Sports
Dramatic End to Kraft Nabisco Championship
A missed tap-in putt on the final hole forces a sudden death playoff at the first major of the LPGA season.
Sun Young Yoo defeated fellow South Korean I.K. Kim on the first hole of a sudden death playoff today to win the $2 million Kraft Nabisco Championship, the LPGA Tour's first major of the year.
Kim missed a one-foot putt on the 18th hole at Mission Hills Country
Club in Rancho Mirage to force the playoff. The golfers returned to the par-
five 18th hole for the playoff. Yoo birdied the hole while Kim parred it.
"I'm speechless,'' Yoo told the Golf Channel immediately after her
victory, but before she joined her caddy in the traditional leap into Poppie's
Pond. "Words can't describe how I'm feeling. I played pretty solid. I was
hoping for some luck. I got lucky.''
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Yoo, a 25-year-old who is 37th on the Rolex Women's World Golf Rankings,
received $300,000 for the second victory in a professional career that began
in 2004. Kim, a 23-year-old ranked 12th, earned $182,538.
Yoo and Kim were among five golfers tied for fourth as the round began,
three shots behind co-leaders Yani Tseng and Karin Sjodin. You and Kim both
shot three-under-par 69s to go to nine-under-par 279 to force the playoff.
Tseng, a native of Taiwan who has been first for 59 consecutive weeks,
shot a one-over-par 73 to finish third at eight-under-280. This is the second
consecutive year Tseng had led or shared the lead entering the final round, but
failed to win.
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Sjodin shot a two-over-74 to fall into a four-way tie for fourth at
seven-under-par 281.
Sjodin, a Swede ranked 216th, had never finished better than a tie for
seventh on the LPGA Tour in a professional career that began in 2005. Sjodin
had missed the cut both of the previous times she played in the Kraft Nabisco
Championship.
At 23 years, two months and nine days old, Tseng was seeking to become
the youngest golfer to win six major championships. Tiger Woods was 26 years, three months and nine days old when he won his sixth major championship, the 2001 Masters.
Tseng had won back-to-back tournaments, three of this season's first
five on the LPGA Tour and six of her last 12. She had won seven of the last
eight times she entered the final round leading or tied for the lead.
