Kingsmill Championship presented by JTBC
Williamsburg, Virginia
Third Round Notes
May 16, 2015
Rolex Rankings No. 321 Perrine Delacour (-11)
Rolex Rankings No. 100 Alison Lee (-10)
Rolex Rankings No. 23 Paula Creamer (-9)
Rolex Rankings No. 7 So Yeon Ryu (-9)
Rolex Rankings No. 59 Minjee Lee (-9)
Rolex Rankings No. 186 Kelly Tan (-6)
STATS AND STUFF
-Alison Lee’s best finish in an LPGA event was a T4 at the 2015 Kia Classic
-Kelly Tan’s previous low round in an LPGA event was a 66 at the 2014 Airbus LPGA Classic. She ended up finishing 26th that week.
-Hyo Joo Kim has yet to miss a cut in each of her 19 LPGA events played and has 11 top 10’s.
-Paula Creamer’s best finish this year was a T10 at the Kia Classic. The last time she has finished within the top-5 was when she won the 2014 HSBC Women’s Champions.
-So Yeon Ryu’s best finish in 2015 was a T4 at the HSBC Womens Champions
-Michelle Wie withdrew due to injury after the first round of the Kingsmill Championship presented by JTBC.
-Angela Stanford has finished top-10 on four different occasions at Kingsmill (2013, 2012, 2009, 2007).
-Perrine Delacour’s best finish on the LPGA was a T15 at the 2014 Handa Australian Open. She had five consecutive missed cuts before this week.
CREAMER CRUISES
Paula Creamer took advantage of “Moving Day” from the get-go, posting an eagle on her third hole of the day,
followed by a strong push on the back nine. Creamer birdied two of her last four holes to finish at 9-under T3.
“The wind today really picked up on the last several holes,” Creamer said. “Those holes played tough. They’re making this golf course really fun with the pin placements. You can’t just fire at them. The greens are really firm, so you have to think about where you want to put the ball.”
Creamer will play in the second-to-last group Sunday with So Yeon Ryu who also sits just two shots behind Delacour (-11). In contention is where Creamer wants to be and heads into Sunday with confidence.
“Playing in a final group or the last two groups, that’s always fun,” Creamer said. “It’s good to have my game where I want it to be. I have a lot of confidence, even though got to go work on some things, but this is fun.”
ROUND OF THE DAY
Saturday’s round of the day goes to Kelly Tan (-6) as she surged her way up the leaderboard with bogey-free 65. Tan has had an up and down season making cuts in five of her nine starts. This week, she decided to change things up and that started with a fresh face; her caddie and friend, Jacky Lau.
“I asked, so you are going to graduate on Sunday, what are you going to do,” Tan said. “She’s like, I don’t know, I’m looking for a job...I was like, why don’t you just come caddie…just come have fun and we’ll have a good week, and she’s like, um, let me think about it…Monday morning she called me, and she’s like, yeah, I booked a flight, I’ll come.”
From the looks of it, Tan might have found herself a new caddie. Tan had 25 putts on the day and racked up seven birdies. Tan was on her A-game and she said it was concentrating on the physical struggles of her inexperienced caddie that helped keep her relaxed.
“We were basically just joking all around,” Tan said. “She hasn’t been working out, and after the first hole, she’s like, okay, one down, 17 to go. She actually helped me in a sense. I’d make one birdie…she’s like, three down, 16 to go, or 15 to go.”
LPGA NOMINATED AS SPORTS LEAGUE OF THE YEAR
The LPGA was announced as one of the five finalists for the Sports Business Journal/Daily Sports League of the Year award category for the Sports Business Awards. Joining the LPGA as the other leagues nominated for the Sports League of the Year award are NASCAR, Major League Soccer (MLS), the Big East Conference and the National Basketball Association (NBA).
“I’m excited for our entire team, whose efforts have been tremendous. We are very honored to be recognized as a finalist by SBJ among other prestigious sports league,” LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan said. “The LPGA had a magical year filled with incredible storylines touching every part of our organization and many Tour victories that showed everyone global success is the best kind of sports story.”
The Sports Business Awards were established to recognize excellence, innovation and outstanding achievements in the business of sports. Nominations were earned for accomplishments during the period from March 1, 2014, to February 28, 2015. The executives and members representing SportsBusiness Journal/Daily will evaluate the nominees and determine the winners, who will be announced at a ceremony on May 20 at the New York Marriott Marquis.
AIRTIMES THIS WEEK
Golf Channel will broadcast all the action at the Kingsmill Championship presented by JTBC with air times listed below. All times listed are Eastern.
Full coverage of the LPGA is on the Golf LIVE Extra app / golfchannel.com.
May 17
5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
KEY NUMBERS TO KNOW
1- Perrine Delacour and Alison Lee are both looking for their first LPGA victory.
10 - GIR for Paula Creamer today
11- This year marks the 11th year of the Kingsmill Championship
14 - Consecutive weeks spent at the top of the Rolex Rankings for Lydia Ko
19 - Annika Sorenstam’s 19-under in 2009 is the Kingsmill tournament record
29 - Number of putts for Paula Creamer in the third round
29 - Number of putts for Alison Lee in the third round, even with the four-putt on 17
ROLEX RANKINGS SCENARIOS
Below are the Rolex Rankings No. 1 projections for this week at the Kingsmill Championship. After the first three rounds, Lydia Ko (-3) is T20, Inbee Park (-4) is T16 and Stacy Lewis (E) is T47
Lydia Ko can maintain No. 1 if:
She finishes in a two-way tie for second or better even if Inbee Park wins.
Park finishes in a three-way tie for second or worse even if Lydia misses the cut.
Inbee Park can become No. 1 if:
She wins AND Lydia Ko finishes in a three-way tie for second or worse.
She finishes 2nd AND Ko finishes in a three-way tie for 11th or worse.***
She finishes in a two-way tie for 2nd AND Ko finishes in 37th or worse ***
Stacy Lewis CANNOT become No. 1 this week regardless of what happens. There are scenarios in which Lewis can move to No. 2 with a win but only a win.
***All multi-way tie situations bring up multiple scenarios. Please check with the LPGA PR staff for clarification.
LATE TEE TIMES
Late tee times Saturday, after 2pm ET, had the leaders finding ways to keep busy and buy time until their tee time, and players found different ways to distract themselves until it was time to compete.
“I took a really long sleep and had breakfast with my mom,” Ryu said “Make me like relax rather than like worry about the tournament…what I did this morning was just enjoy this beautiful place.”
Rookie Lee wasn’t used to this much of a delay with her late tee time and used it to explore a new city.
“When I saw the tee times I was like, Oh, my God. I’ve never had a 3:00 tee time,” Lee said. “I got up, slept in, and went to the gym. Worked out for just over an hour and went to the local farmer’s market near Williamsburg.”
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“Everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately that was a huge mistake at the wrong time. But that’s golf. I will definitely learn from it and make sure I don’t make the same mistake twice. “
- Alison Lee, explaining her finish in the third round of the Kingsmill Championship
DID YOU KNOW
At the 2012 U.S. Girls Juniors, Minjee Lee beat out Alison Lee, Ariya Jutanugarn and Lydia Ko to win. The article from the event can be found here. http://usga.org/ChampEventArticle.aspx?id=21474849054
SHOW ME THE EAGLES
Three total eagles were made today (Paula Creamer, Julieta Granada and Pernilla Lindberg all on hole 3) at the Kia Classic and players raised $3,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project as part of the season-long Wounded Warrior Project® Weekends.
The three eagles today pushes the season-total to $96,000, just four eagles away from the $100,000 mark.
Wounded Warrior Project® Weekends is a season-long charity program that will be tied into the Race to the CME Globe. Each Saturday and Sunday at LPGA tournaments, CME Group will donate $1,000 to Wounded Warrior Project® for each eagle that is recorded. This amount will increase to $5,000 for each eagle during the weekend of the CME Group Tour Championship and a formal check will be presented to the Wounded Warrior Project® during the trophy ceremony at the CME Group Tour Championship. To get involved and learn more, visit woundedwarriorproject.org.
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