Sei Young Kim on What She Expects Today

Sei Young Kim goes into Sunday's final round at the ANA Inspiration with a 3-shot lead... but we haven't heard much from her because she doesn't speak much English. LPGA.com posted part of her post-round interview (with her interpreter) and I thought you might be interested to hear what she expects today.



I think it's interesting that she doesn't believe her ability to win in playoffs -- as I said yesterday, she's won 5 of her 6 victories (including her LPGA win) that way -- gives her an advantage when playing with the lead.  I would think it shows that she handles pressure well. Being nervous because she's leading her first major sounds normal to me though.

BTW, did you catch when they flashed up her stats for the 3rd round? She hit 10/14 fairways, 12/18 greens and took only 27 putts... and that was including the section in the middle of her round when she was a bit wobbly.

Also interesting is that Sei Young lists the victories by Grace Park and Stacy Lewis as two of her most vivid memories of this event, and when describing Stacy she says "she’s just a dominating force out there." I find that interesting because Stacy says (in the third-round summary on LPGA.com) this about the young Koreans we're seeing win so often:

“We knew they [the young Koreans] were coming. Inbee and some of the girls were kind of telling us that there were some young Koreans coming that were pretty good. We didn’t really know what to expect, but they’ve been there. You can tell they’ve got a lot of experience from playing in Korea, and they know how to win. They know how to putt, which is most important, and I mean, they’re impressive.”

And about Hyo Joo Kim -- who beat her a couple of weeks back -- Stacy said:

“I threw everything I had at her in Phoenix and she kept responding by making putts and hitting shots. They’re not scared, not scared at all.”

So this could be a very interesting final round. Both players clearly expect the other to make a move, and both are aware that this could go either way.

But will Sei Young and Stacy get so caught up playing each other that they forget the formidable field just a few strokes back? Although the weathermen have rarely been right this week, they're predicting some strong winds for later today. Judy Rankin could be right -- someone might post a good score early and make the leaders very nervous coming down the stretch.

Unfortunately, we don't know what Sei Young Kim thinks about that. But I think that just might put her in chase mode... and we do know what she thinks when she's chasing.

It's just a guess but I'm sure that's not what the rest of the field wants her to be thinking!

The final round broadcast starts at 5pm ET on GC.