Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | yesterday
Poking around LPGA.com's stats pages , I noticed that Lorena Ochoa notched several huge achievements in the final week of the 2009 season. Winning her 4th-straight Player of the Year award and Vare Trophy is huge, as it gives her a chance to match Annika Sorenstam's record for consecutive POYs and Mickey Wright's for consecutive Vares in 2010. But she also rose to the top of the heap in putts per green...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
Talk about clutch! Lorena Ochoa got off to a fast start in the final round of the LPGA Tour Championship , making birdies on her 1st 3 holes to climb to -9. But after becoming the 1st player in the field to break the -10 barrier with a birdie on the 7th, the world #1 bogeyed 8 and 9, right around the time that Na Yeon Choi , Hee Young Park , and Ai Miyazato were making Sunday charges. But Ochoa responded...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 11/20/2009
Lorena Ochoa opened up a 4-shot lead on Player of the Year race leader Ji-Yai Shin in the 1st round of the LPGA Tour Championship today. Both players started on the back in the morning pairings, but they finished quite differently. Ochoa fired a tournament-leading 66, making 3 of her 8 birdies on the day in her last 4 holes, while Shin was busy bogeying 2 of her last 4 holes and finishing +2 over her...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
LPGA Player of the Year rivals Ji-Yai Shin (5-birdie 69 with bogeys on 9 and 18), Ai Miyazato (bogey-free 69), and Lorena Ochoa (2-birdie 71) didn't hurt themselves in the 1st round of the Mizuno Classic , but they didn't light it up like the leaders. Brittany Lang lead the way with a 66 that was sparked by an eagle on the par-5 7th, but hot on her heels were former KLPGAer Hee Young Park (who started...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 10/30/2009
Getting onechan's guaranteed-to-keep-you-up-all-night cough is one thing; finding out she's brought head lice home from school is another. While I'm waiting for the fourth-to-last load of laundry to get out of the dryer, I have a little time to give you the results of the 1st round of the Hana Bank/KOLON Championship . In honor of Hound Dog, who's still in the "stepping away" phase of his...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 10/24/2009
Akiko Fukushima can be one of the most exciting golfers in the world. Like Karrie Webb, Sophie Gustafson, Helen Alfredsson, and Hee Young Park she's not afraid to go super-low and she can make birdies in bunches, but she's also wildly inconsistent. If you like roller coasters, these are the players to follow in women's golf. For a long time this season on the JLPGA, Fukushima hadn't been worth following,...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 10/23/2009
The stars are out tonight at the Masters GC Ladies . At the end of the 1st round, the top 2 players on the JLPGA are locked in a duel for the top spot. Sakura Yokomine shot a bogey-free 68, but the woman she's chasing for her 1st-ever money-list title, Shinobu Moromizato, topped her with a 6-birdie 67. A huge part of what distinguished their rounds from the rest of the field was how solidly they played...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 10/20/2009
During the LPGA's dead weeks this month, I've been keeping track of the exploits of the LPGA's Asian players on the JLPGA and KLPGA . Well, it's time to widen the focus to include some European and American players. Randall Mell recently reported that Suzann Pettersen is sitting out the LPGA's Asian Swing. Let's hope the stress fracture in her left foot heals quickly enough to allow her to be close...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 09/12/2009
If you've been following the live scoring at the NW Arkansas Championship , reading the post-round notes and interviews at LPGA.com, or checking out Hound Dog's 1st-round overview , you'll know by now that some of the best without a win as LPGA members are in the hunt heading into the weekend's action, led by #20 Sandra Gal (64), #7 Song-Hee Kim (65), and #6 Brittany Lang (66), who all shot 31s on...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 09/06/2009
Only 1 player made a big move in the right direction today at the Canadian Women's Open : Suzann Pettersen . Her 6-birdie 66 lifted her to -14 for the tournament, giving her a 5-shot lead on Angela Stanford , whose walkoff eagle gave her a 69 on the day. Relatively few other players actually went under par today at Priddis Greens compared to the previous 2 rounds and nobody even matched Pettersen's...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 07/23/2009
There aren't as many low numbers among the early starters at the Evian Masters as I expected, so Becky Brewerton , last week's winner on the LET and the last entrant into the field of 90, stands alone at -5 right now. And her round could even have been better. After making 5 birdies in a 6-hole stretch starting on the par-4 5th, she offset a pair of bogeys on 13 and 14 with a pair of birdies on 16...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 07/09/2009
The U.S. Women's Open is in full swing and Saucon Valley has introduced itself to some of the top players in women's golf in a decidedly inhospitable manner. Angela Stanford broke a 5-hole bogey train on the front with a double bogey on the par-4 8th to open with a 43; she remains +7 through 11. Stacy Lewis birdied her 1st hole, but thanks in part to a triple on the par-4 3rd could only manage a 40;...
Times of the Internet (Free subscription) | 06/29/2009
ROCHESTER, N.Y., June 28 (UPI) -- Jiyai Shin shot a 1-under 71 Sunday to win the Wegmans LPGA by seven shots and capture her fifth title after just 11 months on the women's tour. Shin, a 21-year-old rookie sensation from Korea, took the lead in Friday's second round and never relinquished it. She birdied the first hole and cruised to the title on a somewhat rainy day at Locust Hill Country Club. Kristy...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 06/29/2009
Well, it probably took her longer than she expected, but Ji-Yai Shin got her 2nd win of 2009 and 5th LPGA victory in her short career at the Wegmans today, thanks to her ability to hold her game together in wet weather. Challengers Morgan Pressel and Stacy Lewis struggled to keep pace with her during the dryer parts of the day--both peaked at -13, Pressel when she birdied the 9th and Lewis when she...
Mostly Harmless (Free subscription) | 06/28/2009
At the end of play in round 2 Saturday morning at the Wegmans , 4-time LPGA winner Ji-Yai Shin held a 1-shot lead on a resurgent Morgan Pressel and Stacy Lewis , 2 rising American stars who have struggled more than many expected early in their professional careers. And after Lewis eagled the par-5 11th to get to -12, pulling 1 shot ahead of Pressel, who shot a 34 on the front, it looked like Shin was...
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