Corning Classic - Epilogue

Yani Tseng was very emotional after winning at Corning yesterday afternoon.  I couldn't help thinking that was her release after 11 months of trying to validate her LPGA Championship win and #2 world ranking.  Since that playoff win over Maria Hjorth, Yani had finished second four times and in the Top 5 a total of nine times.  Not that she really needed to prove to me how great a player she is, but it was a long overdue win.

Tseng's standout moments on Sunday were a couple of tee shots.  First she drove the green at the par-4 16^th (playing 310 yards), stopping the ball 12 feet short of the hole directly on line.  She missed the eagle attempt to the right but tapped in for birdie.  At 17, she crushed another drive and left herself a short pitch shot to the pin.  Even after she flubbed that pitch, Yani rolled home the 15-footer for birdie that would ultimately be the difference.

You probably already know that Soo-Yun Kang missed a four-footer for par at 18 that would have forced a playoff.  She also missed a four-footer for birdie at 13.  Besides those two putts and the poor approach to 18 which landed 60 feet from the hole, Kangsy played very well yesterday.  She canned a 30-footer for birdie at 9, saved par from eight feet at 11 and played an outstanding approach at 16 from a divot to five feet which set up a go-ahead birdie.  It's true that Soo-Yun led by two entering the final nine holes and couldn't hold on, but it took everything the World's Number Two had to beat her out.

When the smoke cleared, the scoring average for the week was 70.45.  That is the lowest average for an LPGA event since the 2005 Mizuno Classic, a 54-hole event won by Annika Sorenstam by the same -21 score that Tseng collected over four rounds.  This week's numbers at Corning beat the previous tournament low in my books by more than a stroke (71.49 in 2006).

If Tseng had somewhere lost one stroke and had Paula Creamer gone on to win the three-way playoff, Paula's birdie putt at 18 might have been one you'd be seeing for years to come.  She canned it from 60 feet away with the huge crowd at 18 going bananas.

With apologies to Mika Miyazato and Vicky Hurst (as well as Jimin Jeong, Karine Icher and Mikaela Parmlid), this week's Big Surprise Award goes to Sandra Gal.  Sandra's T5 finish was the first Top 10 of her career, besting her T14 at last year's Ginn Tribute.  The Big Disappointment goes to....you know, I can't find a single player who I am genuinely disappointed in this week.  Angela Park and Eun-Hee Ji missed the cut but I didn't have them pegged to play well anyway.  I guess I'll just have to give the award to Commissioner Bivens.