Around the wider world of golf: Paul Broadhurst won the PGA TOUR Champions' Nature Valley First Tee Open on the Champions Tour (Michael Allen and Patrick Fernandez won the team title); Francesco Molinari won the Italian Open (his second!) on the ET; Michael Thompson won the Albertsons Boise Open at the Web.com Tour Finals (and yes, Andrew "Beef" Johnston won enough money to secure his Tour card); Brendan Jones won the ANA Open Golf Tournament on the Japan Golf Tour; Paul Barjon won the Freedom 55 Financial Championship on the Mackenzie Tour - PGA TOUR Canada; Nate Lashley won the Copa Diners Club International on the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica; Charlie Saxon won the Ping An Bank Open on the PGA TOUR China; and Christine Song won the Garden City Charity Classic on the Symetra Tour.
Lydia Ko won the Rolex Annika Major Trophy... but she didn't even sniff the lead at the Evian Championship. Neither did Brooke Henderson, Ariya Jutanugarn or Brittany Lang, the other major winners this season.
In fact, if it hadn't been for all the damp weather, most of the field wouldn't have had any sniffs at all.
In Gee Chun won this event on Saturday. Nobody else got close to her new 54-hole record of -19 (Annika held that record and In Gee smashed it by FIVE STROKES). In fact, nobody got close to her on much of anything. She even beat the men's major scoring record by a stroke. If you're interested in all the records she either tied or broke this past week, just check out his summary article from LPGA.com.
Only So Yeon Ryu really made a run at her, but her 66 came up four shots short. (Yeah, I know that Sung Hyun Park tied Ryu for second, but if Ryu could rack up a -5 in those conditions, it seems that a long hitter like Park should have been able to muster something better than a 69.) When all was said and done, no one else was within six shots of Chun.
When she checks the Rolex Rankings this morning, In Gee Chun will find herself at #3, the highest-ranked Korean player on the planet. But not even that can compare with getting a Limerick Summary. After all, it's not every week that I get to do one for an LPGA winner!
No, the rain couldn't stop In Gee Chun—The photo came from this page at LPGA.com.
In just three rounds, the battle was won!
Even as the rain fell,
Record scores did as well
Till the best in the game were just stunned!
What happen to the good old days when even par was a really good score in a major championship? Now that score barely even makes the cut.
ReplyDeleteWell, Tony, bear in mind that the course was awfully soft, so if you were accurate you could put the ball where you wanted. Most off the majors this year -- men's or women's -- have been lower scores or else just one or two players really got off.
DeleteIn the men's, Willett was -5, Johnson -4, Stenson -20 (tied record), Walker -14 (a pretty typical PGA score).
In the women's, Ko was -12 (a typical result), Henderson -6, Lang -6, Jutanugarn -16 (not unusual because conditions vary so much), and of course Chun's record -21.
I think it just seems dramatic because we've seen more low individual rounds, so close together because of Olympic scheduling, over the last year or so. It's unusual for players to keep it up for all four rounds though.