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.
|
 |
Permalink
| Send TrackBack
-
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.
Advertisement
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.
The biennial matches which feature U.S. versus European women golfers tee off this morning at Rich Harvest Farms CC in Illinois. The U.S. team is defending its title, having beat Europe 15.5-12.5 in 2007.
This morning’s fourball matches are the folllowing-
9:05 a.m. Suzann Pettersen and Sophie Gustafson, Europe,
vs. Paula Creamer and Cristie Kerr, United States
9:20 a.m. Helen Alfredsson and Tania Elosegui, Europe,
vs. Angela Stanford and Juli Inkster, United States
9:35 a.m. Laura Davies and Becky Brewerton, Europe,
vs. Brittany Lang and Brittany Lincicome, United States
9:50 a.m. Catriona Matthew and Maria Hjorth, Europe,
vs. Morgan Pressel and Michelle Wie, United States
I hope the strategy Beth Daniel is employing of pairing her two best players(Kerr and Creamer) works better than it did for U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Hal Sutton who in 2004 paired Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods together. They didn’t win a point in two matches.
The match likely to draw the most spectators- The 9:50 group. Michelle Wie was a deserving Captain’s selection for the U.S. team and as long as Michelle remains interested in golf, I see her playing in many more Solheim Cup matches over the years ahead.
Everyone is predicting a U.S. blowout in the 2009 Solheim Cup. On paper the U.S. team looks so much stronger than Europe, and I can’t argue otherwise. All I will do is remind people of how lopsided the 2008 Ryder Cup matches looked before they were played. Europe was expected to blow out the U.S. and the reverse happened. Match play can have cause flukey results sometimes.
My prediction- U.S. 16.5, Europe 11.5
The latest bad news for female professional golfers.
The LPGA Tour and the International Management Group (IMG) announced in a joint statement Monday that the China LPGA tournament scheduled for October has been canceled this year.
“The IMG-managed China LPGA tournament, originally scheduled for mid-October, will not be staged in 2009 and we are now focusing our efforts on ensuring the event’s return to China in 2010 and 2011,” the announcement stated. “We look forward to the second half of the 2009 LPGA Tour season, which will include two IMG-managed LPGA Tour events, the Samsung World Championship (Sept. 17-20) and the LPGA Tour Championship (Nov. 19-22).”
With the earlier cancellation of the Kapalua event, the LPGA now has a big gap in its October schedule. The tour will play the Navistar LPGA Classic in Alabama from October 1-4, then returns to action in South Korea on October 30th with the Hana Bank – KOLON Championship.
Now the LPGA is down to 27 tournaments for 2009 after playing 34 in 2008.
The demise of the China tournament was expected for some time. Will the LPGA Tour return there in 2010? I really don’t have a clue, but with the sport of golf expanding in Asia, I think the LPGA will return to China some time down the road.
The China LPGA tournament, a limited field event by Grand China Air, was won by Helen Alfredsson in 2008.
The last Ladies Professional golf major of 2009 is in the record books.
Catriona Matthew won the Women’s British Open by three strokes on Saturday, earning her first major title just 10 weeks after she gave birth to her second child.
The 39-year-old Scot birdied three straight holes on the back nine of a 1-over 71 that left her at 3-under 285. Karrie Webb of Australia closed with a 68 to finish second.
“I’m speechless,” said Matthew, the overnight leader. “To be honest, I didn’t play that well today, but I holed good putts at the 13th and 14th, which I needed.”
Paula Creamer (71), Hee-Won Han (70), Ai Miyazato (73) and Christina Kim (74) tied for fourth place at 289.
Actually Creamer, Han, Miyazato, and Kim tied for 3rd not fourth place. Either that or the invisible woman shot 288 and a fraction to finish 3rd.
At first glance it looks like Matthew coasted to victory today. She certainly did not. Matthew faced serious challenges during the last 18 holes from Webb, Creamer, and both Miyazatos in the field Ai and Mika. With 6 holes to go Matthew was tied for the lead after playing the first 12 holes in three over par. Matthew then birdied 3 straight holes. A bogey on 17 couldn’t prevent Matthew from becoming the first Scottish born woman golfer to win a professional major championship.
Matthew’s win is pretty incredible on several levels. She only gave birth ten weeks ago.(Matthew also won an unofficial LPGA event in Brazil at the beginning of 2009 while pregnant with her daughter Sophie. Has a golfer won a tournaments in the same year, before and after giving birth in LPGA history?) In addition to that, Matthew and her husband had a narrow escape from a hotel fire in France less than two weeks ago.
The LPGA’s Major Championships are done for 2009, but there is still plenty of golf to go. In three weeks, the United States will face off against Europe in the Solheim Cup matches. The week after that, the LPGA is back to playing 54 or 72 hole tournaments. Player of the Year and #1 money winner for 2009 are still very much up for grabs.
It was her first LPGA win. From AP-
Ai Miyazato of Japan has won the Evian Masters with a birdie on the first playoff hole, beating Sophie Gustafson of Sweden to clinch her first victory on the LPGA Tour. 
Miyazato steadied herself and sank a putt from about 6 feet on Sunday after Gustafson had missed her birdie putt from the edge of the green.
Miyazato shot a 3-under 69 in the final round and Gustafson had a 2-under 70 as both finished at 14-under 274.
Gustafson could have won on the 18th hole when her eagle putt stopped right on the edge of the hole.
I am happy Ai won. One of my golf predictions has finally come true, if a little bit belatedly.
Miyazato came on the LPGA Tour in 2006 after dominating the JLPGA. As a result, much was expected from Ai. Her first three years on the LPGA were solid, but she couldn’t get that first elusive victory. The closest she came was a loss to Seon Hwa Lee in the finals of the 2007 HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship. Lee won the 2006 Rookie of the Year award many golf prognosticators predicted would go to Miyazato.
Of the last eight LPGA tournament winners, seven have come from Asia. Next week is the British Open, and I’ll predict the streak becomes eight out of nine. My pick for the last major of the 2009 LPGA season- In Kyung Kim. She finished tied for 3rd at the U.S. Open, tied for 8th at Evian, and is one of the top five money winners this year.
The Constructivist is more than ecstatic about Ai Miyazato’s victory in this blog post.
|
