Golfweek - Golf News Magazine

By RUSTY MILLER
Associated Press

SYLVANIA, Ohio – Paula Creamer is finding out how hard it is to win while leading from start to finish on the LPGA.

The rest of the field is discovering how hard it is to catch her.

Creamer shot a 1-under 70 on Saturday, 10 more shots than she needed in the first round, but still held a four-stroke lead after three rounds of the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic.

“You know, winning wire-to-wire – that’s difficult to do,” said Creamer, who stands at 18-under 195 through 54 holes at Highland Meadows. “There’s a lot of pressure on you in that situation, especially when you shoot a 60 the first day and anything higher than that everybody thinks, ‘What’s going on? What’s wrong?’ ”

South Korea’s Eun-Hee Ji was in second place looking up at Creamer, as she has been after all three rounds. She shot a 68 to cut two strokes off Creamer’s lead but wasn’t pleased with her own play.

“Today you could see that Paula didn’t have her best day, but at the same time I wasn’t really having my A game as well,” Ji said through an interpreter.

Ji could easily have made an even bigger dent in the lead. She cut it to three strokes when she birdied the 11th hole while Creamer, playing in the same group, was three-putting for a bogey. Creamer recovered with birdies at the 13th and 17th holes. Ji was 1 under for the final seven holes and missed two short birdie putts that could have drawn her closer.

Ji, playing her first full year on the tour, missed a 10-footer at No. 16. Then, moments after Creamer saved par with a 7-foot putt at the closing hole, Ji missed a 6-footer for birdie.

Creamer said she was fortunate to still have such a big lead.

The 21-year-old Californian, who set the course record with her opening 60, had a 65 in the second round during which she said she hit three or four “terrible” shots. She called her wedge from 80 yards out on the final hole “awful.”

“Obviously I wasn’t very pleased with the way I played today,” she said. “But at the same time I have a pretty significant lead going into tomorrow.”

Creamer said she would try to forget about the 72-hole tournament record (23 under by five-time winner Se Ri Pak) or the pressures of winning wire-to-wire.

“I’m just going to play it like we are both even, like it’s a one-day tournament,” she said.

Rachel Hetherington, winner of the Farr in 2002, had a 67 and was alone in third at 202.

“It’s tough to gain much when everybody is playing well and birdieing,” Hetherington said. “You need to shoot an exceptional score, like Karrie Webb did today, shooting 9 under. You’re going to jump a lot of places.”

With her 62, Webb went from a tie for 50th to a tie for fourth with Chinese rookie Shanshan Feng, who shot a 64. They were both at 203.

“I was playing my best ball-striking round of the year,” said Webb, a winner of seven major championships and 28 other tour events in her Hall of Fame career.

She said she changed putters after her 70 in the first round and before a second-round 71.

Asked why she made the switch she cracked, “I couldn’t be any worse.”

Defending champion Se Ri Pak, trying to become the first LPGA player to win the same tournament six times, had a 72 that left her 14 shots back.

The lead threesome had to wait more than an hour to tee off when play was delayed because of a thunderstorm that rumbled through Toledo and its suburbs. Heavy rain was expected overnight, forcing organizers to again go to threesomes off both tees in the final round.

Creamer, No. 1 in the U.S. Solheim Cup standings and third on the money list behind Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam, will go for her seventh career win and third of the year. She won tournaments in Hawaii and Tulsa, but is trying to erase bad final rounds in each of her last two starts.

She lapsed to a 78 to fall into a tie for sixth in the U.S. Women’s Open two weeks ago, then knocked herself out of contention with a closing 74 a week ago in Arkansas.

“I really haven’t done much the last two days,” she said.

Almost as a reminder to herself and the rest of the field, she added, “My lead has kind of gotten smaller and smaller – but I still have a four-shot lead.”

---

Scores with relation to par from the third round of the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, played July 12 at the par-71, 6,428-yard Highland Meadows Golf Club in Sylvania, Ohio (Note: a-amateur):

1. Paula Creamer	60-65-70--195			-18
2. Eun-Hee Ji	65-66-68--199			-14
3. Rachel Hetherington	68-67-67--202			-11
4. Shanshan Feng	69-70-64--203			-10
4. Karrie Webb	70-71-62--203			-10
6. Kristy McPherson	74-66-64--204			-9
6. Brittany Lincicome	70-67-67--204			-9
6. Alena Sharp	69-67-68--204			-9
9. Momoko Ueda	68-70-67--205			-8
9. Ji Young Oh	70-68-67--205			-8
9. Katie Futcher	69-69-67--205			-8
9. Janice Moodie	69-67-69--205			-8
9. H.J. Choi	67-68-70--205			-8
9. Stacy Lewis	70-66-69--205			-8
15. Angela Stanford	69-70-67--206			-7
15. Eunjung Yi	69-70-67--206			-7
15. Nicole Castrale	70-69-67--206			-7
15. Moira Dunn	67-70-69--206			-7
15. Jennifer Rosales	70-67-69--206			-7
20. Jin Joo Hong	70-69-68--207			-6
20. Karen Stupples	70-68-69--207			-6
20. Heather Daly-Donofrio	72-66-69--207			-6
20. Katherine Hull	69-68-70--207			-6
20. Young Kim	66-70-71--207			-6
25. Sherri Turner	71-69-68--208			-5
25. Na Ri Kim	68-72-68--208			-5
25. Catriona Matthew	68-70-70--208			-5
25. Paige Mackenzie	72-66-70--208			-5
29. Virada Nirapathpongporn	69-70-70--209			-4
29. Sarah Lee	70-70-69--209			-4
29. Gloria Park	65-73-71--209			-4
29. Meena Lee	69-69-71--209			-4
29. Heather Young	70-68-71--209			-4
29. Se Ri Pak	68-69-72--209			-4
35. Diana D'Alessio	67-72-71--210			-3
35. Stacy Prammanasudh	69-70-71--210			-3
35. Sun Young Yoo	69-71-70--210			-3
35. Mikaela Parmlid	68-72-70--210			-3
35. Amy Yang	73-68-69--210			-3
35. Yu Ping Lin	70-71-69--210			-3
35. Charlotte Mayorkas	72-70-68--210			-3
42. Sarah Jane Kenyon	70-70-71--211			-2
42. Nancy Scranton	73-69-69--211			-2
42. Giulia Sergas	72-65-74--211			-2
45. Eva Dahllof	66-73-73--212			-1
45. Mi Hyun Kim	69-70-73--212			-1
45. Soo-Yun Kang	69-70-73--212			-1
45. Laura Diaz	71-68-73--212			-1
45. Brandie Burton	71-68-73--212			-1
45. Anna Grzebien	72-69-71--212			-1
45. Grace Park	72-69-71--212			-1
45. Jimin Jeong	73-69-70--212			-1
45. Hannah Jun	71-71-70--212			-1
54. Mhairi McKay	72-68-73--213			E
54. Sherri Steinhauer	71-69-73--213			E
54. Meaghan Francella	70-71-72--213			E
54. Wendy Ward	68-73-72--213			E
54. Sandra Gal	75-67-71--213			E
54. Kate Golden	71-71-71--213			E
54. Kim Hall	71-71-71--213			E
54. Carin Koch	71-71-71--213			E
54. In-Kyung Kim	71-71-71--213			E
54. Michelle Wie	70-72-71--213			E
54. Kyeong Bae	70-72-71--213			E
54. Carolina Llano	68-74-71--213			E
66. Johanna Head	72-68-74--214		+	1
66. Sophie Gustafson	70-71-73--214		+	1
66. Lorie Kane	69-72-73--214		+	1
66. Wendy Doolan	69-72-73--214		+	1
66. Seo-Jae Lee	72-70-72--214		+	1
66. Kris Tschetter	72-70-72--214		+	1
72. Reilley Rankin	71-68-76--215		+	2
73. Julieta Granada	73-68-75--216		+	3
74. Beth Bader	70-70-77--217		+	4
74. Allison Fouch	73-68-76--217		+	4
74. Sarah Lynn Sargent	71-71-75--217		+	4
74. Michelle Ellis	70-72-75--217		+	4
78. Marisa Baena	71-71-76--218		+	5
• • •
Missed the cut
79. Lee Ann Walker-Cooper	71-72--143		+	1
79. Tracy Hanson	69-74--143		+	1
79. Candy Hannemann	72-71--143		+	1
79. Hee Young Park	71-72--143		+	1
79. Karine Icher	74-69--143		+	1
79. Russy Gulyanamitta	74-69--143		+	1
79. Christina Kim	72-71--143		+	1
79. Kris Tamulis	70-73--143		+	1
79. Meredith Duncan	73-70--143		+	1
88. Ashleigh Simon	71-73--144		+	2
88. Anna Rawson	76-68--144		+	2
88. Carri Wood	74-70--144		+	2
88. Jackie Gallagher-Smith	74-70--144		+	2
88. Cindy Pasechnik	70-74--144		+	2
88. Hana Kim	73-71--144		+	2
88. Stephanie Louden	73-71--144		+	2
88. Vicki Goetze-Ackerman	72-72--144		+	2
88. Il Mi Chung	71-73--144		+	2
88. Leta Lindley	72-72--144		+	2
88. Natalie Gulbis	74-70--144		+	2
88. Dorothy Delasin	72-72--144		+	2
88. Michelle McGann	72-72--144		+	2
88. Su A Kim	70-74--144		+	2
88. Allison Hanna-Williams	75-69--144		+	2
88. Becky Iverson	72-72--144		+	2
88. Sophie Giquel	73-71--144		+	2
105. Erica Blasberg	75-70--145		+	3
105. Marcy Hart	73-72--145		+	3
105. Beth Allen	73-72--145		+	3
108. Jill McGill	76-70--146		+	4
108. Meg Mallon	73-73--146		+	4
108. Kristen Samp	70-76--146		+	4
108. Hwanhee Lee	75-71--146		+	4
108. Birdie Kim	72-74--146		+	4
108. Nicole Hage	77-69--146		+	4
108. Sarah Kemp	71-75--146		+	4
115. Danielle Downey	74-73--147		+	5
115. Becky Lucidi	74-73--147		+	5
115. a-Mallory Blackwelder	74-73--147		+	5
115. Laura Davies	74-73--147		+	5
119. Simi Mehra	77-71--148		+	6
119. Barb Mucha	74-74--148		+	6
119. Taylor Leon	73-75--148		+	6
119. Jamie Hullett	75-73--148		+	6
119. Seol-An Jeon	72-76--148		+	6
119. Christa Johnson	73-75--148		+	6
119. Liz Janangelo	73-75--148		+	6
119. Young-A Yang	74-74--148		+	6
119. Jeanne Cho-Hunicke	73-75--148		+	6
128. Audra Burks	77-72--149		+	7
128. Sung Ah Yim	75-74--149		+	7
128. Kelli Kuehne	76-73--149		+	7
128. Onnarin Sattayabanphot	75-74--149		+	7
132. Siew-Ai Lim	72-78--150		+	8
132. Jennifer Greggain	78-72--150		+	8
134. Emily Bastel	75-76--151		+	9
134. Young Jo	76-75--151		+	9
136. Ashli Bunch	75-77--152		+	10
136. Lisa Strom	76-76--152		+	10
136. Dina Ammaccapane	78-74--152		+	10
136. Mollie Fankhauser	79-73--152		+	10
140. Becky Morgan	78-75--153		+	11
141. A.J. Eathorne	80-75--155		+	13
142. Angela Jerman	80-78--158		+	16
143. Violeta Retamoza	79-80--159		+	17

Posted: 7/12/2008

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