Kraft Nabisco Championship - Epilogue

Yani Tseng now has five Hall of Fame points, given that two of her three victories have been in major championships.  That bumps her into the Top 20 of active HOF point totals - which for a 21-year-old, is rather impressive.  Of the current young guns on Tour, only Jiyai Shin is cranking out points at a higher rate.

For the first time in a long while, Suzann Pettersen finished second in a tournament without coming from ahead.  I mean that in a positive way.  Down the stretch yesterday, needing birdies to put pressure on Tseng, Suzann kept giving herself chances with one good approach shot after another.  That fact that only one of those medium-range putts fell shouldn't detract from that.  If her chip at 18 had made one more turn, we would have had a playoff.  Pettersen played great this week, especially over the last two days - but Yani was one shot better.

Conditions over the four days were the best for scoring that I can remember for this event, and the numbers showed it.  The average of 73.71 was the lowest of the seven KNC's that I have on record, and only the second time the event's average was lower than 74.  Tseng's winning score of -13 and Pettersen's runner-up of -12 bested all KNC scores over the last ten years except for Annika Sorenstam's -15 in 2005.

Grace Park shot 73 on Sunday and finished at -2, good enough to tie for tenth place.  It was her first Top 10 since she finished T6 at the CJ Nine Bridges event in October 2005.  In a landslide, Grace is this week's Big Surprise Award winner.

I have to give a shoutout to Karen Stupples, who still managed a tie for fifth despite imploding to a 78 on Sunday.  She was forced to skip last year's event when she underwent an emergency appendectomy the week before, and her season never got on track after that.  Karen has shown Top 20 ability in at least a couple of seasons in her career (2004 and 2008 most notably) and I suspect we're starting to see that again.

Other notable finishes include Chie Arimura, the JLPGA star, who finished in solo ninth place, Se Ri Pak, who nearly matched Grace's comeback by finishing T15 and amateurs Jennifer Song and Alexis Thompson, who finished T21 and T24 respectively, and made it eleven straight years with at least one amateur finishing in the KNC Top 30.

The Big Disappointment goes to Ai Miyazato, who missed the cut by one shot.  The long tough courses at La Costa (last week) and Mission Hills surprisingly ate her up.  Her combination of good length and accuracy should have been a good match in both events.

It was a disappointing week for Christina Kim as she missed the cut by two shots.  Apparently that didn't spoil her enthusiasm for the event as she followed the final group home on Sunday - cheering loudly when Pettersen birdied 16 and helping spray Tseng with champagne during the victory celebration.  Some people think Christina is a bit too over the top but she obviously relishes her role as the LPGA's Head Cheerleader.  We're lucky to have her.