Sunrise LPGA Taiwan Championship - Epilogue

No, I'm not surprised.  As commenter Fanslaststand said, "Yani's home soil is anywhere grass grows".  Yani Tseng's seventh LPGA victory of the year was her sixth win in her last twelve starts.  Having clinched the Player of the Year award prior to this event, she now has 19 Hall of Fame points with another one via the Vare Trophy all but in her pocket.

Tseng started the final round with a two-shot lead over Anna Nordqvist.  After both players birdied 2, Nordqvist birdied 4 to get within one.  It didn't stay tight for long - Yani ran off three straight birdies at 6, 7 and 8 to go up by three.  Anna hung on with a birdie of her own at 8 and another at 9 to make the turn down by two, but bogeys at 10 and 11 killed her chances.  Azahara Munoz went out in 32 to get within three shots but she stalled out on the back.  With no late pressure from the competition, Tseng cruised along with pars until she iced the cake with birdies at 16 and 18 to win by five shots.

Munoz is certainly enjoying her Asian experience.  She followed up last week's solo third with a tie for second, the first back-to-back Top 5s of her career.  Aza has definitely broken out of her sophomore slump (only one Top 10 in her first 18 events this year) in a big way.  Amy Yang shot a final-round 67 to grab a share of second place, her second runner-up this season (solo second at Arkansas).

Limited field events often make it tougher to pick out a Big Surprise.  Since both players collected only their second Top 10 of the year, I'm going to split the award between Katie Futcher (sixth) and Hee-Won Han (tenth).  I'd also like to give a Shout-Out to Wendy Ward, who barely missed her second Top 10 of the year.  The Big Disappointment is Brittany Lang, who finished +9 T54 after coming in at #4 on this week's Hot 20 list.