Corning Classic Preview

The 31^st and final Corning Classic will be held this week.  Long a favorite stop on Tour, the Classic's primary sponsor Corning Incorporated wasn't financially able to renew its contract and the tournament staff was unable to solicit a replacement.  Leta Lindley defeated Jeong Jang in a one-hole playoff in last year's event.

Corning Country Club is one of the shorter layouts that the ladies play.  Its primary defenses are narrow fairways and the many trees that line them.  Consequently, recent winners of the Classic haven't been among the longer hitters so look for that trend to continue.  Scoring is usually very good here - last year's average was the highest I've recorded dating back to 2004 - because the greens are usually very receptive.  Cold and windy weather affected play last year but this year's forecast looks great.  Expect the scoring to be great as well.

I think 2009's sparse early schedule is the primary reason for the great player turnout but I'm sure that this being the final Corning brought a couple of extra stars out.  It wasn't enough to draw Lorena Ochoa however - she hasn't played this event since 2004 and will pay the fine for violating the one-in-four rule for the second straight year.  Karrie Webb and Juli Inkster are the only other voluntary prime-time absentees (Jeong Jang and Jane Park are out for health reasons) so this year's Field Score of 87 blows last year's 33 out of the water.

Last Friday (May 15), the official Priority list document at LPGA.com was updated and the new list was used to determine the Corning field.  Positions 150 through 164 now exactly match those I listed back on April 28.  There is no excuse for why it took the Tour nearly three weeks to officially publish and utilize the reordered list when it only took me a couple of hours work to figure out what changes were going to be made.

Because of the course, my picks this week look a little different (and after last week's performance, they should!).  My pick to win is coming off two straight Top 5 finishes and I expect her to continue to play well here.