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Post by verdantgarden on Apr 2, 2024 15:53:42 GMT
This year the tournament will be a mix of stroke play and match play. The first two rounds will be like a regular tournament with a cut at 65 and ties. That's on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday's play will see a cut of the best eight. They will be paired off to play matches against each other for the quarterfinals then the four winners play the semifinals both on Saturday.
Angel Yin will be making her season debut.
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Post by tonyj500 on Apr 2, 2024 17:35:12 GMT
My field rating for this event is a much improved 62.5%. That is way up from the 45.5% from last year.
My breakdown is 72% from the LPGA Priority List and 53% from the Rolex Rankings.
The field will be led by top ten players:
Nelly Korda (1)
Celine Boutier (3)
Minjee Lee (5)
Lydia Ko (8)
Hyo Joo Kim (9)
Top ten players skipping the event this week:
Lilia Vu (2)
Ruoning Yin (4)
Jin Young Ko (6)
Charley Hull (7)
Xi Yu Lin (10)
This tournament has a Wednesday start!
Calling this a match-play event can be a bit misleading as they have changed the format.
Ninety-six players will tee it up. They will play regular stroke play on Wednesday and Thursday. After Thursday's round, they will cut to 65 players. It will be stroke play again on Friday, with a cut at the end of the round to just eight players.
Those eight players will play match-play on Saturday and Sunday to determine the winner.
Other stuff:
Nelly Korda won this past weekend for the third time in her last three starts. This has not been done on the LPGA Tour since Ariya Jutanugarn did it eight years ago.
Minjee Lee (23) and Andrea Lee (15) had their cut streaks stopped at the Ford Championship. Hyo Joo Kim (27) has the longest current streak on tour.
Sarah Schmelzel top ten finish this past weekend was her fourth in a row. She is now tied for the most top tens on tour with Ayaka Furue.
Korda's victory was the 4th this year by an American player. No other country has more than one. After a down decade (2010 to 2019), the USA is trying to finish on top for the fifth consecutive year.
Wins by country this decade (2020 to 2024)
USA - 36 wins
Korea - 22
Thailand - 9
Australia - 8
New Zealand, Japan, France - 5
Canada, England - 4
So. Africa, Sweden -3
China, Ireland, Mexico - 2
Germany, Chinese Taipei, The Philippines, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Scotland - 1
Nelly Korda has taken the lead in Player of the Year points with 90 points, Lydia Ko is second with 49. Nelly is also first in scoring average (Vare Trophy) 68.875.
Gabriela Ruffles has increased her lead for Rookie of the year with 159 points. She is followed by Mao Sago (108), Mone Inami (93), Hira Naveed and Auston Kim (80).
There were several key moves in the Rolex Rankings this week:
Nelly Korda has widened her lead at the top spot as she is No. 1 for a second consecutive week and 39th week overall.
Alison Lee jumps up from 17 to 14, and would now be the fourth USA participant in the upcoming Olympic games. Allisen Corpuz drops to no. 16 and as of today would be out of the Olympic team.
Lexi Thompson moves up from 42 to 32.
Maja Stark rises from 64 to 46.
Jennifer Kupcho bounces up from 63 to 54.
Sarah Schmelzel makes this list for the fourth consecutive week, surging from 69 to 58.
Mi Hyang Lee continues her rise this week leaping from number 81 to 67.
Gabriela Ruffles jumps from 92 to 81.
Emily Pedersen moves from 89 to 82.
Lauren Coughlin springs up from 107 to 93 and is now part of my field rating. Jeongeun Lee6 drops out of the top 100 and will no longer be part of that rating.
Outside of the top 100:
Hira Naveed (finished runner-up last weekend) Leaps from 648 to 106.
Narin An moves from 116 to 107.
Frieda Kinhult vaults from 160 to 109.
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Post by HappyFan on Apr 2, 2024 17:52:03 GMT
It's hard to imagine there's much for me to watch here. They will focus on the Americans and Euros during stroke play, after which a bunch of my faves will be eliminated. They will then focus on the Americans in the matches. Unless a Sister makes it into the final four or gets paired against Rose Zhang, I doubt I will see one hit a shot.
Well, as always, fingers crossed and hwaiting!
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Post by tonyj500 on Apr 2, 2024 19:05:17 GMT
Update: lexi Thompson has withdrew from the event.
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Post by haneymademedoit on Apr 2, 2024 20:11:56 GMT
It's hard to imagine there's much for me to watch here. They will focus on the Americans and Euros during stroke play, after which a bunch of my faves will be eliminated. They will then focus on the Americans in the matches. Unless a Sister makes it into the final four or gets paired against Rose Zhang, I doubt I will see one hit a shot. Well, as always, fingers crossed and hwaiting! Las Vegas follows PDT or GMT-7 so Wednesday's tv coverage will have to focus on the last two-thirds or so of the afternoon groups. Expect to see a lot of Linn Grant, Nelly, and Minjee, along with Brooke, Alison, and Leona... Maybe catch a final hole of Hyo Joo or some of Hye-Jin if either is having a good day.
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Post by fanofseri on Apr 2, 2024 21:52:44 GMT
Angel is back and needs to make up some ground to assure herself a spot in Paris. This is the best course in the crummiest city the LPGA visits.
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Post by fanofseri on Apr 3, 2024 4:45:30 GMT
A tremendous champion will be identified. A Korean, including the fakes? Likely.
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Post by haneymademedoit on Apr 3, 2024 20:23:37 GMT
Sei Young, minus-6!
And it's not that the course is playing easy, about an hour or hour and a half into the afternoon wave, there are nearly 60 scores over par and only 15 under...
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Post by SoYeonFan on Apr 4, 2024 1:49:44 GMT
Another tough start by Jeongeun Lee6, five bogeys no birdies hit only five greens.
Great first round minus six by Sei Young Kim, hope that she can keep the good play going.
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Post by haneymademedoit on Apr 4, 2024 3:05:42 GMT
It's hard to imagine there's much for me to watch here. They will focus on the Americans and Euros during stroke play, after which a bunch of my faves will be eliminated. They will then focus on the Americans in the matches. Unless a Sister makes it into the final four or gets paired against Rose Zhang, I doubt I will see one hit a shot. Well, as always, fingers crossed and hwaiting!
Except that Eun-Hee Ji got plenty of air time. That was the good news.
The bad news was that she started getting on tv after she had climbed the leaderboard to minus-4, which included two eagles on the first 3 holes. But we didn't see any of that as far as I could tell. Instead, they focused on Eun-Hee making bogey after bogey on the back nine, dropping as low as plus+1, and ending the round at even with a birdie on the 17th.
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Post by legitimategolf on Apr 4, 2024 4:52:15 GMT
I must say, Alison Lee has the greatest legs in all of golf. I hope she insured them with Lloyd's of London or some shit.
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Post by philknj on Apr 5, 2024 0:29:31 GMT
Forget about the top-65 cut ... the real cut line is the top-8, which is roughly -1 at the moment. MHL is still out there at +1 with one hole remaining.
*********
After a so-so start to 2024, Minami Katsu is suddenly a threat to make the top-8, thanks to a 69 today that include a 25-yard hole-out bunker shot for eagle at the par-5 16th.
Who says she can't win it all? Match play is 50% luck at this level.
She's no dummy applying an ancient scrambling technique ... and save par at #11.
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Post by haneymademedoit on Apr 5, 2024 5:29:08 GMT
Forget about the top-65 cut ... the real cut line is the top-8, which is roughly -1 at the moment. MHL is still out there at +1 with one hole remaining. Totally agree, Madelene Sagstrom "made the cut" at plus+9, but even her "Amy Yang hat" does not have the power to vault her ahead of 50+ other golfers in a single round to make the top eight.
MHL is in play at plus+1, "Anna Lynn" 안나린 is even in a better position at even. Always remember my contention that it's not how many strokes a golfer needs to pick up, it's how many other golfers they need to pass. Narin An needs to pass any of the eight ahead of her, and also hold off Brooke and Maja, just holding them off is no easy feat. MHL needs to pass five of the twelve golfers ahead of her, still possible, but she also needs of hold off Lydia "the old" Ko, Linn "the cameras always find me" Grant, and Minjee and Andrea "I'm picking Lee, there's two of them..."
Anyone want to quote odds on a golfer at plus+2 or plus+3 making the top eight cut after Friday? Lots of quality golfers there, Nelly "I won three in a row that I entered," Ay-a-KEE, Koertz Madsen, and the golfer that I most fear, Céline. Boutier is like the Thais, you can never count her out. Just look at her face, nothing but total determination. The Thais are inexplicably MIA this week! Three sisters at plus+3, along with Ally Ewing and Angela Stanford, you can quote me that their chances at plus+3 are "nought point nought nought five," that's 0.005 or 200-1 odds.
Go Sei Young and Narin and MHL, go sisters! If three sisters make the match play weekend, it will be a huge success...
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Post by verdantgarden on Apr 5, 2024 16:02:11 GMT
Here's your tough course. Absolutely brutal conditions for the afternoon wave of players. Four players shot 80+ and still made the cut (D. Kang shot 83!). For these players, making the cut only means earning a little cash.
They're predicting another windy day today.
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Post by tonyj500 on Apr 5, 2024 18:02:08 GMT
Here's your tough course. Absolutely brutal conditions for the afternoon wave of players. Four players shot 80+ and still made the cut (D. Kang shot 83!). For these players, making the cut only means earning a little cash. They're predicting another windy day today. Yea what a difference. I remember talking to Eun-Hee Ji the day after she won here two years ago. She said it was 100 degress everyday and there was no wind at all. |
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