Where did the year go? Here we are at the final event of 2007, the ADT Championship. Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida will once again host the $1 million first prize event. Julieta Granada won last year’s event by two shots over Lorena Ochoa, but did not qualify this year via “the LPGA Playoffs”, as they like to call it. The Golf Channel will have TV coverage Thursday through Saturday while NBC will carry Sunday’s final round.
Trump International is a par-72 6523-yard course with water in play on most of the holes, especially the par-3 17th. The 32 players compete in both of the first two rounds and the low 16 aggregate scores advance to Saturday. The players’ scores are reset to even par (they did not do this on Saturday last year) and the eight players who score the lowest on Saturday advance to Sunday. Scores are reset again and those eight players shoot it out for the $1 million. The best part of last year’s event was the six-way playoff on Friday to settle the final three slots for Round Three, but I actually enjoyed the whole thing. Like The Constructivist says, the ADT has a “reality show”/”silly season” feel to it that creates a different kind of excitement from a regular tournament. As long as they don’t try to pass off the winner as the LPGA season champion or something stupid like that, I like this event a lot.
Everyone in attendance qualified by winning certain events this year or by finishing high on the money list during the first- or second-halves of the season. My Top 30 is well represented as Hee-Won Han is the only member not present. Meaghan Francella, In-Bee Park and Reilley Rankin are the only players outside the Top 30 who qualified.
Like last year, I will pick a winner and also will predict the eight players who will make it to Sunday’s final round. Those eight players will be Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, Annika Sorenstam, Suzann Pettersen, Natalie Gulbis, Seon Hwa Lee, Laura Davies and Maria Hjorth. My pick to win is – surprise! – Lorena Ochoa.
Stats: Winners 8-29 (12-29 with CYAs), Top Tens 46-85.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Sunday's final round will be taped delayed. It ends 6 pm Florida time. At this time of the year its dark here already.
Bill
My picks for the final 8 are;
Paula Creamer, Laura Davies, Natalie Gulbis, Lerena Ochoa, Suzanne Pettersen, Anika, Mi Hyum Kim, Christina Kim and the million dollars goes to Miss Gulbis on Sunday afternoon.
My final eight picks-
Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa, Jee Young Lee, Seon Hwa Lee, Angela Stanford, Morgan Pressel, Brittany Lincicome, and Christie Kerr.
I'm not going out on a limb to pick one person to win. I did make two long shot picks. Stanford and Jee Young Lee.
Let me explain myself- Stanford and Jee Young aren't really longshots. They've both played very well this year. The one thing they haven't done is win.
I like Craig Dolch at the Palm Beach Post, but his longshot picks included Karrie Webb, Laura Davies, and Christie Kerr are no longshots. The defending US Open champ and the loser of the 2004 ADT in a playoff is a longshot?
Real longshots- C. Kim and Ai Miyazato who I said would be the least likely people to win this week based on form. Inbee Park, Sherri Steinhauer, Shi Hyun Ahn all got to rank up there too. Though Inbee is the 'Julieta Granada' pick of 07. A rookie who didn't win ROY and didn't win a tournament before the ADT.
The three ladies that played in the Wendys Three Tour Challenge in Vagas, Natalie,Cristie and Morgan had Jet problems and flew in a day late without playing a practice round and had to be replaced in their pro-am spots. I would realy be pissed if Natalie was scheduled to be in my group. Hope this doesn't affect my picks.
Post a Comment