Tres Marias Championship - Epilogue

Ai Miyazato's third win in five starts was somewhat surprising in that she missed the cut in her previous start, at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.  Over the last five years, I only recall Paula Creamer in 2005 at Sybase and Leta Lindley in 2008 at Corning accomplishing that.  According to Mike Scanlan, Ai will only move up to #2 in the Rolex Rankings today because Jiyai Shin's win in Japan will move her to #1, bumping Lorena Ochoa to #3.  My own rankings show that same order, although I already had Shin at #1 and this weekend's results move Miyazato ahead of Ochoa.  Whoever you believe should be in front, they still have a lot of work to do if they want to be Lorena's successor for the Player of the Year award.

Ochoa got a heartwarming send-off at 18 from the gallery and several prominent players, including Miyazato, Juli Inkster, Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lincicome.  Judging from the picture above, even a few players who missed the cut on Friday stayed around for the Sunday celebration.  It's not often in the sporting world that you can find an individual who has both dominated their specialty and been beloved by fans AND their fellow competitors.  That combination of talents is what made Lorena Ochoa so special and is what I will miss the most in the coming months.

There were five holes-in-one this weekend, one short of the all-time single tournament record set in 1999 at the Mercury Titleholders Championship.  Helen Alfredsson, Brittany Lincicome, Song Yi Choi (who still missed the cut by five shots), Karen Stupples and Amy Yang each bottled the lightning this week.  For Stupples, the ace was one of three eagles over the four days.

It's probably too early to say this but...Michelle Wie had the lead in this event more than once (and as late as the Sunday turn) and for the second time in three events, she suffered a blow-up hole coming down the stretch.  She was already five shots down at the Kia Classic when she took the two-stroke penalty but I'm sure she considered herself still in the hunt.  This time, the double-bogey at 13 looms as the largest reason she didn't at least get into a playoff.  Just some food for thought for the coming weeks.

Stacy Lewis deserves a big Shout-Out for coming in second and nearly forcing a playoff.  It was her first Top 5 since last year's Wegmans and her best finish since becoming a Tour member.  As I mentioned on Saturday, Stacy did win the rain-shortened Arkansas event in 2007 and also tied for third at the 2008 U.S. Open prior to becoming a member.  This week's Big Surprise was Irene Cho, who finished T9 for her first Top 10 since the 2008 LPGA Championship.  It was only her third Top 10 in four years on Tour.  The Big Disappointment was Angela Stanford, who opened with an 85 (!) and withdrew.

Larry Smich pointed out that Alejandra Martin Del Campo was DQ'd at the end of Round Three because she was using clubs with square grooves, which were banned at the start of this season.  That by itself is a story but there's another one.  Supposedly one of Del Campo's playing partners during the first two rounds also noticed the naughty sticks but didn't report it to the officials.  So what's the big deal?  Del Campo made the cut along with exactly 69 other players - had she been DQ'd prior to the cut, the players at +3 (including Smich's boss Moira Dunn) would have made it through.  FWIW, Del Campo's playing partners the first two days were Irene Cho and Wendy Doolan.

Did you remember to watch the Mojo 6 this weekend?  For me, the answer was "yes and no".  On Sunday I was following the Tres Marias leaderboard with the PGA's Quail Hollow event on the tube when I realized that I had forgotten to watch the second half.  I did see Saturday's broadcast and enjoyed the format.  The compression of one day's play into a single hour was a bit much, however - I felt like the players were literally racing around the six holes.  The final segment was good because they switched from highlights mode into more of a regular play-by-play to show how the final eight was decided.  If they want Raceway Golf to catch on, I think a little more airtime and detail of the action would go a long way.