ShopRite LPGA Classic - Epilogue

Brittany Lincicome had not won since the 2009 Kraft Nabisco Championship but since that time she had maintained a presence inside the HD Top 30 by collecting ten Top 10 finishes, five of them Top 5s.  Three times in that span she finished runner-up, most recently at the Founders Cup.  This course wasn't one which really suited her talents (both The Constructivist and I thought that less accurate players would have trouble this week) but Brittany once again showed that she's got the game to win just about anytime she tees it up.

Former Tour player A.J. Eathorne was on the winning bag this week, the second time she's looped for Brittany this year (Sybase).  As I understand it, caddies usually earn a flat fee plus some percentage (8-10%) of the week's check.  If A.J. took home 10%, the $22,500 was her biggest LPGA check since she finished 14^th at the 2007 Wegmans and earned $25,656.

The recent changes to the Bay Course plus some difficult Saturday winds made for the highest scoring here dating back to at least 2004.  That development put a whupping on my pre-tourney prediction.  Even so, the average of 72.97 lowered the 2011 seasonal average slightly to 73.48.

When I discovered that the final groups would not tee off Sunday until 3pm, I was surprised - mainly because the Golf Channel coverage was scheduled until 7pm and four hours is never enough time to complete an LPGA round.  Sure enough, the final putt didn't drop until almost 7:30 and the final 30 minutes kept getting chopped up by GC cutting over to the weather-delayed PGA event (c'mon people, Stricker was up three with five holes to play - not exactly a nail-biter).  I don't know if there was some kind of weather delay to start the day but they usually switch to threesomes when that happens.  It's a head-scratcher to me.

Last week's post on Holding The Lead showed Cristie Kerr as having a good record holding on to Sunday leads (5 of 8 with a score of 5.88) but certainly not perfect.  She began the final round with a one-shot lead and failed to win so she falls to 5 of 9 (.556) with a score of 5.56.  The similarity of her ratio and scores are purely coincidental and entirely in keeping with yesterday's weird happenings.

The selective memory of TV commentators astounds me sometimes.  After her tribulations going into the turn, Kerr played an excellent tee shot to 11 (she wound up missing the six-footer for birdie) which prompted Phil Parkin to say that she is "one of the best match players in the world".  Funny how one week's success (I'll cede the debate that second place at Sybase qualifies as such) can obliterate a player's overall losing record in Solheim play and otherwise indifferent results in LPGA match events.  Kerr's a great player with a terrific resume - there's no need to start making up shit, guys.

Cindy LaCrosse (I think that's spelled right, but I've seen it as "Lacrosse" as well) came within a whisker of grabbing her first LPGA Top 10 this week.  The T11 finish beat her previous best of T29 at last October's Navistar Classic and earns Cindy the Big Surprise Award.   Quite a few players missed their first cut of 2011 this week - Morgan Pressel, Song-Hee Kim, Shanshan Feng and Sun Young Yoo for example.  The one that really shocked me was Stacy Lewis, who despite playing so well coming in missed the cut by three shots.  Stacy takes the Big Disappointment hands down.