Since it's already Monday in Thailand...

The Australian TV team invited Brittany Lincicome into the booth during Sunday's final round.  Foreshadowing the finish, Brittany praised Ai Miyazato's short game by saying that "between us, we'd make a pretty good golfer" referring to her own length.  Ai showed that Brittany knows of what she speaks - she saved par at 16 with a terrific long greenside bunker shot, she chipped nicely to three feet and saved par at 17 and she drained her birdie chip from 20 feet at 18.  Now that I think about, Ai Miyazato is a damn good golfer all by herself.

Last August when she let one get away at Safeway, I documented Suzann Pettersen's history of troubles hanging on to Sunday leads.  She reversed that trend the very next week, winning the Canadian Open.  Thailand was her first opportunity since that win to make it two straight "holds" but she couldn't pull it off.  Suzann gave her opponents lots of help in those other losses but this time, not so much.  She played the back nine in -1 and Miyazato simply overtook her.  You could hardly say she crashed-and-burned, especially when Ai had to post 63 to beat her by one.  Pettersen did miss two big putts - both from about six feet - for par at 16 and birdie at 17, which certainly made a difference.  If not for her history, I doubt that anybody would be talking about Pettersen choking this one away.

My only complaint about the TV coverage was the gap between their opening highlights package (which covered only the front nine for the final groups) and the "live" play-by-play (which opened with Miyazato playing 16 and Pettersen playing 14).  That was purely a by-product of the 1.5 hour GC telecast window and not the Aussies' fault, of course.  I would have loved to see Miyazato's eagle at 7 or her lead-tying birdie at 15.  All-in-all, a good production by the group I expect we'll see at Singapore for this week's HSBC.

In my recap I neglected to mention that Momoko Ueda was still in the hunt with ten holes to play.  Through 8 she was -15 and tied with Miyazato for second but she played those last 10 holes in +3 to wind up T6.  On a day where scoring wasn't quite as good as it had been earlier in the week, Karrie Webb was the only player besides Ai who began the day within ten shots of the lead and managed to break 70.  Webb's 67 boosted her into a tie for fourth with Cristie Kerr.  The only player whose Sunday approached that of the champion's was the unsinkable Laura Davies, who fired a 65 like it was 1999.  Laura broke par each of the four rounds to finish tied for sixth, earning this week's Big Surprise Award.  I must give a shout-out to Nontaya Srisawang.  The Thai native who lost her limited Tour status after last season played under a sponsor's exemption and finished T18.

Several players had disappointing weeks - Vicky Hurst, Lindsey Wright, Helen Alfredsson, Eun-Hee Ji and Kristy McPherson all failed to make the Top 40.  The Big Disappointment goes to Sophie Gustafson, who dared to finish 53^rd when I picked her fourth.