RICOH Women's British Open - Epilogue

Amazing.  Yani Tseng has now won five major championships - four in her last eight tries - and is the youngest player in golf history (by two years) to reach that total.  Her Hall of Fame points total is now 15 - twelve short of qualification and only one behind Cristie Kerr, who is eleven years her senior.  Yani has three years and one month remaining to beat Karrie Webb's record as youngest ever Hall of Fame qualifier.  She has all but locked up Player of the Year honors with her two majors and four total victories in 2011, and has nearly a full stroke lead in the race for the Vare Trophy.  So if you concede her those two points, her chances of cracking 20 before the end of the year are very real.  Just a year ago I asked the question of who had the best HOF chance, Yani or Jiyai Shin.  While Shin is still in great position with nine points, Tseng is a lock.

Yani started the day two shots behind LET rookie Caroline Masson.  She missed a par putt at 1 to fall three behind but Masson let her back in quickly with bogeys at 2 and 3.  Tseng's birdie at 3 created a tie for the lead and she birdied 6 to take the lead for herself.  Masson bogeyed 7 to fall two back and then collapsed after the turn, starting the back nine bogey-bogey-double.  She wound up tied for fifth, seven shots behind.  Tseng birdied 11 to reach -15 and a four-shot lead but immediately stumbled, missing a short par putt at 12 and getting incredibly unlucky at 13.  Her tee shot hit the pin and bounced off the green.  Standing in a bunker, she chipped up and burned the hole but the ball rolled about 12 feet past.  The second straight bogey trimmed her lead to two.  Up ahead Catriona Matthew had a makeable birdie putt at 14 which would have moved her to within one, but she missed.  That seemed to be the last hurrah as Yani birdied both of the remaining par fives (14 and 17) and capped it off with birdie at 18 to finish on top by four.

There were a few comments during the week about how the course setup made fabled Carnoustie a bit too easy on the ladies and the scoring backed up those sentiments.  The average of 72.70 was the second-lowest for a British Open I have recorded and by far the lowest for any WBO not contested at Sunningdale.  The average was nearly 1.5 shots lower than last year's event at Royal Birkdale.

It was nice to see Brittany Lang make a Sunday run.  Her final round 67 bumped her up to solo second place, matching her career best finish in a major (2005 U.S. Open).  Even though it seems Brittany hasn't been doing much lately, she did already have two Top 10s on the season.  So for that reason, I'm going to award the Big Surprise to Caroline Masson.  She led after both the second and third rounds and despite her final round 78, she still finished T5.  All this in a major championship during her LET rookie season - well done.

Ai Miyazato gets the Big Disappointment by missing the cut one week after winning at Evian.  In case you didn't know, Ai is now the reluctant owner of the title Best Player Without a Major.  Her record in majors isn't too shabby - nine Top 10s in six years (23 starts).  In fact, her record is about the same as Paula Creamer's was prior to winning the 2010 U.S. Open.  Since I felt certain that Paula would eventually break through, I have the same opinion of Ai.