Magazine 2006 Corning Classic

Volume 4, Number 4, June 21, 2006

2006 Corning Classic

Pages 1, 2, 3, Gallery, Results

Yet another tournament winds up as an overtime battle of the Koreans

Hee-Won Han is a streaky player. One of the top ten golfers in the world since 2003, she nonetheless seems to accumulate her best results in bunches. She'll have a tendency to play a few events in a row without doing all that well, then suddenly she'll go on a tear and produce one great tournament after another. Then just as suddenly, she'll cool down again. Coming into this year's Corning Classic, Hee-Won was in the midst of another one of her patented hot streaks. In her previous six events, she had five top tens. Her last four results had been two fifth place finishes followed by two second place finishes. She seemed primed to win.

The Corning Classic is the kind of event that is a dying breed on the LPGA tour. Once upon a time, the tour was full of these kind of events: a smaller market tournament that attracts huge crowds because the locals treat it as one of the big events of the year. These days, there are more events taking place in bigger markets, but those events often get lost in the din of all the other things going on in those towns that week.

Last year, the Corning Classic was the jumping off point for the Koreans. Up until that event, no Korean had won on the LPGA tour in 2005, and only once had they really seriously contended: the previous week, at the Sybase Classic. But there, despite numerous Seoul Sisters in contention all week, it was American rookie Paula Creamer who ended up walking away with the trophy. At Corning, the big news coming into the week was the appearance of Annika Sorenstam. Annika had only rarely made the trip to play in Corning, and she was in the midst of a scintillating start to her season that saw her win all but one event she had played to date. But she was a bit under the weather in Corning, and several players took advantage. With only a few holes to play on Sunday, Sorenstam still had a shot to win it, but the leaders were two Korean women. One was Jimin Kang, who had gained her exempt card by winning the Futures Tour money list in 2004. But she had never even come close to winning an LPGA event, so this was new territory for her. The other one was Meena Lee, a rookie who had struggled mightily, missing more cuts to that point than she had made. Kang stumbled and it looked like Lee would win the tournament. But then they reached the par 3 15th hole. Jimin teed off and watched as her ball found the hole for a hole in one! She jumped for joy, her incredible reaction one of the most unforgettable images of the 2005 season. But Lee did not give up, and the two slugged it out until the 18th hole. There Meena hit a terrible drive and struggled to a double bogey, allowing Jimin to capture her first and still only LPGA victory. In some ways this event was more of a boon for Meena Lee than Jimin. It really jump started her season. She would go on to finish second again a couple months later at the World Match Play championship before finally collecting a win at the Canadian Women's Open.

Annika skipped the event this year, but another Hall of Famer (to be) who has never before played in Corning made her debut appearance this year. Se Ri Pak, coming off her season of disarray in 2005, had been making steady progress in her comeback all year. Se Ri got off to a solid start on Thursday. Her biggest problem during her slump had been her inability to hit fairways consistently. In 2005, she had been dead last in driving accuracy in the league. But in 2006, she had turned that around. Though she started slowly and struggled a bit in this department early in the year, the last few events leading up to Corning, she had been doing far better off the tee. She continued the trend here by hitting 11 fairways out of 14 in round 1, and an impressive 15 of 18 greens. Despite her excellence tee to green, she was only able to shoot one under par, thanks to extreme inconsistency with her putter. Her putter would haunt her for much of the rest of the week, but she had more solid golf in store nonetheless.

After the first day, two players were tied for the lead. One was American Nancy Scranton. The other was Meena Lee, the previous year's runner up. Clearly she loves this course, as she shot a 7 under par 65 on this day. Among those who shot a 66 were the aforementioned Hee-Won Han, continuing her blazing hot play of late, and Jeong Jang, another star who had been warming up in the past few weeks. The Thai rookie Virada Nirapathpongporn and the American golfer Brandie Burton were also at 6 under. Mi Hyun Kim was among those at 4 under, while Seon Hwa Lee was at 2 under. Despite shooting under par, Se Ri Pak found herself tied for 42nd after the first day was done.

In round two, Se Ri really got her game going. She moved to a 4 under total after hitting an awesome tee shot on the 15th hole to 5 feet, then draining the birdie. Se Ri ended up moving to 6 under after shooting a 5 under par 67, her best score of the season. Besides finally getting her putter working, she had her long game firing on all cylinders as well. She actually hit fewer fairways and greens on day two than she had on the first day, 10 fairways and 10 greens compared with the 11 fairways and 15 greens she had produced on Thursday. But the big difference in her game was her putting: she took only 24 putts on Friday, compared to 30 on Thursday. By the time the round was done, she sat in a tie for 14th, well positioned for her second top ten of the year.

Hee-Won Han was not as solid as she had been on the first day, but she still managed a 2 under par 70 to move to 8 under for the event. Meena had a somewhat up and down round, and wound up shooting an even par round to finish at 7 under par and a tie for 8th. Aram Cho continued to take great advantage of her Monday qualification spot by shooting a 70 to move to 5 under, within the top 20. She had a great chance to put together a solid finish. Mi Hyun Kim also finished at 5 under. Seon Hwa Lee struggled to a one over par total for the day, 2 under for the tournament. One player who did quite well was Soo-Yun Kang. Kang had seemed to be on the verge of a breakout season in 2006, following a marvelous end to her 2005 season that saw her collecting her first tour win and two more second place finishes. But 2006 had been a big disappointment for her, with not even a single top ten to show for her efforts to date. After shooting an even par round on Thursday, she rebounded with a solid 3 under par 69 on Friday. It was not enough to move her into contention, but it put her well under the cut line and probably provided her a little encouragement that better times were to come.

The strongest Korean on day two was Jeong Jang. JJ had put herself into contention on day one with her 6 under par start, and on day two she continued her momentum, shooting a 3 under par 69 to put herself at 9 under total. That still wasn't enough to take the lead, though. The surprise leader after two rounds was Thai rookie Virada Nirapathpongporn, who was at 11 under. Virada had not done a lot in 2006 so far, but now was on her way to potentially her first tour win. In second were Brandie Burton and Nancy Scranton at 10 under, with JJ two shots back tied for 4th and Han a shot behind her.

In round three, Seon Hwa Lee, playing early, rebounded nicely from her lackluster Friday round. She carded a 6 under par 66 to move all the way to 8 under. Although a win seemed unlikely, she had put herself in position for yet another top 20. It seemed like you could never keep this super talented rookie down too long.

Se Ri was not so successful on the weekend as she had been the first two days, but she didn't play terribly, either. Her long game continued to be sharp, with 17/28 fairways hit on the final two days, and 23/36 greens. But her putting let her down; afterwards, she would complain about her inability to make a putt through most of this event. Her scores ended up being a one over par 73 on Saturday and an even par 72 on Sunday. Not too great, but not awful by any means. If her biggest problem was an occasionally cold putter, and it seemed like it now was her only real problem, then her comeback was doing much better than she could have hoped for.

The players who really made a charge on Saturday were the three Koreans who had been playing well all week: Meena Lee, Hee-Won Han and Jeong Jang. JJ got out to a fantastic start by birdieing holes 3, 4, and 5 to move into a tie for the lead at 12 under. A short time later she made a 6 foot birdie to take the outright lead at 13 under. Hee-Won, meanwhile, moved to 9 under after a fifteen foot birdie on the 9th hole. But JJ was not letting anyone have any breathing room. On 11, she put her tee shot just six feet from the hole and drained that birdie to move to 14 under, a two shot lead. Moments later, Brandie Burton made a long birdie putt on 12 to move to 13 under, within one of JJ.

On 13, JJ hit a perfect drive, then a superlative approach to 4 feet. She drained that birdie to move to 15 under, again establishing a two shot lead. And she wasn't done yet. On the par 5 14th, which involves a shot over water to the green, she laid up her approach, hit her wedge 15 feet over the flag, then nailed a tricky downhill birdie putt to climb to 16 under. With Burton bogeying the 10th, JJ now had a four shot lead with several more holes to play. It looked as if she might run away with the tournament.