2007 Michelob Ultra Open: Lee For All

On Friday, the first test was whether Sarah Lee would be able to follow up her great opening round with another one. She answered that questioned resoundingly. She shot 3 under par 68 on day two to move to 11 under total and a two shot lead by the end of the day. Everything was going well for the player formerly known as Jung Yeon. Her drives were solid, her irons accurate, and her putting was on line. Was Lee finally going to break through and get her first ever win?

Things were not going so well for Mi Hyun Kim, however. After five great rounds of golf in a row, she finally hit the wall on this day. Her putts were not going in the hole, but what really sunk her was her tee shot on 18. This hole has a massive water carry and a dogleg left. For very long players, it is possible on some days to fly the doglegs and a set of bunkers on the left side of the fairway and gain significant distance. But most players need to go to the right to avoid the hazard entirely; Kimmie, being fairly short off the tee, is one such player. Alas, her tee shot went left and wound up in the rough perched on a treacherous hillside. She walked off the hole eventually with a double bogey en route to a 4 over par 75. Though she was still in the top 20 after this day, she would not seriously challenge for the title again. Birdie Kim, too, would not duplicate her success of day one, although she did decently enough on day two with a 72. She would eventually finish the event tied for 49th.

A couple of players vaulted themselves into contention on this day. Jimin Kang has been having a solid season in 2007, and she added to that with a 6 under par 66 on Friday to move to 6 under total and a tie for 4th. Rookie In-Kyung Kim has been trying to emerge from the shadow of leading rookie Angela Park all season, and took a step in that direction with a 68 on day two and a 5 under par total.

But halfway through the tournament, Sarah Lee was by far the dominant Lee on the leaderboard. Meena Lee was playing well at 4 under, Jee Young Lee had an even par round on Friday to remain at 3 under, and Seon Hwa Lee was tied for 51st at even par total. But all the Lees would make a lot of noise come the weekend.

The Lee who made the biggest Leep up the Leederboard (OK, enough puns!) on day three was Jee Young (pictured). Jee Young is primarily known for two things: her near constant smile, and her prodigious distance off the tee (she is without a doubt the longest driver among all the Korean golfers, and at times the longest in the entire LPGA). Both of these elements were working overtime on this day. She started her day with two straight birdies and hardly let up after that. In the end, she racked up eight birdies, no mistakes, and an 8 under par 63 that tied her for the tournament record that Sarah Lee had also tied two days earlier. The result was that Jee Young sat atop the leaderboard at 11 under par, while Sarah scrambled to catch her.

It was not easy, for Sarah was having a decidedly weaker round on Saturday than in her first two days. She started the day with a bogey, although she neutralized that with a birdie soon after. But the rest of her front nine was pars, so she finished that stretch still at 11 under. Two bogies early on the back nine dropped her to nine under par and two shots behind the recently finished Jee Young. Sarah made a birdie on the final par 5 to move back to 10 under, but was not able to catch Jee Young before she ran out of holes. Thus, she finished the day at 10 under, all by herself in second place. The two good friends and fellow Golf Maniac Group members would be paired together in the final round on Sunday, both looking for their first LPGA win on American soil (and for Sarah, first LPGA win period).

But the success was not over for the GMG or its members with the name of Lee. Meena Lee posted her third solid round of the event, a 3 under par 68, to move to 7 under total and a tie for third. In fact, at one point she even made it to 8 under before a late bogey knocked her back. And then there was Seon Hwa Lee, who posted the second best round for a Lee on this day: a 6 under par 66 that vaulted her into a tie for 8th at 6 under total. So, at the end of the day on Saturday, the leaderboard was truly incredible, with four players named Lee among the top ten in the tournament. Truly, this was an unprecedented result on the LPGA tour.

With both Sarah and Jee Young having a three shot advantage over everyone else in the field, it looked as though the tournament would come down to a battle between these two close friends. But as sometimes happens, the weather threw a wrench into the works. For the first three days, the weather had been extremely benign, and scoring had been good. On the final day, the wind returned with a vengeance, and every hole was playing very differently than it had the rest of the week. Interestingly, the last time Sarah Lee had been in a position to win a tournament, the exact same thing had happened. She and Aree Song were well ahead of the rest of the field at the Safeway International in 2006 thanks to low scoring on the first three days. But on the final day, the weather changed, becoming much windier, and neither player could cope with it. Juli Inkster wound up charging from behind, shooting a low score, and beating both of them to the win.

And unfortunately, much like at the Safeway, both Lees struggled in the weather on this day, while a player charged from behind to give them grief. That player was Norwegian golfer Suzann Pettersen, who had almost won the Nabisco Championship in March before a late day meltdown cost her the crown. On this day, Pettersen, who plays well in windy conditions, moved up the leaderboard, dunking a long birdie on the 11th (?) hole to move to 10 under and right in the thick of things. Sarah Lee, meanwhile, was having all sorts of trouble. After her round on Saturday, she told the press that her problems stemmed from playing too conservatively, and that she intended to play much more aggressively on Sunday. However, the far trickier conditions forced her to change that plan, and as a result, she was tentative much of the day. Many of her putts stopped short of the hole, and she had nowhere near as many good looks at birdie as she had had the first three days.

Sarah had pars on her first three holes, but bogies on four and five knocked her back to 8 under par. She birdied the par 5 7th, but another bogey on 9 meant she was two over on the front. In the same stretch, Meena Lee had a meltdown. Starting the day just four shots back, she never was able to get anything going on Sunday and wound up shooting a 9 over par 80 to finish in a tie for 29th. Seon Hwa Lee, the fourth Lee in the top 8 to start the day, also struggled, but to a far lesser degree. She shot a 2 over par 73 and wound up tied for 8th.

Jee Young was the sole contending Lee who was still playing solidly, although she was also nowhere near the blistering pace of the day before. She was even par on the front nine after two bogies and two birdies, and thus still had a one shot lead over Pettersen, but she missed a fairly easy short par save on 10 to fall back to 10 under and a tie for the lead with the Norwegian. On the back nine, the tournament would come down to a battle between these two, with Sarah Lee hanging in there hoping to steal back into the lead.

Jee Young was starting to struggle a bit more, but she was hanging in there for pars. On 12 she scrambled to save par when she overshot the green. She also missed the green on 13 but again got it up and down, sinking a four foot par save in the process. On that same hole, Sarah had a fifteen footer for birdie, but missed. Pettersen, a hole ahead, then narrowly missed her own birdie try. She was having little problem making par, but the birdie putts were no longer falling for her.

A key hole was the par 4 14th. Jee Young put her drive well to the right, into some very deep rough. She also had trees to worry about. Somehow she got her approach out of that mess, but missed the fairway in the process. Her third shot got to within fifteen feet of the flag, but from there she two putted for bogey. For the first time all week, a player named Lee was not at the top of the leaderboard. Sarah, meanwhile, had her chance for a two shot swing: her birdie try was only about eight feet long. But she missed it, again not hitting it with enough force, and a golden chance to tie Jee Young and move within one shot of Pettersen fell by the wayside.