Women's British Open - Epilogue

Yani Tseng's second major championship of 2010 moves her into the #1 spot on the Hound Dog chart (I'll have the full updated list posted in a day or two), a few slim points ahead of Jiyai Shin, Ai Miyazato and Cristie Kerr.  With Na Yeon Choi and even the winless Suzann Pettersen and Song-Hee Kim lurking in the vicinity, we have seven rock-solid contenders for Player of the Year.  While we're at it, don't count out Paula Creamer, Inbee Park and Morgan Pressel just yet.  Yani is the first player to win multiple majors in the same calendar year since Annika Sorenstam in 2005, and she now has seven Hall of Fame points at the age of 21.  Whose chances do you like better on reaching the Hall - Tseng or Shin?

Not to take anything away from Yani's win yesterday, but she needed every one of those four shots she was leading by as she began the back nine.  Her putting got very erratic and I've never seen her back off of as many shots as she did over the last several holes.  Had Katherine Hull's chip at 18 been reasonably good or had her putt from off the green at 17 been a little less hot, the outcome would have probably been different.

Brent Kelley pointed out (thanks for the link, Bill) that Patty Berg technically won her third "major" at a younger age than Tseng.  I agree with Brent that treating the old Titleholders Championships as equals to the current majors would be a mistake and that Yani deserves that recognition.  Let Berg's feat go on a list of youngest tournament winners but please don't insist that a women's event in 1939 warrants the same consideration as the 2010 WBO.

Despite having two players finish double digits under par, Royal Birkdale played ‘em tough this week with the average score clocking in at 74.26.  Only 16 players finished the event under par and only In-Kyung Kim avoided carding at least one round over par.  Somehow Inky accomplished that playing in the worst weather of the week (Friday late afternoon) and the second worst weather of the week (Thursday morning).

One of my preseason predictions bit the dust Sunday (depending on how you look at it, it might have died when Tseng and Kerr won the first two majors of the year).  With three of 2010's four major championships having been won by prior champions, the trend of first-time major champions definitely did not continue.  At least my Paula Creamer prediction was right!

Since virtually everyone in this week's Top 10 is a Top 40 player, I had to go a little farther to pick out a Big Surprise.  It's rookie Maria Hernandez, whose T14 is easily her best finish as an LPGA member.  Her previous best was T41 at the U.S. Open and she had missed the cut six times in nine starts before Thursday.  From my perspective, picking a Big Disappointment is rather difficult too.  So this time I'll think like a Brit and be disappointed in defending champ Catriona Matthew, who missed the cut by seven shots.

We now enter the dog days of the LPGA schedule.  Over the next eight weeks only three events are on the card.  The next two weeks are off, then the Safeway Classic and Canadian Open, another off week on Labor Day weekend, Arkansas and two more off-weeks following that.