Japan Women's Open Preview

Next week's Japan Women's Open will feature the biggest showdown in Asian golf since the HSBC Women's Champions event in Singapore early this season.  This week, Momoko Ueda got her 2nd win of the season on the JLPGA and Ji-Yai Shin got her 2nd major of the season on the KLPGA, so they're the definitive favorites heading into it.   It's pretty meaningful that Shin, who qualified for the Samsung Championship with her Women's British Open victory, will be trying to make history next week by winning a major on every major women's tour this season instead of going head-to-head against the LPGA's top stars at Half Moon Bay.  But, then, some of the top Korean stars in the world of women's golf--Mi-Jeong Jeon, Ji-Hee Lee, and Hyun-Ju Shin, in particular--have chosen to make their careers on the JLPGA rather than the LPGA.  With Akiko Fukushima cooling off, Miho Koga missing the cut this week, and Sakura Yokomine still unable to close the deal in '08, the door is open for the top Koreans on tour, the top young guns (Erina Hara, Yuko Mitsuka, Bo-Bae Song, and Miki Saiki), but especially JLPGA irregulars like Ueda, Shin, and Ai Miyazato, whose last JLPGA win, her 14th, came all the way back in 2006, to make their mark on the 2008 season.

[<I>Update</I> (12:35 pm):  Wait-a-sec!  Shin doesn't appear in the current field list.  Looks like she's playing the Samsung after all.]