Ji-Hee Lee Outduels Miyazato in JWO

Ji-Hee Lee leaped to the top of the JLPGA money list with a single 15-foot putt on the par-5 18th hole in the Japan Women's Open today.  Her birdie gave her a 67 on the day and a -4 total for the tournament, just good enough to outpace Ai Miyazato (68, -3), Esther Lee (70, -3), and Yuri Fudoh (68, -2).  A Fudoh bogey and Miyazato par on the 18th opened the door for Lee, while her namesake's birdie on the same hole that Lee had just birdied was too little, too late.  Here are the top 10 and the notables who finished in the top 20:

1st/-4 Ji-Hee Lee (73-76-68-67)
T2/-3 Ai Miyazato (74-71-72-68), Esther Lee (68-73-74-70)
4th/-2 Yuri Fudoh (76-71-71-68)
T5/-1 Nikki Campbell (70-74-73-70), So-Hee Kim (71-74-71-74)
T7/+1 Namika Omata (74-75-71-69), Sakura Yokomine (77-74-68-70)
T9/+2 Momoko Ueda (73-74-72-71), Midori Yoneyama (76-71-71-72)

T12/+4 Shiho Oyama (72-79-74-67), Bo-Bae Song (75-74-73-70), Ji-Woo Lee (75-73-74-70), Ayako Uehara (74-73-73-72), Eun-A Lim (74-73-73-72)
T17/+5 Shinobu Moromizato (77-70-76-70), Akiko Fukushima (72-73-76-72)
T20/+6 Hiroko Yamaguchi (76-76-72-70), Erina Hara (75-73-74-72), Yuko Mitsuka (74-75-72-73)

Looks like it's game on in the JLPGA player of the year race.  Here's the sweet 16 on their money list:

1. Ji-Hee Lee ￥98.74M
2. Akiko Fukushima ￥84.29M
3. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥73.51M
4. Miho Koga ￥73.34M
5. Sakura Yokomine ￥72.13M
6. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥64.20M
7. Yuri Fudoh ￥58.82M
8. Erina Hara ￥58.28M
9. Yuko Mitsuka ￥56.01M
10. Ayako Uehara ￥53.97M
11. Eun-A Lim ￥47.99M
12. Bo-Bae Song ￥47.98M
13. Shinobu Moromizato ￥47.41M
14. Akane Iijima ￥45.96M
15. Shiho Oyama ￥44.51M
16. Momoko Ueda ￥43.87M

Yokomine and Oyama are the only players here not to have won (yet) in 2008.  Ai-chan's 2nd place finish, her 2nd top 10 in a JLPGA major this year, moved her to 40th place, while Ji-Yai Shin's decision to play in the Samsung World Championship this week helped drop her to 28th.  I wonder how many of these players we'll be seeing on the LPGA in 2010 and after....