LPGA Update

The next event on the schedule was the Longs Drugs Challenge, contested from September 21- 24. This event has changed venue multiple times since Se Ri won it back in 2001 (pictured). The Koreans have had some success at some of the venues. One year, Se Ri, Grace and Jung Yeon Lee all tied for second; another year, Hee-Won Han nearly won it, but hitting her ball into a golf cart on the final hole did her in. This year, the event moved to the Blackhawk Country Club in Danville, California. Whereas the event had been in the Sacramento area the previous years, it now moved to the Bay area. It was a very strong field, too, with 18 of the top 20 players on the money list (and all of the top ten) present and accounted for. Included in the field were several Koreans making a long awaited return to action.

Both Jimin Kang and Grace Park had not seen action on the LPGA tour since the LPGA Championship back in June. Grace had played the previous week in Korea and notched an 11th place finish, but for Jimin, it was her first golf of any sort since June. In addition, Se Ri Pak was also returning to action for the first time in several weeks.

Grace, alas, did not have a very good run. In the first round, she was never able to get herself together, and wound up shooting a 4 over par 76. Things got even worse in round two, which saw Grace plummet to a miserable 8 over par 80. Needless to say, she missed the cut by quite a lot. But with all the injuries she's had this year, it was just nice to see her playing at all.

Se Ri did quite a bit better. She has also struggled with injuries in 2006, though not as badly as Grace. She had a reasonably good return to action in round one, carding two bogies and a birdie for a 73. Her second round was quite a bit better. The conditions were actually quite tricky on this day, and there were not many low rounds. She shot a 2 under par 70, quite solid all things considering. That moved her into a tie for 21st, just 6 shots out of the lead.

Jimin had the most impressive comeback of all, at least at first. She produced a 3 under par 69 in round one, which elevated her to 7th on the leaderboard. After her round, she revealed to the Golf Channel interviewers what had happened to her. At the LPGA Championship, she had noticed that her foot was swollen and in pain. At first, she believed she had been stung by a bee. She played well in round one there despite having trouble walking. Before round two, however, her foot had become so swollen that she could barely put her shoe on. It became pretty clear before her round got too old that she couldn't continue. Later, the doctors discovered the real reason for her pain: she had a hairline fracture in her foot. She was forced to sit out for several weeks to let it heal. Although there was not much time left in the season, she wanted to try and make do as best she could, aiming for a full recovery in time for 2007.

The best performance on day one by any of the Koreans was turned in by Jeong Jang. JJ just smoked the course, all the more surprising considering none of the golfers had ever seen it before, and it was full of tricky undulations and massive elevation changes. She wound up shooting a blistering 8 under par 64, by far the best round of the day (the next best was Karrie Webb's 67). She made 8 birdies and no bogies, and had some wonderful par saves besides. A good example of the latter came on the par 3 16th. On this hole the ladies hit off what appeared to be a cliff to a green more than a hundred feet below them. Just hitting the green was a challenge, but once there, the undulations made this a killer hole. JJ in fact left the ball short of the green, but hit a nice chip to five feet, then drained the par save to keep her round flawless. She then finished with birdies on the final two holes. Her course record would stand up all week as the best round of the tournament.

One other player deserves mentioning, and that is Mi Hyun Kim. Kimmie has also had to deal with injuries the past few months (what is it with Koreans and injuries?). She started off the first round in about as terrible a way as you can imagine, with back to back double bogies. But she showed what a fighter she was by making a birdie on the third hole, a bogey on 4, then two more birdies on the front nine to go out in 2 over. On the back nine, she collected four birdies and no bogies, and wound up her day with a two under 70. A pretty amazing result considering her start.

In round two, as mentioned previously, the conditions got much worse. Weirdly, some players thrived and played better on this day, like Se Ri. Karrie Webb did not play better than day one, but she did shoot two under to move to 7 under total. JJ, who started the day with a three shot lead, struggled. But she hung in there, and by the end of the day was only one over in her round and 7 under total. Webb had erased her lead, but she still was tied at the top of the leaderboard and in good shape heading into the weekend.

But no other Korean was similarly situated. The slump continued for the ladies, with the next highest ranked players being Il Mi Chung, Kimmie and Jimin Kang, all tied for 15th at 2 under. Still, that was only five shots back; surely a couple of those talented ladies could make a weekend move?

Unfortunately, the script for this tournament unfolded pretty much the same way as it had the previous weeks. This time it was Karrie Webb who staked out a lead on the crowd, shooting her lowest round yet, a 6 under 66. This gave her a five shot lead over the field. Kimmie did decently, moving to 7 under after her own 67, but she still had six shots to make up on Webb. Jimin Kang and Il Mi Chung also played well. Kang produced a 4 under par 68, while Chung shot 69. But JJ continued to struggle, and this time she was not able to hang in there as she had on Friday. She shot a 2 over par 74 to slide to 5 under, now 8 shots off the leading pace. Hard to believe she had had a three shot lead just two days earlier. In any event, although there were Koreans on the leaderboard, no one was anywhere close to the leader. Once again, it looked unlikely that a Korean player would be hoisting the trophy on Sunday.

And, indeed, the tournament wound up being a battle between Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb. Webb held Sorenstam off with a 2 under par 70 and 15 under total. The best a Korean could do was tied for 4th. Kimmie shot a 3 under 69 to finish at 10 under. Her day had one great highlight: on the par 3 16th, she had left her ball over on the left in the rough. She hit a masterful chip from there, brilliantly using the slope of the hill to curl the ball right into the cup for a most unlikely birdie.

Another player who produced good results was Il Mi Chung. The Smile Queen continues to improve in America; she finished top 40 on the money list for the first time in her career and secured herself a two year exemption as a result. She went out strong on Sunday, shooting two under on the front nine, then making three straight birdies from 10 - 12 to move to 10 under total. It looked like she might even conceivably make a move on the leaders, but she would not make another birdie after that and finished with bogies on two of her final three holes. Her 8 under total was good enough for solo 9th.

At the start of the day, Sarah Lee and Se Ri Pak were tied for 20th. It had been a while since either lady had made a top ten. Lee, however, played well on this day, while Se Ri struggled mightily. It's not clear if Pak was injured, but she did drop out of her next event, indicating that something might have gone wrong. After three solid rounds, she produced a 78 on Sunday to slide to 50th. Lee, meanwhile, shot a 5 under par 67 and wound up 10th. Jimin Kang hung on for a 16th place finish, a great result coming back from her injury, while JJ, alas, fell all the way to 21st after a third straight over par round. At least she could be happy that her course record remained intact the whole week; no one else matched or beat it. But obviously, a win would have been far more satisfying.