Jamie Farr Classic - Final Round

Eunjung Yi made a 12-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole to win the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic.  Morgan Pressel finished second while Michelle Wie, Song-Hee Kim and Seon Hwa Lee tied for third place, two shots out of the playoff.

For most of the day, it appeared that Yi's first career LPGA victory was a foregone conclusion.  After birdies at 2 and 3, Eunjung was -20 and led by six shots.  She went into cruise control and except for a bogey at 9, Yi was rolling along under no pressure because nobody was making a serious run at her.  Playing several groups ahead, Wie caught fire with seven birdies in her last ten holes to get in the clubhouse at -16.  Pressel birdied 8, 9 and 10 to get within two at -17.  Bogeys at 13 and 14 derailed her, and Yi's lead was four with four holes to play.

Yi struggled at 15 but made a nice par save from beyond ten feet.  At 16, she missed the fairway badly and took her second bogey of the day.  Up ahead, Pressel rolled home an eight-footer for birdie at 16 and struck gold at 17 - her third to the par-5 from about 75 yards rolled into the cup for eagle.  Suddenly, Morgan was tied for the lead at -18.  Once Pressel parred 18 and Yi parred the last two, we had a playoff.  But that wasn't quite all - Song-Hee Kim had been six shots back after 12 but she birdied 13, 15, 16 and 17 to reach -17.  She had an 18-footer to join the playoff but ran it several feet by.  Kim missed the comebacker for par, costing her solo third place.

They went out to 17 to start the playoff.  Both players found the fairway off the tee and with their seconds.  Pressel had about 75 yards but didn't get it to the back-left pin position and her ball spun back to the fringe about 25 feet away.  Yi's pitch from just over 50 stopped about 12 feet right and short.  Morgan rolled her putt nicely but it didn't break right quite as much as she planned.  Eunjung nailed hers dead center for the victory.

Yi's first victory was also her first career Top 10 finish and it came in her 24^th LPGA start.  She was T11 at last year's Safeway Classic.  She gets to play in the U.S. Open thanks to that 12-foot putt.  Her 61 on Saturday beat her previous career best by five shots.  So we had seen an occasional flash of good play but that's still quite a jump in performance there.  Just goes to show you (again!) how deep this Tour is - even with a field as strong as the one this week, anybody out there can get their game on track and snag a title.  More in tomorrow's Epilogue.