Post by philknj on Oct 20, 2021 4:29:55 GMT
Knowing that Mi Hyang Lee was teeing off a little after 12 PM, I took a leisurely pace to the shuttle parking in the morning, which had a pretty good turnout of cars already. The shuttle wait was a longer than usual since the school buses were not available at this time of year.
All the morning groups had teed off by the time I arrived. I hustled over to the par-5 9th green which had a scoreboard flashing pictures of the first group to arrive soon: Christina Kim, Pornanong Phatlum, and Caroline Masson.
More speed walking was needed to get in position at the drive landing area. I wanted to see if Kim, who was already in trouble at +4, could out-do that lousy 233-yard drive she hit in the pro-am the day before. She had the honor and her ball finished 31 paces behind the 201 marker. Masson was next and, as I expected, was the longest in the group ... 20 paces behind the 201 marker. Little Porna was next and with her Asian poser Baldo driver and snickered-at pink Volvik S3 ball outdrove PXG/Titleist staffer Kim by one yard. The tee blocks were set at 474, so the distance numbers were 253 for Masson, 243 for Porna and 242 for Kim.
Well, 242 looks much better than 233, but only a GIR and putting machine like Inbee Park can get away with hitting it 242. Never mind about winning again, it would take a Herculean effort for Christina to get a top-10 in a weak-field event. It’s a shame because she is doing all the ‘right’ stuff in the last 2-3 years: changing clubs & shafts, whipping herself into maybe the best physical condition of her life and playing the game constantly during the off-season. But, there is a big ‘37’ next to her name on her lpga.com profile and Parsons has no answer for that ... “Ka-DOOM, baby.”
I waited for the 3rd group to reach the 9th tee and followed them for the rest of the morning: Muni He, Yu Liu and Pernilla Lindberg. Muni drove the ball low and straight with no rightward leakage. Liu just punished the ball with her wicked drop-down move and baseball swing follow-through. The gloveless Lindberg drove it high, but missed it to the right ... she still had the longest drive, but I didn’t measure it. Muni was 259 and Liu was 272.
Muni’s second shot at #9 finished on a shaved upslope just off the green on the right side, leaving her a putt of 40+ feet ... which she holed for an eagle! She played the front nine at -4, while Pernilla was -3 and Liu was Even. No groups were in sight when they reached the par-4 10th tee. Assuming they began on time, this grouped played the front nine in 2 ½ hours.
The par-3 11th tee is a good place to get a close look at the bags. Muni dumped TaylorMade’s wedges for Fourteen FH Forged V1 wedges. Pernilla has Ping i59 Forged irons and hit a six-iron at this hole, playing about 181 with the flag in the back-right. This green, like most of them here, was not receptive to shots. Muni and Pernilla found their balls near each other in the rough lining the collar. Muni chipped a low runner that scooted 9-10 feet past the hole ... two-putted for bogey. Pernilla popped her ball at least a couple feet in the air, which died on the green 4-5 feet short of the hole, but she made the par-saver putt.
The highlight of the par-4 dogleg 12th hole was Liu’s tee shot, a moon ball mega-cut with a UT or FW that fit the hole perfectly. I don’t think there are many players on this tour who could hit a ball like that or even think of trying it. While this group was on the green, I noticed the next group waiting in the fairway.
Muni’s group arrived at the par-4 13th tee. They had played holes 10 thru 12 in 45 minutes. The group ahead of them had already walked about 150 yards down the 14th fairway. Shortly afterward, a rules official in a cart showed up to time Muni’s group and jot down numbers. He talked to no one and left after about three holes. Liu is a nervous and fidgety player with her share of half-backswings before pulling the trigger. Lindberg has a set pre-shot routine that doesn’t kill a lot of time, although on a simple short iron or wedge into the 12th or 14th green she was particularly slow.
No. 17 is the short par-3 which was about 115 yards. The pavilion behind the green had a bunch of guys in white overalls (some unknown company with four letters, I forgot to write it down). Eight of them had a big block letter pasted to his chest which spelled out LINDBERG. Of course, they switched their allegiance when the next group came through.
Muni finished in style at the par-5 18th, reached the green in two and made the putt for another eagle ... finished at -4. Lindberg shot -2 and Liu shot -1. They picked up the pace coming in, finishing their round in 4 hours and 36 minutes.
I immediately went to the 10th tee where Mi Hyang Lee would start her day at 12:11 PM, along with Perrine Delacour and Ana Belac. Great job by the starter saying MHL had two LPGA wins, one Symetra win and one LET win.
All three made pars at the par-4 10th, with MHL missing a makeable birdie putt. On to the par-3 11th where I did another bag check. Belac is a Titleist player with the T-200 model for the longer irons and T-100 for the shorter ones. Delacour has the Callaway Apex Pro (tungsten) irons, which she credited as significantly improving her game, per an article that was posted at lpga.com later that night. Three more pars were made.
Delacour began asserting herself with birdies at #12 thru #14. I had never seen her play before and was really impressed. She’s around 5-9 in height and is not scrawny ... can put a lot of air under the ball.
Generally speaking, Delacour was the longest driver in the group, while MHL and Belac were about the same. Occasionally, Mi Hyang uncorked a bomb, like on the par-4 16th, but could only make par. She hit another beauty at the par-5 18th, finishing with a club twirl as her ball carried the right-side bunkers, but she went too far left on her next shot and had to make a scrambling par. By the way, the guys at the 17th pavilion were on a break, I guess, and honored no one in this group.
Another birdie for Delacour at the par-4 1st hole, which you can see at 4:46 in the video below ... at 5:10, there’s a man in a red long-sleeve top, floppy hat and white mask sitting behind the 3rd green. That’s Mr. Lee, who did not follow Mi Hyang down the second hole (neither did I ... it’s a long walk down and back and you can’t see much).
www.lpga.com/videos/2021/shoprite-lpga-classic-presented-by-acer-round-1-highlights-extended
Belac also made birdie at #1, but did it the hard way. Her drive was an audible chunk, producing a low, but straight bullet. I looked back and she was looking down in shock at the impact area. Apparently, the unplanned additional distance into that green didn’t bother her. Her swing is not filled with artistry, but she has achieved more so far than what I would have predicted.
MHL bogeyed #1 and was now +3. She clawed back with a birdie at the par-5 3rd and made her only tough putt of the day at the 301-yard par-4 5th hole. Unlike what I saw in the past, she wisely laid back far enough to produce a high spinning wedge that would stay on the green.
Meanwhile, the group teeing off at #6 was Jennifer Chang, Dana Finkelstein and Lindsey Weaver. I assume it was Chang’s mom that was following along, wearing a red Southern Cal pullover and a Woori Investments umbrella over her head. Finkelstein tees the ball high and hovers her driver more than most ... and hit it lousy, low and left.
In another group, Brynn Walker hit a really good drive at #6. Two old guys walked away afterward with one saying to the other, “Good aim ... and good-looking, too!” She played with Sarah Burnham, who showed me more swing speed compared to the third player in the group, Andrea Lee.
MHL was on the far right of fairway (maybe the first cut) at the par-4 6th hole. The target is a multi-tiered shallow green that tilts down from back to front. Her second shot was a little long, rolling over the back and was out of view. Her reaction was a prolonged death stare in the direction of her ball.
A guy named Harry Ewing was carrying MHL’s bag. He had the look of a pro caddie, but I never heard of him before and have no clue what players he has worked for and on which tours. I did a random search of tournaments on the LPGA website going back to 2018 and didn’t see his name with anyone else. It appears that his trademark is to say, “Confidence” just before his player hits a shot.
Bogeys are common at the par-3 7th hole, but not the way Delacour did it. Her tee ball went into the greenside bunker on the right and the flag was on the far right. I couldn’t see the lie ... I’m guessing she thought the lip was too high, so she hit her ball sideways into a different area of the bunker, which I never saw anyone do before. Now I could see her lie ... I thought she still had a high lip to carry. No problem, she knocked it out close to the hole. I would have been happy, but she was mad and smacked the impact area twice and hard with the toe-end of her wedge. When she did that, the consistency of the sand just under the surface was more like compacted dirt.
MHL didn’t hit a long tee ball at the short par-4 8th, but she was in the center-left of the fairway. Her approach shot would be to an elevated green with a bunker on each side guarding the entrance. When she reached for a Cally wedge, I didn’t think it was enough club ... but that was 100% visual intuition on my part, as there were no markers in the rough near me to estimate the distance. After “Confidence”, her shot was on target, but I did NOT see the usual big hop caused by hitting the green. This prompted a one-way player discussion all the way to the putting surface. Funny, she chipped the ball in for birdie, but you could see she wasn’t quite finished talking about that approach shot as they walked to the par-5 9th tee.
MHL hit a sweeping draw that went 256 as a start to making birdie and salvaging the day at Even. Delacour and Belac posted pars to finish the day at -4 and -2 respectively. The rest of the day was quick stops here and there.
Mitsuki Katahira (extremely brief LPGA career) was here again for Japanese TV and did an interview with Yuka Saso on the 10th tee at 5:30 PM. I don’t know if it went out live, as it was 6:30 AM in Japan the next day.
I saw Amy Yang’s bag outside the 18th green. She was gaming perimeter weighted irons that said ‘Proto Forged’ and ‘005’. A strip of lead tape was applied to each one ... was the tape for functionality or to hide a brand name? I don’t know. She had played Fourteen irons in recent years, but I didn’t see a feather logo on her current sticks.
Sung Hyun Park was in the left rough after her drive at the par-5 18th. Following a protracted exposition from her caddie on how a utility club from that lie would run forever into the junk surrounding the green, she switched to an iron and hit it just short of the green. Three middle-aged Korean women were following along. They wore no apparel items indicating an affinity for Park, but you could call them Attack Girls in training. As for Park, I didn’t stick around for her next shots, which must have dreadful because she made a bogey-six.
Maria Fassi would finish late in the day on the par-5 9th hole. I wanted to see if she would hit driver this time, instead of the 3-wood she hit in the pro-am. I missed seeing the shot, but based upon where I saw the ball, it must have been the 3-wood again. I paced it off at 259. Two fanboys following along confirmed it was the 3W, saying she wasn’t carrying a driver this week.
I continued back to the 8th hole which had the group that included Caroline Inglis, although it said INGLES on her looper’s bib. I let them pass to watch the last group complete its last two holes, which was Min Seo Kwak, Benyapa Niphatsophon and Liz Nagel.
Kwak’s crazy JDX wardrobe from many years ago is history now ... did a 180, looks totally boring now. Forget about employing a pro caddie these days, too ... I assume it was her mom carrying her lightweight Callaway stand bag.
Benyapa’s return to the LPGA in 2021 has been consistent: one trunk slam after another. I remember seeing her as a rookie at the Seaview a few years earlier ... drove it high and long, but the direction was problematic.
This was my second look in two days at Nagel and her slick A&W Root Beer bag. After she drove her ball down the right side at the par-5 9th, I went down there and listened in. She was quite sure that she had a 212 shot. As she waited for the green to clear, her caddy pulled out the range finder, but how could he use it if the pin had been pulled? Or maybe it wasn’t pulled. Can you laser someone’s body?! When he started mumbling “200”, Nagel cut him off, saying “That’s to the front, it’s a 212 shot.” Then she referenced either a fairway marker or a yardage book by saying, “I trust that thing more than I trust the range finder.” After she hit her shot, I paced it off to the nearest marker in the rough ... it was 11 yards behind the 201 marker ... a 212 shot. To top it off, she made the eagle putt and finished -4.
I checked out the practice areas before getting on the shuttle. The Main Line’s Brynn Walker (78,+7) was trying to iron out her swing on the range with her looper and a guy who had to be an instructor. Her attempted climb to the LPGA tour is a vertical ice cliff ... after averaging 74+ in four years at UNC, what else could it be? Her college bio says she was a Communications/Broadcast Journalism major ... it might come in handy.
All the morning groups had teed off by the time I arrived. I hustled over to the par-5 9th green which had a scoreboard flashing pictures of the first group to arrive soon: Christina Kim, Pornanong Phatlum, and Caroline Masson.
More speed walking was needed to get in position at the drive landing area. I wanted to see if Kim, who was already in trouble at +4, could out-do that lousy 233-yard drive she hit in the pro-am the day before. She had the honor and her ball finished 31 paces behind the 201 marker. Masson was next and, as I expected, was the longest in the group ... 20 paces behind the 201 marker. Little Porna was next and with her Asian poser Baldo driver and snickered-at pink Volvik S3 ball outdrove PXG/Titleist staffer Kim by one yard. The tee blocks were set at 474, so the distance numbers were 253 for Masson, 243 for Porna and 242 for Kim.
Well, 242 looks much better than 233, but only a GIR and putting machine like Inbee Park can get away with hitting it 242. Never mind about winning again, it would take a Herculean effort for Christina to get a top-10 in a weak-field event. It’s a shame because she is doing all the ‘right’ stuff in the last 2-3 years: changing clubs & shafts, whipping herself into maybe the best physical condition of her life and playing the game constantly during the off-season. But, there is a big ‘37’ next to her name on her lpga.com profile and Parsons has no answer for that ... “Ka-DOOM, baby.”
I waited for the 3rd group to reach the 9th tee and followed them for the rest of the morning: Muni He, Yu Liu and Pernilla Lindberg. Muni drove the ball low and straight with no rightward leakage. Liu just punished the ball with her wicked drop-down move and baseball swing follow-through. The gloveless Lindberg drove it high, but missed it to the right ... she still had the longest drive, but I didn’t measure it. Muni was 259 and Liu was 272.
Muni’s second shot at #9 finished on a shaved upslope just off the green on the right side, leaving her a putt of 40+ feet ... which she holed for an eagle! She played the front nine at -4, while Pernilla was -3 and Liu was Even. No groups were in sight when they reached the par-4 10th tee. Assuming they began on time, this grouped played the front nine in 2 ½ hours.
The par-3 11th tee is a good place to get a close look at the bags. Muni dumped TaylorMade’s wedges for Fourteen FH Forged V1 wedges. Pernilla has Ping i59 Forged irons and hit a six-iron at this hole, playing about 181 with the flag in the back-right. This green, like most of them here, was not receptive to shots. Muni and Pernilla found their balls near each other in the rough lining the collar. Muni chipped a low runner that scooted 9-10 feet past the hole ... two-putted for bogey. Pernilla popped her ball at least a couple feet in the air, which died on the green 4-5 feet short of the hole, but she made the par-saver putt.
The highlight of the par-4 dogleg 12th hole was Liu’s tee shot, a moon ball mega-cut with a UT or FW that fit the hole perfectly. I don’t think there are many players on this tour who could hit a ball like that or even think of trying it. While this group was on the green, I noticed the next group waiting in the fairway.
Muni’s group arrived at the par-4 13th tee. They had played holes 10 thru 12 in 45 minutes. The group ahead of them had already walked about 150 yards down the 14th fairway. Shortly afterward, a rules official in a cart showed up to time Muni’s group and jot down numbers. He talked to no one and left after about three holes. Liu is a nervous and fidgety player with her share of half-backswings before pulling the trigger. Lindberg has a set pre-shot routine that doesn’t kill a lot of time, although on a simple short iron or wedge into the 12th or 14th green she was particularly slow.
No. 17 is the short par-3 which was about 115 yards. The pavilion behind the green had a bunch of guys in white overalls (some unknown company with four letters, I forgot to write it down). Eight of them had a big block letter pasted to his chest which spelled out LINDBERG. Of course, they switched their allegiance when the next group came through.
Muni finished in style at the par-5 18th, reached the green in two and made the putt for another eagle ... finished at -4. Lindberg shot -2 and Liu shot -1. They picked up the pace coming in, finishing their round in 4 hours and 36 minutes.
I immediately went to the 10th tee where Mi Hyang Lee would start her day at 12:11 PM, along with Perrine Delacour and Ana Belac. Great job by the starter saying MHL had two LPGA wins, one Symetra win and one LET win.
All three made pars at the par-4 10th, with MHL missing a makeable birdie putt. On to the par-3 11th where I did another bag check. Belac is a Titleist player with the T-200 model for the longer irons and T-100 for the shorter ones. Delacour has the Callaway Apex Pro (tungsten) irons, which she credited as significantly improving her game, per an article that was posted at lpga.com later that night. Three more pars were made.
Delacour began asserting herself with birdies at #12 thru #14. I had never seen her play before and was really impressed. She’s around 5-9 in height and is not scrawny ... can put a lot of air under the ball.
Generally speaking, Delacour was the longest driver in the group, while MHL and Belac were about the same. Occasionally, Mi Hyang uncorked a bomb, like on the par-4 16th, but could only make par. She hit another beauty at the par-5 18th, finishing with a club twirl as her ball carried the right-side bunkers, but she went too far left on her next shot and had to make a scrambling par. By the way, the guys at the 17th pavilion were on a break, I guess, and honored no one in this group.
Another birdie for Delacour at the par-4 1st hole, which you can see at 4:46 in the video below ... at 5:10, there’s a man in a red long-sleeve top, floppy hat and white mask sitting behind the 3rd green. That’s Mr. Lee, who did not follow Mi Hyang down the second hole (neither did I ... it’s a long walk down and back and you can’t see much).
www.lpga.com/videos/2021/shoprite-lpga-classic-presented-by-acer-round-1-highlights-extended
Belac also made birdie at #1, but did it the hard way. Her drive was an audible chunk, producing a low, but straight bullet. I looked back and she was looking down in shock at the impact area. Apparently, the unplanned additional distance into that green didn’t bother her. Her swing is not filled with artistry, but she has achieved more so far than what I would have predicted.
MHL bogeyed #1 and was now +3. She clawed back with a birdie at the par-5 3rd and made her only tough putt of the day at the 301-yard par-4 5th hole. Unlike what I saw in the past, she wisely laid back far enough to produce a high spinning wedge that would stay on the green.
Meanwhile, the group teeing off at #6 was Jennifer Chang, Dana Finkelstein and Lindsey Weaver. I assume it was Chang’s mom that was following along, wearing a red Southern Cal pullover and a Woori Investments umbrella over her head. Finkelstein tees the ball high and hovers her driver more than most ... and hit it lousy, low and left.
In another group, Brynn Walker hit a really good drive at #6. Two old guys walked away afterward with one saying to the other, “Good aim ... and good-looking, too!” She played with Sarah Burnham, who showed me more swing speed compared to the third player in the group, Andrea Lee.
MHL was on the far right of fairway (maybe the first cut) at the par-4 6th hole. The target is a multi-tiered shallow green that tilts down from back to front. Her second shot was a little long, rolling over the back and was out of view. Her reaction was a prolonged death stare in the direction of her ball.
A guy named Harry Ewing was carrying MHL’s bag. He had the look of a pro caddie, but I never heard of him before and have no clue what players he has worked for and on which tours. I did a random search of tournaments on the LPGA website going back to 2018 and didn’t see his name with anyone else. It appears that his trademark is to say, “Confidence” just before his player hits a shot.
Bogeys are common at the par-3 7th hole, but not the way Delacour did it. Her tee ball went into the greenside bunker on the right and the flag was on the far right. I couldn’t see the lie ... I’m guessing she thought the lip was too high, so she hit her ball sideways into a different area of the bunker, which I never saw anyone do before. Now I could see her lie ... I thought she still had a high lip to carry. No problem, she knocked it out close to the hole. I would have been happy, but she was mad and smacked the impact area twice and hard with the toe-end of her wedge. When she did that, the consistency of the sand just under the surface was more like compacted dirt.
MHL didn’t hit a long tee ball at the short par-4 8th, but she was in the center-left of the fairway. Her approach shot would be to an elevated green with a bunker on each side guarding the entrance. When she reached for a Cally wedge, I didn’t think it was enough club ... but that was 100% visual intuition on my part, as there were no markers in the rough near me to estimate the distance. After “Confidence”, her shot was on target, but I did NOT see the usual big hop caused by hitting the green. This prompted a one-way player discussion all the way to the putting surface. Funny, she chipped the ball in for birdie, but you could see she wasn’t quite finished talking about that approach shot as they walked to the par-5 9th tee.
MHL hit a sweeping draw that went 256 as a start to making birdie and salvaging the day at Even. Delacour and Belac posted pars to finish the day at -4 and -2 respectively. The rest of the day was quick stops here and there.
Mitsuki Katahira (extremely brief LPGA career) was here again for Japanese TV and did an interview with Yuka Saso on the 10th tee at 5:30 PM. I don’t know if it went out live, as it was 6:30 AM in Japan the next day.
I saw Amy Yang’s bag outside the 18th green. She was gaming perimeter weighted irons that said ‘Proto Forged’ and ‘005’. A strip of lead tape was applied to each one ... was the tape for functionality or to hide a brand name? I don’t know. She had played Fourteen irons in recent years, but I didn’t see a feather logo on her current sticks.
Sung Hyun Park was in the left rough after her drive at the par-5 18th. Following a protracted exposition from her caddie on how a utility club from that lie would run forever into the junk surrounding the green, she switched to an iron and hit it just short of the green. Three middle-aged Korean women were following along. They wore no apparel items indicating an affinity for Park, but you could call them Attack Girls in training. As for Park, I didn’t stick around for her next shots, which must have dreadful because she made a bogey-six.
Maria Fassi would finish late in the day on the par-5 9th hole. I wanted to see if she would hit driver this time, instead of the 3-wood she hit in the pro-am. I missed seeing the shot, but based upon where I saw the ball, it must have been the 3-wood again. I paced it off at 259. Two fanboys following along confirmed it was the 3W, saying she wasn’t carrying a driver this week.
I continued back to the 8th hole which had the group that included Caroline Inglis, although it said INGLES on her looper’s bib. I let them pass to watch the last group complete its last two holes, which was Min Seo Kwak, Benyapa Niphatsophon and Liz Nagel.
Kwak’s crazy JDX wardrobe from many years ago is history now ... did a 180, looks totally boring now. Forget about employing a pro caddie these days, too ... I assume it was her mom carrying her lightweight Callaway stand bag.
Benyapa’s return to the LPGA in 2021 has been consistent: one trunk slam after another. I remember seeing her as a rookie at the Seaview a few years earlier ... drove it high and long, but the direction was problematic.
This was my second look in two days at Nagel and her slick A&W Root Beer bag. After she drove her ball down the right side at the par-5 9th, I went down there and listened in. She was quite sure that she had a 212 shot. As she waited for the green to clear, her caddy pulled out the range finder, but how could he use it if the pin had been pulled? Or maybe it wasn’t pulled. Can you laser someone’s body?! When he started mumbling “200”, Nagel cut him off, saying “That’s to the front, it’s a 212 shot.” Then she referenced either a fairway marker or a yardage book by saying, “I trust that thing more than I trust the range finder.” After she hit her shot, I paced it off to the nearest marker in the rough ... it was 11 yards behind the 201 marker ... a 212 shot. To top it off, she made the eagle putt and finished -4.
I checked out the practice areas before getting on the shuttle. The Main Line’s Brynn Walker (78,+7) was trying to iron out her swing on the range with her looper and a guy who had to be an instructor. Her attempted climb to the LPGA tour is a vertical ice cliff ... after averaging 74+ in four years at UNC, what else could it be? Her college bio says she was a Communications/Broadcast Journalism major ... it might come in handy.