyone else to be the LPGA’s top player in 2009. All I’ll do is sit back and continue to watch the great displays of golf these two ladies keep putting on every week. With all due respect to Tiger Woods, it may be the best show in golf at this time.
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OTB Sports linked with Na Yeon Choi wins the Hana Bank Colon Championship...
She won the P&G Beauty NW Arkansas Championship in a 3-way playoff. On the second hole of sudden death, Shin rolled in a birdie putt to defeat Angela Stanford and Sun Young Yoo.
Going into today, Shin was 7 shots behind the leader Song Hee Kim. Kim had over 700,000 in earnings for the year but had yet to crack the winner’s circle. Kim was never able to gain momentum today and missed a birdie putt on 18 that would have enabled her to join the playoff. Instead Kim finished tied for 4th.
Korean-American golfer Jane Park made an early Sunday. She pulled into a tie for the lead at the 5th hole. After that, Park played the next 12 holes in 8 over par and finished tied for 21st.
Shi-Hyun ‘Cinderella’ Ahn had her best finish of the 2009. Unable to birdie 18, she finished tied for 4th with Song Hee Kim. South Koreans were all over the leaderboard. They accounted for 8 of the top 13 finishers in the tournament.
The golf was on at 1 p.m. Florida time but I didn’t begin watching till almost the end of regulation play. Instead I had the Miami Dolphin game on. The less said about Atlanta’s 19-7 win over the fins, the better.
Shin shot a final round 64 to post a score of nine under par. Then Shin had to wait over two hours to see if anyone caught or beat her.
Stanford eagled the 18th hole to catch Shin and Yoo made a birdie at the closing hole.
The playoff started at the par 5 18th. Shin and Stanford came up short in their efforts to drive the green in two. Yoo hit the green but her ball came in hot and ended up in a back bunker. All three golfers hit their 3rd shots to within 5 feet of the hole and each made their birdie putts.
Next came the 15th hole, a par-3 with water in front. Yoo, named course clown by the South Korean players on tour, came dangerously close to the water but ended up on dry land short of the green. Stanford and Shin hit the green and ended up 30 and 12 feet away respectively. Yoo was the first to play and put her 2nd shot about two feet from the hole. Stanford’s birdie putt narrowly missed. Shin rolled her putt in for the victory.
As Shin was being interviewed for Golf Channel, she received the customary dousing in champagne that LPGA tournament winners get these days. Except it was not done by any of the South Korean players but Brittany Lincicome and Morgan Pressel instead.
With her 3rd win, Shin has the most of any golfer on the LPGA Tour in 2009, Shin has climbed to the top of the money list. She leads Cristie Kerr by a little over $100,000. Shin also has the most points for LPGA Player of the Year. No South Korean, not even Se Ri Pak, has ever won player of the year or been leading money winner for a year. The LPGA still has two months to go before finishing up for the year and both races have anywhere from 3-5 players competing for them. I predicted Shin to be both Rookie and Player of the Year before the season started, and I hope she pulls it off. Then I’ll have at least(but not many more if any at all) two golf precdictions right for this year. I picked Brittany Lincicome to be comeback player of the year. Lincicome has that award put away already with her Kraft Nabisco win.
Shin’s win has to lock her up the 2009 Rookie of the Year award. Yes she is eligible for it in spite of winning three LPGA events in 2008. She did that while not a tour member, so Shin is considered a rookie in 2009.
Some great news for the LPGA-
Toledo Classic, Inc., which operates the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday afternoon at which time an extension of its agreement with the LPGA Tour is expected to be announced.
A source familiar with the negotiations indicated it will be a one-year contract that will assure the tournament will be staged in 2010. No details on playing dates or purse were made available.
Next up- Will Michelob be saved? Is it possible the Corning Classic* isn’t dead yet? A change of commissioner has brought the LPGA some good news.
If the Jamie Farr is around another ten years, I expect Se Ri Pak to get her record breaking 6th win there. As Farr said once, Se Ri owns Toledo. She won there in 98,99, 01, 03, 07, and finished one shot out of the lead in 2000 and 2004. She may be leaping in joy again like she did after her record breaking** 1999 Farr victory.
*- There are two LPGA Tournaments with ‘Corning Classic’ in their title. The Toledo tournament and another that was played in Corning New York every year for over 30 years and believed to have played its last edition this year.
**- The 1999 Farr saw the biggest playoff in LPGA history. Six golfers in all took part in sudden death. Pak won it with a birdie on the first hole of sudden death.
Yet another South Korean ladies golfer won an LPGA tournament in 2009. Rookie MJ Hur beat Suzann Pettersen with a birdie on the second hole of sudden death.
The playoff was originally a three-way affair. Michelle Redman, winless on tour since 2000, three putted the 18th hole which was the first hole of sudden death. On the same hole Pettersen saw her birdie chance to win slip by the left side of the hole.
Pettersen and Hur then went to the 17th for the second hole of sudden death. 17 is a driveable par 4 but Hur and Pettersen laid up. Hur to the left, and Pettersen dangerously close to the water on the right. Hur put her approach shot to about 10 feet and after Pettersen missed her birdie putt, Hur rolled hers in.
Afterwards Hur ran away from a Korean compatriot who only wanted to douse her with champagne. Hur gave in and took her bath with a smile on her face.
Hur is the second surprise South Korean winner in the last two months. Like Eunjung Yi, Hur hadn’t shown much in 2009 before her win. Hur’s best finish was a 13th place finish. You could make an argument that the win was handed to her by Pettersen. Pettersen was -15 at one point today, then played holes 14 and 15 in bogey and double bogey. The double bogey was really disastrous since it took place on a par five. On 18, Pettersen drove it in the hazard but it bounced out. Pettersen who won all five of her LPGA triumphs in 2007, is building a record of Sunday failures since then.
Hur missed a couple of makable birdie putts on the back nine also. She made a clutch par putt on the 1st hole of sudden death after just missing the green with her approach.
Pettersen, Hur, and Redman finished at 13 under for 54 holes. Michelle Wie, Seon Hwa Lee, and Ai Miyazato finished tied for 4th, two shots back. Wie is hot right now. If not for her enrollment at Stanford and the thin LPGA schedule for the rest of 2009, I’d safely predict a win for her. She still may do it. Miyazato is another hot golfer at this time. Miyazato is starting to put herself in the Player of the Year picture for 2009.
Lorena Ochoa finished T49. Ochoa hasn’t had a top five finish since April. After dominating the LPGA for two years, you have to ask yourself what has caused her recent reversal. This is more than a slight slump.
Update- There are photos in the post now. I also wanted to note how Hur’s victory and the strong finishes by Michelle Wie and Anna Nordqvist(who won the LPGA Championship in June) have made the Rookie of the Year race much more interesting. The 2009 LPGA ROY was all but given to Ji Yai Shin before the season began. Shin has won twice this year and is #2 on the money list with a substantial ROY points lead but she isn’t going to win the award in a runaway.
Pro golf in Rochester New York has been preserved.
Two months after negotiations broke off on tenuous terms, Wegmans and the LPGA agreed Wednesday on a contract that will keep the supermarket chain as title sponsor of Rochester’s annual women’s golf event for at least three more years.
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Bill Strassburg, vice president of special projects for Wegmans Food Markets, said a three-year contract with an option for three one-year extensions was completed late Wednesday afternoon. Wegmans has been title sponsor of the 33-year-old tournament at Locust Hill Country Club since 1998.
“The LPGA has taken a very strong stance to try to correct some of the things that were lacking,” Strassburg said.
That thing that was lacking was flexibility under the previous Commissioner. The maturing of Michelle Wie can’t hurt the LPGA either. She is the biggest draw in pro golf other than Tiger Woods. Wie if she can build on her success at the Solheim Cup matches, may be a lifesaver for the LPGA. Stay tuned.
The matches are still in progress but Morgan Pressel’s 3&2 win over puts the score at 14-11 in favor of the United States. Christina Kim is dormie in her match against Tania Elosegui. That means the Americans will score at least 14.5 and out of 28 points total that gives them the win.
Today’s final result is likely to be 15.5 or 16 for the U.S. The matches were actually quite close today, not just because Europe and the United States were tied when play started this morning. At the mid point of play, Europe was ahead in matches and I was getting a bad feeling. The United States rallied, perhaps due to the turnarounds in the matches of Juli Inkster-Gwladys Nocera and Brittany Lang-Laura Davies. Lang was down all most all the way but salvaged a half after Davies played the 18th hole disastrously. Inkster trailed for most of her match too but pulled ahead at 17 but lost 18. Still that was another big half point for the United States.
The star of the 2009 matches for the U.S.? You can’t argue with the selection of Michelle Wie. Wie went 3.5-.5 in her matches. That was the best record for any of the Americans, including a one up win in singles against one of Europe’s better players Helen Alfredsson. Will Michelle’s detractors turn down the volume a little. One of their main complaints was that Wie hadn’t won anything since 2003. That doesn’t apply any more at all.
Update- Kim won her match. So the score is now 15-11 in favor of the United States. Cristie Kerr is dormie in her match, Natalie Gulbis is one down. The U.S. will have at least 15.5 when it is all over but could score as high as 17. That would be a deceptive score, play was much closer than that.
2nd Update- Gulbis pulled even with Janice Moodie at 17. What a turn around there also. Natalie was down by 3 holes in her match.
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