State Farm Classic - Epilogue

Cristie Kerr's victory today was her first since last May's Michelob Ultra.  It gives her 14 Hall of Fame points, tying her with Liselotte Neumann for third place among active players not already qualified (behind Laura Davies and Meg Mallon).  This win also extends Kerr's streak of consecutive seasons with at least one victory to seven, dating back to 2004.

The average score at Panther Creek this weekend was 70.78, slightly better than the previous course record two years ago.  I don't have my scoring spreadsheet handy but that mark of -1.22 relative to par is at least among the two or three lowest I've recorded since 2004.  Of the 150 players who teed it up Thursday, only 48 finished above par while only two players (Laura Diaz and Brandie Burton) made the cut and finished above par.  Kerr's winning score of -22 was a course record and the second-best in the 35-year history of the event (to her own -24 in 2004).

Song-Hee Kim has yet to win on Tour but if you're looking for somebody to finish in the Top 10, she's your player.  Her T8 finish extends her Top 10 streak to ten straight, eight-for-eight in 2010.

I haven't done the research on this yet but...can you remember the last time the LPGA finished a weather-delayed tournament on Monday?  In nearly four years of blogging, I don't remember following the leaderboard on Monday morning before today.

Six players in Categories 14 through 20 made the cut this week, although only five of them earned money to improve their status.  I'll have the details in my updated Priority Status post, hopefully tomorrow.

Gwladys Nocera and Katie Futcher share the Big Surprise Award this week.  Gwladys' T6 is her career-best LPGA finish (she's officially a rookie this year) and Katie's T8 is her first Top 10 since last March's MasterCard Classic.  The Big Disappointment is Ai Miyazato, who suffered her second missed cut of the year.  Ai's Performance Chart shows what a hit-or-miss season this has been - three wins, two missed cuts, T17 at Sybase (second-round match-play defeat), T39 at Kia, T49 at Bell Micro.  If she starts off in contention, she wins.  If not...

While following the scoreboard action about 9:15 this morning, I noticed that LPGA.com was promoting Golf Channel's coverage of "the final round" from 10am to noon.  Well, "final round" coverage turned out to be about 118 minutes of Tom Abbott and Beth Daniel talking between replays of third round action and two minutes of highlights at the end showing Kerr winning Monday morning.  Virtually all of the "telecast" was merely a replay of last night's broadcast of the rain delay.  I don't know if GC or the LPGA is responsible for that misrepresentation but whoever it was deserves 30 lashes with whatever limp instrument is handy.