Tseng secures spot in ADT Championship at McDonald's LPGA Championship; First half of LPGA Playoffs 2008 wraps up, adding top-11 from ADT Points list

HAVRE DE GRACE, Md., June 8, 2008 - LPGA Tour rookie Yani Tseng claimed the first LPGA Tour victory of her career and earned a spot in the season-ending ADT Championship by winning the second major of the LPGA season - the McDonald's LPGA Championship Presented by Coca-Cola. Tseng, the first Taiwanese player to win an LPGA major, became the season's third Rolex First-Time Winner by making a birdie on the fourth hole of a sudden-death playoff against Sweden's Maria Hjorth.

“I'm really excited to play for $1 million at ADT,” said Tseng, who now leads the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year race. “I told my caddie that if I win today, I'll go to ADT and hopefully I'll win the $1 million there.”

The McDonald's LPGA Championship Presented by Coca-Cola was also the last tournament of the first half of LPGA Playoffs 2008, allowing the top-11 players on the ADT Points list to join Tseng in the ADT Championship field, filling the 15 first half positions. Leading the list was two-time season winner Paula Creamer with 923,742 ADT Points, followed by Jeong Jang with 664,249 ADT Points. In third place on the ADT Points list was Song-Hee Kim (509,000 ADT Points), and LPGA Tour and World Golf Halls of Famer Karrie Webb came in fourth with 505,867 ADT Points. Suzann Pettersen (484,664 ADT Points) claimed fifth place on the list.

First Half ADT Championship Qualifiers

Winner Event qualifiers
1 Lorena Ochoa (HSBC Women's Champions, Kraft Nabisco Championship, Ginn OPEN, Sybase Classic Presented by ShopRite)
2 Annika Sorenstam (Michelob ULTRA Open at Kingsmill, Stanford International Pro-Am)
3 Seon Hwa Lee (Ginn Tribute Hosted by ANNIKA)
4 Yani Tseng (McDonald's LPGA Championship Presented by Coca-Cola)

First Half qualifiers via ADT Points list
5 Paula Creamer 923,742
6 Jeong Jang 664,249
7 Song-Hee Kim 509,000
8 Karrie Webb 505,867
9 Suzann Pettersen 484,664
10 Na Yeon Choi 464,709
11 Maria Hjorth 422,446
12 Karen Stupples 378,342
13 Jee Young Lee 375,695
14 Inbee Park 368,124
15 Laura Diaz 367,228

South Korea's Seon Hwa Lee, Rolex Rankings' number one Lorena Ochoa and Sweden's Annika Sorenstam already secured spots in the ADT Championship by winning one of the automatic qualifiers this season. Ochoa secured her spot in the ADT Championship by winning the HSBC Women's Champions earlier in March, Sorenstam claimed a spot with a victory at the Stanford International Pro-Am in April and Lee won last week's Ginn Tribute Hosted by ANNIKA. Both Ochoa and Sorenstam have won multiple Winner Events, thus moving a total of four qualifying spots to the ADT Points and upping the total number of LPGA players to qualifying off the first half ADT Points list to 11.

The LPGA Playoffs 2008, a yearlong competitive structure that splits the official LPGA season into two halves, culminates at the ADT Championship, Nov. 20-23, at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. Fifteen players from each half qualify for the ADT Championship, and two additional wildcards will be determined following the Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented by Banamex and Corona.

Out of the 32 spots in the ADT Championship, 13 are designated to be awarded to winners of Winner Events, which are defined as official LPGA Tour events with a purse of at least $2 million. The remaining spots in each half will be awarded using a performance-based points system - ADT Points - to determine ADT Championship qualifiers who are not otherwise qualified.

The second half of LPGA Playoffs 2008 will start with back-to-back Winner Events: the Wegmans LPGA June 19-22, the first year the tournament will boast a $2 million purse; followed by the U.S. Women's Open, the third major championship of the season.

The 2008 ADT Championship features a $1,550,000 purse with the winner taking home a $1 million paycheck, the largest first-place prize in the history of women's golf. The ADT Championship will also feature three days of playoffs with a cut after 36 holes. Players start with a fresh scorecard for the third round, which ends with another cut to the top eight players. A live draw will take place with the final eight players immediately following the third round, where players will draft their own tee time based on their third-round finish. A final-day shoot-out with the remaining players will have them, again, starting with a fresh scorecard for their chance at the $1 million winner's check.