Kraft Nabisco Championship – Epilogue

I detailed Brittany Lincicome's last few months in my Where Were They Then post three weeks ago.  Her performances coming into the KNC gave no hint she was about to strike gold - MC at SBS, T65 at MasterCard, T39 at Phoenix.  How are we prognosticators supposed to have any chance when players buck trends like that?  I've said it many times before - this kind of lightning-in-a-bottle performance is a huge part of what makes the LPGA so entertaining to follow.  Despite having two prior career victories, I'm still choosing Brittany as this week's Big Surprise.

I could for similar reasons have chosen Meaghan Francella for that honor.  Her T5 finish was her best since making the quarterfinals of the HSBC Match Play event in July 2007 and her best in a stroke play event since a T5 at the 2007 Kraft Nabisco.  Like Lincicome, Meaghan was not playing very well coming in - T26, T36 and MC - but I'd say Mission Hills seems to suit her game.

Despite the terrible conditions of Friday afternoon, the scoring average of 74.07 in this week's Kraft Nabisco was the best since 2004.  Thursday and Sunday more than made up for Friday's scores which averaged over 76.

For the second time this year, I had the winner picked out until the last few holes on Sunday.  Yani Tseng let me down on the last hole at MasterCard and Cristie Kerr blew up on 15 at Mission Hills.  The post-round notes at LPGA.com cleared up my confusion on Kerr's bogey at 13 - please forgive me for my momentary failure to accurately add up her shots on that par-4.

In what seems to be an annual occurrence in this tournament, a couple of amateurs fared very well against the best players in the world.  Alexis Thompson and Tiffany Joh each finished at +2 T21 (Thompson posting a Sunday 69).  I am so looking forward to seeing Joh out on Tour in the next year or so and Thompson as well whenever she finishes grade school...just kidding.

I must mention Kristy McPherson.  Kristy was #45 in my rankings for 2008, and she showed a lot of promise with six Top 10s, including a T4 at Arkansas.  In one of my Player Profile posts I said that she didn't really show any large strengths or weaknesses in her game.  I also said that by ranking in the 40-50 range in the three phases I like to measure, Kristy might find it tougher to make the jump to the next level because there wasn't just one area she could fix to gain on her competition.  She showed this week that she is making progress in her game (as soon as I can figure out where, I'll let you know) and very nearly announced that fact in a big way.

This week's Big Disappointment is Juli Inkster.  I didn't really expect her to contend but Juli had never missed a KNC cut in 24 previous starts and she missed it this week by five shots.  During a Sunday TV segment describing the 18^th hole, she stated that she "hates" that hole.  It didn't mistreat her too badly this week.  She played 18 in -1  - par on Thursday and a birdie on Friday when it played as the toughest hole on the course.

We now begin our lengthy spring dry spell.  Over the next four weekends, there will be only one LPGA event, the Corona Championship in Mexico April 23-26, and that one won't even be televised in the U.S.  The demise of the Ginn Open is largely responsible for this break in the schedule - it was slotted to be held April 16-19.  I'll treat this time as a mini off-season where I'll update my Top 70 list, do some stat things and post about whatever comes up.  In the meantime, enjoy Masters week and hang in there until May 7.