Samsung World Championship - 1st Round

Ji-Yai Shin fired a 67 to lead by one shot at the Samsung World Championship.  Paula Creamer is in second place while five players are tied for third after rounds of 69.

With only 20 players in the field, I'll just list all the scores:

67  Ji-Yai Shin

68  Paula Creamer

69  Lorena Ochoa, Annika Sorenstam, Yani Tseng, Na Yeon Choi, Angela Stanford

70  Katherine Hull, Song-Hee Kim

72  Jeong Jang

73  Cristie Kerr, Juli Inkster, Eun-Hee Ji

74  Suzann Pettersen, Karrie Webb

75  Seon Hwa Lee, Hee-Won Han, Helen Alfredsson

77  Angela Park, Inbee Park

The conditions were nearly perfect - almost no wind despite the seaside location - but the course's sticky rough and unfamiliar greens prevented the scores from going really low.  Shin birdied six times in one eight-hole stretch before suffering her first bogey at 16.  Creamer's only bogey was also at 16 but she rebounded to birdie the par-3 17^th.  Even though the Ocean Course serves up five par-5s, the only eagle on the day came when Ochoa chipped in her third at the 10^th.

With the now obvious premium on keeping the ball in the fairway and getting on the green in regulation, I'm somewhat regretting my decision not to pick Paula Creamer as at least a CYA this week.  Of course if I had, I probably would have left out Katherine Hull - who managed to hit 11 of 13 fairways and 14 GIR today.  We'll see how it plays out.

Dottie Pepper's definition of what qualifies for Comeback Player of the Year differs quite a bit from mine.  During tonight's telecast, she made mention of that honor for both Katherine Hull and Song-Hee Kim.  Excuse me?  Considering Hull has never finished a season in the money list Top 50 and Kim is only in her second season, what had they accomplished before to "Comeback" to?  Dottie said that Song-Hee is "coming back" from a bad 2007 after her great 2006 on the Futures Tour but that's just a ridiculous statement.  You could use similar logic and give the award to Inbee Park or even Yani Tseng.  And applying that label to Hull is just nonsense.  Helen Alfredsson and Annika Sorenstam are much better choices for Comeback of the Year.