Inbee Park Wins Wegmans LPGA Championship After 3-Hole Playoff
The LPGA Wegmans Championship, a grueling test of endurance, ended with a victory for Inbee Park (South Korea). Over 3 days and 72 holes, the lead passed from Chella Choi (South Korea) to Morgan Pressel (USA) to Inbee Park (South Korea) to a tie between Park and Catriona Matthew (Scotland) and a 3 hole playoff before Inbee Park claimed her victory. the Wegmans LPGA Championship. Sunday was a very long day at the Wegmans. Players teed off for the 3rd round at 6:30am and, with no time to make course repairs, began teeing off for the 4th round in the early afternoon. Park sank her final, victorious birdie putt at 7:45pm.
Jun 9, 2013; Pittsford, NY, USA; Inbee Park hits from the tee on the 5th hole during the final round of the Wegmans LPGA Championship at Locust Hill Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports
Park, at #1 in the Rolex Ranking, carded even par for the first round of the tournament, then came back in the 2nd and 3rd rounds with two -4s. Her 4th round, +3, narrowed her lead to 1 stroke. Catriona Matthew tied it up with a birdie putt.
For a time it looked as though Morgan Pressel would hold on to her 3rd round lead but 3 bogeys in the final round couldn’t be neutralized by an early eagle. In the end, Pressel needed a birdie that eluded her to pull even with Park and make it to the playoff. Pressel missed too many fairways on a course where the rough was too unforgiving.
Matthew played steady golf in the tough conditions, carding -1 in both the 1st and 2nd rounds and +1 for the Sunday morning 3rd round. Matthew came alive in the 4th round, remaining bogey-free and carding a -4. That earned her a shot at the Wegmans title in a playoff with Park. In the end, errant shots into the deep rough were her undoing.
We have been following Lydia Ko (New Zealand) throughout the tournament. The teenage amateur finished the Wegmans at +1, but that final score doesn’t tell the tale. At +5 after the 2nd round, Ko squeeked past the cut and began the Sunday double rounds at +5. She had 5 birdies in the Sunday morning 3rd round and for a time it looked as though the youngster was going to surge past both Pressel and Park. Two double bogeys slowed her momentum and she carded +1 for the 3rd round. Her 4th round, an impressive -4, wasn’t enough to climb to the upper level of the leaderboard, but Ko merits watching. She’s at the beginning of a promising career.
ShanShan Feng (China), the 2012 Wegmans champ, looked good going in to the tournament. She’d finished a strong 2nd at the ShopRite LPGA Classic the previous week and had 3 additional top-ten finishes this year. But Feng couldn’t get her game going. She ended the Wegmans at -2, tied for 9th. Despite an energizing ace in the 2nd round, Yani Tseng (Taiwan) wasn’t able to maintain momentum and ended the tournament at +2, tied for 19th. And Stacy Lewis (USA), again unable to play the game that got her to #2 in the Rolex Rankings, ended at +4, tied for 28th.
Judy Rankin summed up the situation at the Wegmans when she advised the players to “Bring your game with you. Don’t look for it.” Clearly, Inbee Park brought her game with her. Many of the other contenders did not.
The LPGA Tour’s next stop is the Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas for the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship by P&G Info. Ai Miyazato (Japan), who has not been performing well, is the defending champion for the NW Arkansas. The field looks to be wide open. Place your bets.