Evian Masters - Epilogue

Ai Miyazato's win yesterday was her second in three years at the Evian Masters and was the seventh of her LPGA career.  She has now won in three consecutive seasons - the only players with streaks currently longer are Cristie Kerr with seven (yet to win in 2011) and Yani Tseng with four (three wins in 2011).  Jiyai Shin and In-Kyung Kim have won in three straight seasons and both need to win during the second half of the schedule to make it four straight.

By the end of Sunday's front nine, Miyazato looked to be running away with it.  She had birdied 3, 6 and 8 to open up a four-shot lead.  A two-shot swing at 12 with playing partner Ran Hong cut the lead to one but the roles reversed at 13 when Ai birdied and Ran bogeyed.  Up three with only five to play, Miyazato promptly bogeyed 14.  When Stacy Lewis birdied 15, she was now within one.  Stacy's bogey at 16 all but ruined her hopes, however.  Ai parred the final four holes to win by two.

The scoring average at Evian was 72.07, a little better than usual but not quite as good as the 2008 and 2009 editions.  The wet conditions allowed for lift-clean-place rules most (all?) of the four days.  The winning score of -15 was not among the top four scores here over the previous 11 years.

Cristie Kerr entered the final round tied for eighth and only four shots back, primed to make a run at her sixth straight Top 5.  She took a 75 - her worst round since opening with 76 at Avnet, the last event she did not finish Top 5 - and ended up T21, nine shots behind.

Song-Hee Kim also had Sunday woes, shooting 76 to finish T50.  She has played all 12 events so far this year with just one Top 10 (second at Avnet) and one other Top 20 (T11 at HSBC).  In her other ten starts, Song-Hee's best finish is T32 and she's missed three cuts.  She's broken 70 exactly three times in 37 rounds after coming in second on Tour in that category last year with 35 in 77 attempts.  This from a player who finished 2010 as #8 in my rankings.

It was an enjoyable week for the The Constructivist (anytime Ai-chan wins makes it so) and through 63 holes he looked positively clairvoyant.  He selected Caroline Hedwall in the PakPicker and she was in third place entering the back nine.  Four bogeys later, she was forced to settle for T12 (which still nets TC some PakPicker points) but still walked away with this week's Big Surprise Award.  The Big Disappointment is a difficult choice (could have gone with Juli Inkster or Hee Kyung Seo) but I finally decided on Michelle Wie, who missed the cut by four shots.