TOKYO — Ai Miyazato and Rui Kitada, who teamed up to win the inaugural Women’s World Cup of Golf in South Africa in February, received the LPGA Award on Tuesday.
Miyazato won the award, which was inaugurated by the Japan LPGA in 2004 to honor outstanding performances by tour members, for the second straight year while Kitada was selected for the first time.
Source – Japan Today
The results of last week’s LPGA Qualifying School illustrated the brimming promise of women’s golf. Ai Miyazato, a 20-year-old from Japan who stands all of 5-foot-2 — or nearly a foot shorter than Michelle Wie — thrashed the field, winning by 12 strokes. A throng of Japanese media trailed Miyazato, whose celebrity in her native land rivals that of baseball star Ichiro Suzuki.
Morgan Pressel, the feisty and supremely skilled 17-year-old from Florida, also earned her LPGA card for 2006, though her official playing status spins in doubt until she turns 18 in May. Pressel will join a wave of fresh and charismatic talent, alongside Paula Creamer, Wie and Miyazato.
All the while, another piece of news showed the LPGA still lacks clout on the crowded sports landscape. The Kraft Nabisco Championship, one of the tour’s majors, moved from ABC to CBS — and sacrificed one day of network coverage on the weekend.
This is a rising sport?
The Nabisco’s shift came in the wake of its move from the last weekend in March to the first weekend in April. The tournament was trying to escape the sizable shadow of the PGA Tour’s Players Championship and the NCAA basketball regional finals.
But the move also prompted the Nabisco to part ways with ABC, which has scheduling conflicts on April 1-2 (including the NBA). CBS televises the Final Four semifinals on Saturday and will carry only Sunday’s final round of the Nabisco.
“We would have loved both days (of network coverage), but it just didn’t work out with CBS,” tournament director Terry Wilcox said. “There were so many other things favorable with moving to CBS. This is still a good plan.”
Wilcox hopes to benefit from his new spot on the calendar, wedged between the Final Four semifinals Saturday and the championship game Monday. Also, CBS will televise the Nabisco for three hours Sunday, one more than ABC did. ESPN2 will handle the first three rounds.
This slice of television reality — the LPGA attracts modest audiences and thus wields little power — increases pressure on new commissioner Carolyn Bivens to let Pressel, and eventually Wie, become full-fledged LPGA members before they turn 18. That’s the current age minimum, though Bivens may make exceptions.
AT&T chatter: Less than two months remain before another AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (Feb. 6-12). And like any PGA Tour event on the horizon, we must pose one succinct question while peering ahead.
Tiger?
No, it appears Tiger Woods will skip the AT&T for the fourth consecutive year. Tournament director Ollie Nutt recently spoke to Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, and Steinberg said Woods plans to play in the Dubai Desert Classic the week before the AT&T. Also, Woods said during a news conference last week that the grand opening of the Tiger Woods Learning Center in Anaheim is scheduled Feb. 10 — the same day as the second round of the AT&T.
In other words, he’s not coming to the Monterey Peninsula.
Woods played in the AT&T in each of his first six full seasons as a pro (1997-2002). Then, apparently disenchanted with the sketchy weather, long rounds and bumpy greens, he shifted gears. The PGA Tour schedule does not help, because the Nissan Open (where Woods got his first exemption) and Match Play Championship (an elite-field event) follow the AT&T.
Given the trip to Dubai, where Woods earns a hefty appearance fee, returning to the AT&T would mean playing four consecutive weeks — something he typically avoids.
Woods’ absence last year did not prevent the AT&T from attracting a record crowd of 151,000 for the week, according to Nutt. Phil Mickelson is expected to defend his title in February, and Vijay Singh and Davis Love III are among other big names likely to return. Jason Gore also probably will play.
Tour-bound: Last week’s anxiety-filled Q-school ended happily for Jessica Reese-Quayle, a 24-year-old pro from Santa Rosa.
Reese-Quayle’s rookie season of 2004 (she was then known as Jessica Reese) was cut short by wrist injuries. Her slow recovery stretched into 2005, when she made the cut in only one of the seven events she entered.
But Reese-Quayle strung together five solid rounds in Daytona Beach, Fla. She tied for 16th at 2-over par and became one of 24 players there to earn her LPGA card.
City reminder: The application deadline is Dec. 21 for the San Francisco City Golf Championships, the local amateur event steeped in history. Past winners include Ken Venturi, George Archer and Juli Inkster.
The tournament will begin on Feb. 3 and run five consecutive weekends before concluding on March 5. Entry forms are available at Harding Park and Lincoln Park golf courses, and also at SFGate.com
SINGAPORE: World number one Annika Sorenstam has paired up with American rising star Paula Creamer for the Lexus Cup barely a month after they were embroiled in a dispute during a season-ending championship.
Creamer, 19, the LPGA Rookie of the Year, was incensed by Sorenstam’s decision to take a drop from a hazard on the opening day of last month’s $1 million LPGA Tour Championship in West Palm Beach, Florida. The Swede went on to claim victory. Sorenstam appeared to make a peace offering to Creamer when she announced the duo were pairing up for an assault on the inaugural ladies match-play championship in Singapore, which tees off Friday. “I like Paula a lot. I think for me to get a chance to play with her will be a lot of fun,” Sorenstam said at a press conference ahead of the Lexus Cup, where she captains an international line-up against an all-star Asian team.
The duo find themselves in an intriguing battle against South Koreans Jeong Jang and Meena Lee on the opening day of the three-day tournament, with both sets of players their sides’ respective top money leaders on the tour. “We want to come out strong. I think when you get number one and number two on it’s putting a statement so I’m looking forward to it,” Sorenstam, 35, said.
Source – Daily Times Pakistan
NARITA (Japan): For Japan’s golfing wonder girl Ai Miyazato, the biggest worry about her upcoming rookie year on the premier US women’s tour is not the different language, food or lifestyle.
It’s the vastness of the US LPGA Tour which the 20-year-old from Okinawa must encounter after she scored a record-breaking 12-shot victory in the final qualifying tournament for the 2006 season. “I am somewhat worried about the vast area I will have to cover in moving from one tournament to another,” Miyazato told reporters Thursday as she returned home from a triumphant weekend at Daytona Beach in Florida. “It might take me some time to get used to it,” she said in a room packed with some 60 reporters, photographers and TV crew members at Narita airport. “I think that is just about it.” It takes five hours to fly the width of North America and the US women’s tour has expanded to Hawaii, Mexico, Britain and the Far East including Japan, requiring players to adjust quickly to different climates and environments.
Asked about her goal in the rookie year, the ever-smiling 154-centimeter (five-foot-one) Miyazato simply said, “Firstly, I want to be seeded. Then, if I have a chance, I will go out to win.” Her confidence is derived from her bitter-sweet taste of world golf, apart from her brilliance at home as the number-two prize earner for the second straight year since her pro debut as a teenager. She has won 11 domestic tournaments so far, helping revive public interest in women’s golf in Japan. Miyazato failed to make the cut in the women’s British Open last year but won the inaugural World Cup in South Africa at the start of this year, making up for her senior teammate’s blunder.
But her US tour debut this year was low-key with a 44th tie in the Kraft Nabisco in March. She missed the cut by one stroke in the LPGA Championship in June. According to pundits, she has since learned a varity of approach shots to tame different courses and managed to keep her composure in any situation. “I could control my emotion well in each round. The flow of play was good through the five days and it was very impressive,” Miyazato said as she recalled the 90-hole qualifying tournament. She led the “Q-School” event on tough Florida grass to finish at a record 17-under-par 343, 11 strokes ahead of Libby Smith and Lee Ann Walker-Cooper in second spot. Miyazato and 36 others won tentative LPGA rookie cards.
Source – Daily Times Pakistan
Daytona Beach, Fla. – Former Wake Forest women’s golfer Ashley Hoagland earned a non-exempt status on the LPGA Tour by placing in the top-59 at the LPGA Tour qualifying school. A first team All-American in 2005, Hoagland joins former Deacon Laura Diaz on the LPGA Tour.
Hoagland, who graduated in May, fired rounds of 74-72-71-75-76 for a total of 368, eight-over par. The 140 player field was cut to the low 70 scores and ties after 72 holes. The remaining players played the final 18 holes to determine their status. The top 24 players earned exempt status, while the next 35 earned non-exempt status.
Source – CollegeSports.com