Sunday, October 21, 2007

Hana Bank – KOLON Championship – Cancelled

Suzann Pettersen won the Hana Bank – KOLON Championship when the course was deemed unplayable early during third round play. LPGA officials reverted to the scoring at the end of Round Two and declared Pettersen the winner. Eun-Hee Ji finished second, and Seon Hwa Lee and Jeong Jang finished tied for third.

Here is
an article from foxsports.com along with the post-round notes at lpga.com, each containing details of how the cancellation went down. It appears that some of the 5000 spectators were none too happy about the decision, as they attempted to enter the tournament headquarters in protest. Se Ri Pak and Mi Hyun Kim were asked to speak on the unplayable conditions at the press conference, apparently in an effort to help put out the potential media fire.

I imagine quite a few people in Arkansas had similar feelings when their event was deemed non-existent after heavy rains last month. I don’t recall hearing about any of them having to be restrained, although the Arkansas fans’ tickets are valid for next year’s event and I doubt this will be the case in Korea since this event was declared official. I want to point out that this is the second consecutive weather-delayed event where the LPGA has rather quickly written-off playing on Monday, although to be fair it seems that the golf course needs more work done on it than 24 hours would allow.

So it becomes Pettersen’s fourth win of the year and her second in three events. Lorena Ochoa finished T12, only the fourth time this year since finished out of the Top 10 and the first time she’s finished that low in a stroke-play event since the Michelob event back in May.

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