Shin serves notice with ADT victory
BY Bruce Young | LPGA Tour | 2008 ADT Championship | Round Four | 24 Nov 2008
Ji Yai Shin added yet another significant title and her third LPGA Tour victory to her 2008 season when she won the ADT Tour Championship in West Palm Beach and the US$1 million on offer to the winner. It is the largest first prize in women’s golf and fittingly goes to a woman who is destined to challenge Lorena Ochoa for the title of number one in the world.
After winning the Ricoh Women’s British Open earlier in the year, Shin added another LPGA Tour title at the recent Mizuno Open in Japan and today added a third when she defeated Karrie Webb by one shot. She has not yet become a member of the LPGA Tour but next year will move to the US and embark on what is sure to be yet another highly successful career there by a Korean golfer.
When asked what she might do with the US1 million she received for her victory today Shin responded, “I might buy a home as because I will come to America next year I will need a house.”
Even discounting her LPGA Tour victories, Shin’s season has been filled with success. She won all the major tournaments on the Korean LPGA Tour and seven events in total there in addition to two victories in Japan. She started the season by finishing runner up in a playoff to Karrie Webb in the Australian Women’s Open and the 20-year-old has not looked back. Today the roles were reversed.
Webb finished runner up in an event where the final round essentially became a shootout after the scores of the eight leading players at the completion of 54 holes were reset. Four or five players still had a chance with just a few holes to play but the demanding finish at the Trump International put paid to the chances of Seon Hwa Lee and Eun Hee Ji.
Karrie Webb appeared as if she might overcome one of her least successful seasons on the LPGA Tour when she reached the lead through eight holes of the day but three consecutive bogeys early in her back nine would cost her the chance of making something out of a nothing season.
Webb finished strongly over the final few holes but the damage had been done. She finished alone in second position after a brilliant birdie putt at the final hole and earned US$100,000 for what was an encouraging week.
Paula Creamer, who struggled with illness all week, benefited from the demise of Lee and Ji, eventually finishing in a share of third with Lee. If Creamer had been able to win the event it would have given her an unlikely and perhaps unfair money list title but it was not to be and Ochoa won the money list title by US$939,000 with a total of US$2,778,965.
Katherine Hull, who had done so well early in the week, was knocked out of the event after 54 holes but she still earns US$14,000 and has finished her breakthrough season in 13th place on the money list with $1,085,578.00. Webb was the second leading Australian on the ADT Tour money list with US$845,000.
