Ji-Yai Shin's total of $1,767,249 would be third on the LPGA money list if she were a member.  That she accumulated that much in only ten events makes her total even more astounding.  Ji-Yai isn't quite done for the year, either.  She's on her way back to Japan for this week's Ricoh Cup event and then one more tournament in Korea after that.  For most rookies, the long grind of that first season is a huge obstacle but after having played 37 events on four tours in 2008, Shin has already passed that test with flying colors.

LPGA.com now has the correct number of events that Shin has played this year but their list of them is incorrect.  They count the Women's World Cup of Golf (not an official event) but leave out Ji-Yai's T8 finish in the Samsung Championship.  Their "Shin by the numbers" list does relay correct information down to the money earned in official events.

Shin, Paula Creamer, Jeong Jang and Angela Stanford were the four players I predicted to make the final round who actually did so.  With this elite field, choosing a Big Surprise award is difficult.  Even though it was her sixth Top 10 finish and second runner-up of 2008, I'm picking Karrie Webb.  It was her first Top 10 since the British Open and her recent results had been very disappointing (T63 at Mizuno, T35 at Kapalua, 16 out of 20 at Samsung).

The Big Disappointment has lots of candidates, so I'm going to share it out again this week.  Lorena Ochoa, Annika Sorenstam and Yani Tseng all get a piece of the "honor" for various reasons you can probably figure out.

Creamer got about two hours of sleep (for the third straight night) and left the hospital at 7am Sunday, went back to her hotel to clean up and made it to the course for her 9:40 tee time.  She went into more detail at her post-round interview.  I don't often describe LPGA players as "tough" or "gutsy" but those labels obviously are applicable to Paula Creamer.

Dan Hicks asked Dottie Pepper yesterday whether she thought we would ever see Annika Sorenstam play competitively again.  Dottie answered no.  She feels that Annika's personal standard of excellence wouldn't allow her to come back unless she had the time and desire to put in the work required to reach that level of excellence.  And Dottie implied that Annika would have neither the time nor the desire.  I tend to agree with that opinion.