Monday, February 26, 2007

Fields Open – Final Round


Stacy Prammanasudh fired a 68 for her third-straight round in the 60s and held off Jee Young Lee to win the Fields Open by one shot. Ai Miyazato, Morgan Pressel and second-round co-leader Angela Park all finished tied for third three strokes behind. It was the second career victory for Stacy P.

Prammanasudh got off to a good start Saturday with birdies on the first two holes. She cancelled out a bogey on 3 with another birdie at 5 to put herself at -12. Playing in the final group with Stacy, Park birdied 5 to get to -11 and Lee birdied 2 and 5 to reach -11. It was status quo until the 11th which Prammanasudh birdied to take a two-shot lead. Park bogeyed 12 to fall three back. Petunia birdied 12 to get back within one, and then both she and Stacy birdied 13 to basically make it a two-horse race. Lee wasn’t able to draw even (her best attempt was from about 12 feet on 17) and Prammanasudh won by parring out.

Stacy P’s victory has a lot in common with last week’s win by Paula Creamer. Both players were victorious in 2005, and both were winless in 2006 despite having excellent seasons statistically. I was very surprised to learn early in the off-season that Stacy had just started working with a coach (Bill Harmon) for the first time in her life. Evidently that work is paying off.

I’m going to split this week’s Big Surprise award again. Angela Park couldn’t get anything going in the final round but she sure didn’t collapse, coming home tied for third. Vicki Goetze-Ackerman, who just missed retaining her full-exempt status when she finished 95th on the 2006 money list, had her best week since 2004 by finishing tied for sixth. The Big Disappointment was Julieta Granada, who missed the cut (+1) by one shot.

Life sucks sometimes. I spend three months anxiously waiting for this season to start, and during the first two tournaments stuff comes up on the weekend that causes me to miss two-thirds of the TV coverage and prevents me from posting second-round recaps. Since the ladies are off next week, I’ll probably have a quiet weekend at home with nothing to watch. Maybe the weather will be nice and I’ll actually go PLAY some golf.

2 comments:

cannuck said...

waiting for your next issue.
a 50 s guy here from canada who watches lpga too.

Hound Dog said...

Thanks for dropping by. You've posted on the Seoulsisters message board, right?