Monday, July 21, 2008

The Asian Streak Resumes on the LPGA Tour

Paula Creamer broke up the string of wins by Asian players on the LPGA Tour at five and a half last weekend. This weekend, the Asian players resumed dominance of the Tour. Ji Young Oh won in a sudden death playoff over LPGA Championship winner Yani Tseng. Both had finished regulation at -18, but Oh walks away with her first career win. Tseng topped the $1 million mark in defeat.

In defeat, curious that Yani Tseng said this:

Q. What is the biggest plus you'll take out of this experience today?
YANI TSENG: Biggest? I don't know. This is my first runnerup, so I really just learned a lot. Today I think I just didn't relax enough and I didn't play my game. I know if I play my game. I think too much today.
That's a message for Phil Mickelson, certainly. But, if you don't think enough, then you do something like Michelle Wie and get DQ'd. I digress.

Equally as stunning was the positioning of Asian players behind Oh and Tseng. Of the top 8, seven were Asian players. It tells you something about the quality of play from Asia right now. The younger kids are getting at it.

3 comments:

The Constructivist said...

She definitely played more like the Ya Ni of the MasterCard Classic than of the Kraft Nabisco Championship, but then she is still a rookie. Easy to forget (for me at least). How about Na Yeon Choi keeping the ROY race as close as possible with her T3, too? The Class of '08 is already giving the 2 preceding ones a run for their money....

Surprised me that vets in their prime like Christina Kim (all of 23!), Stacy Premmanasudh, and Hee- Won Han didn't show the kids a trick or 2. But that's golf.

Waggle Room Ryan said...

Yani (BTW, I am yet to see a consensus on Ya Ni, Yani, or Ya-Ni) still has plenty to learn despite her success. I thought she was a ROY lock after the LPGA, but that was apparently not true. I was surprised C Kim didn't win because I think she really likes this course.

The Constructivist said...

Yeah, I thought it wuld come down to Christina and Stacy. Shows what I know.

It's "Yani" now--even on her website--but I can't stand the closeness to Yanni, so I do the older spelling (which was sometimes hyphenated)....