Stanford International – 3rd Round

Annika Sorenstam leads by one shot going into the final round of the Stanford International Pro-Am. Paula Creamer is in second place at -6, Momoko Ueda and Young Kim are tied for third at -5 while Cristie Kerr is fifth at -4.

Even though about a 15mph wind was still present, the scoring was significantly better Saturday. 17 rounds in the 60s were posted, as opposed to 10 apiece Thursday and Friday. Maybe they did water those greens. Sorenstam managed a 70, which allowed Creamer, Ueda and Kerr to move in close with 67s. Kim struggled to a 73 but didn’t lose sight of the top. Dorothy Delasin moved into sixth place (-2) with a 69 while Angela Park, Ji Young Oh and Seon Hwa Lee climbed into the Top 10 with their sub-70 rounds.

Moving in the wrong direction were Meena Lee (73 +1), Angela Stanford (76 +3) and Grace Park (73 +2). Grace suffered her first double-bogey of the week at 14 but bounced back nicely with a chip-in birdie at 15. She’s now T19, only a good Sunday away from her first Top 10 of the year.

The pro-am competition was won by the team of Beth Bader and her amateur partner, whose last name is Theobald. The pro-am pairings at lpga.com seem to be misplaced and a thunderstorm knocked out my satellite feed just before the end of the coverage so I never caught his first name. Congratulations, Theobald! UPDATE: His name is Aaron Theobald. He is a 23-year-old cancer survivor from Illinois who was invited to play through connections with St. Jude. He's also undergone two hip-replacement surgeries in the last few years. I don't think you could have picked a better winner for this pro-am.

So we wind up with one terrific five-player shootout for Sunday afternoon. The final group will contain two of 2008's victorious players (Annika and Paula) plus a ROY candidate who won late in 2007 (Ueda). The other two players closest to the top (YK and Kerr) both won about this same time last year. Tell me, which one of these five can’t win tomorrow?