Tuesday, June 24, 2008

US Women's Open Marquee Groups

The pairings have been out for several days now, but wanted to get them in a post on here for reference's sake. The US Women's Open begins in Minnesota at Interlachen on Thursday. Cristie Kerr is defending champion, Paula Creamer already labeled the great American hope, and the media seems to expect another showdown between Ochoa and Sorenstam. All that said, here are some of the important Thursday/Friday pairings.

No pairings by the Rolex Women's World Golf Rankings, btw.

First, the traditional pairing:
7:33 a.m. – 1:03 p.m. -- Cristie Kerr, Miami, Fla.; A-Maria Jose Uribe, Colombia; Lorena Ochoa, Mexico

Then the "model" pairing":
7:55 a.m. – 1:25 p.m. -- Natalie Gulbis, Las Vegas, Nev.; Young Kim, Korea; Carin Koch, Sweden

How about the youth movement?
8:17 a.m. – 1:47 p.m. -- A-Kimberly Kim, Hilo, Hawaii; Julieta Granada, Paraguay; Michelle Wie, Honolulu, Hawaii
1:36 p.m. – 8:06 a.m. -- Brittany Lang, McKinney, Texas; A-Amanda Blumenherst, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Na-Yeon Choi, Korea

There's something about this dynamic that could be hilarious, or at least very entertaining:
7:33 a.m. – 1:03 p.m. -- Karrie Webb, Australia; Yani Tseng, Chinese Taipei; Christina Kim, San Jose, Calif.

Two (EDIT: Nay, all three) players in this group are having solid years:
1:14 p.m. – 7:44 a.m. -- Angela Stanford, Saginaw, Texas; Lindsey Wright, Australia; Jeong Jang, Korea

If Lorena had not won the Women's Open, she'd be in this pairing:
1:14 p.m. – 7:44 a.m. -- Annika Sorenstam, Sweden; Paula Creamer, Pleasanton, Calif.; Suzann Pettersen, Norway

Should be a good couple of days!

And in a little bit of potential plagiarism (kidding, I think), the Golf Channel news team put up their marquee pairings for the week. They added the first group of the week of Meunier-Lebouc and Lunke, as well as Nause/Thompson/Turner. Other than that, we basically picked the exact same pairings. Isn't that a bit creepy?

6 comments:

The Constructivist said...

Hey, Lindsey Wright is so having a solid year! ;)

The Florida Masochist said...

I second constructivist's motion.

Waggle Room Ryan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Waggle Room Ryan said...

Then consider it updated!

The Florida Masochist said...

Young Kim a model? Only if its for hats or slow play. Her nickname according to Golf Week is 'While we're'.

After Young didn't come in for a interview at the Stanford, I wrote about her hats.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/starr/archive/2008/04/25/unsung-stanford-invitational-first-round-leader-a-woman-of-many-hats.aspx

Someone in the media was paying at the next day's press conference. Young after being asked about her head gear, said Bogner was one of her sponsors.

Bill

Waggle Room Ryan said...

Young isn't a model, but I'd consider Natalie and Koch to both be model-quality beauty. As the old Meatloaf song goes, 2/3 ain't bad.