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Wie & Blumenherst Dominate at The Sybase

by Jeff Skinner

The excitement continued at The Sybase Classic on Friday as top seeded players were ousted, rookies moved on and some veterans were dominated.  Juli Inkster couldn’t find any magic as she was blitzed by Amy Yang 7 & 6 without winning a single hole.

The luck that left Inkster may have found a home with Morgan Pressel who managed to pull out her match despite going into the 17th hole two down for the second day in a row.  Pressel was two down to Sophie Gustafson with two to play just as she was on Thursday and just like Thursday she won the last two holes to go to all-square and push the match to extra holes.  This time Pressel wasted no time and birdied the 19th hole to take the match.  It looks as if the twenty one year old veteran plans on winning all her matches in overtime.

Sponsor’s exemption, Beatriz Recari defeated fellow LPGA rookie, Azahara Munoz, 3 & 1 to move on to the third round.  He reward: she gets to play the number one seed Jiyai Shin who beat Hee-Won Han. The top ranked American, Cristie Kerr was sent home by the 28th seed, Sun-Young Yoo.  Kerr didn’t win a hole until the eleventh and then picked up another at the thirteenth but when Yoo birdied both the 15th and 16th it was all over.

Michelle Wie kept it going with a 5 & 4 win over Hee Young Park who looked to be using a little gamesmanship early on as she wasn’t conceding any of Wie’s short putts.  Wie seemed to pour it on early as she went 5 up through 11 holes.  Wie moves on to play the 57th seed, Karine Icher in the third round.

We could be seeing the new face of American golf here at The Sybase.  Rookie Amanda Blumenherst continued her spectacular play with a 7 & 6 drubbing of Hall of Famer Karrie Webb.  Blumenherst is a birdie machine and she loves this match play format.  Blumenherst will face fellow American, Angela Stanford in the third round.

Two of the top seeds have moved on without much fanfare: Jiyai Shin, the number one seed will play rookie Recari and the fourth seed, Yani Tseng will play the thirteenth seed, Inbee Park.

See the third round pairings here.

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