LPGA Championship - Epilogue
by hound dog on Jun 28, 2010 6:29 AM PDT
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I touched on a few of these points yesterday but I feel the need to stress how overwhelming Cristie Kerr's performance was this week. Her twelve-shot victory was the largest in LPGA Championship history and equaled the second-largest margin in any women's major championship. Here is the list of all double-digit major victories:
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Margin 14 12 12 10 10 10 10 10 |
Winner Louise Suggs Cristie Kerr Babe Zaharias Karrie Webb Patty Sheehan Amy Alcott Sandra Palmer Mickey Wright |
Event 1949 U.S. Open 2010 LPGA Championship 1954 U.S. Open 2000 Kraft Nabisco 1984 LPGA Championship 1980 U.S. Open 1972 Titleholders 1961 LPGA Championship |
Kerr scored in the 60s all four rounds. Nobody else had three such rounds and only two players (Song-Hee Kim and Morgan Pressel) managed even two. Only 13 players finished under par but Cristie shot -19 to equal the record for best score relative to par in a major. I went back to the 2000 season and could not find ANY LPGA event that was won by as many as twelve. Lorena Ochoa was the last to win by eleven, at the 2008 Corona Championship.
The average round at Locust Hill was 74.15, the highest for an LPGA Championship since 2005 and about a half-stroke higher than any Wegmans event I have on record. Kerr averaged nearly seven shots better than that.
Ai Miyazato's place atop the Rolex Rankings lasted only one week but it wasn't due to lack of effort. After a 76 on Thursday, she played the final three rounds in -9 and came up short of retaining #1 by two shots. The races for the top spot and Player of the Year are hardly over, not with the U.S. Open in two weeks and a half-dozen players in prime position.
Azahara Munoz slumped to a 75 on Sunday and finished T11 but that was good enough to take over the lead in the Rolex Rookie points race. Munoz now leads Amanda Blumenherst 309 to 237, with Gwladys Nocera a distant third at 119.
Jimin Kang couldn't hang with the Kerr steamroller on Sunday (who could?) but she held on to finish tied for seventh, her first Top 10 since last year's Kraft Nabisco. For that, Jimin earns this week's Big Surprise Award. Jiyai Shin finishing in the Top 5 is never a surprise, but doing it two weeks after an appendectomy is just astounding. She's my early favorite to win the U.S. Open. The Big Disappointment goes to Na Yeon Choi, who <gasp!> missed the cut. She failed to extend her streak of 63 consecutive made cuts by only one shot.
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LPGA Championship
Not too many people realize how difficult Locust Hill CC played during the week. The greens where fast, undulating and treacherous, the primary rough was long and wet, if you hit into the huge mature trees lining the fairways just add a stroke to your card. It was lift clean and place all week if you happened to land in the short grass. The gals who stayed in the fairways had a chance of shooting par or better. However, the golf clinic that Cristie Kerr put on for the four days was nothing short of remarkable. I have a new found respect for these ladies, they are very special athletes in my book.
I also thought it was a class act that Natalie Gulbis stayed in town to congratulate Cristie on the 18th gree.
Christina Kim quoted on her twitter page-
Where’s the next planet beyond “the zone?” That’s where Cristie Kerr landed this past week. Lord, what a performance.
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