July 23
THE WINNER IS?
UNKNOWN LEE TAKES WORLD MATCH PLAY
The tournament directors at the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship invited the "Who's Who" of women's golf.
Instead, they wound up with the "Who? Who?" of the sport.
With nine of the top 10 players being knocked out before the third round, yesterday's final featured 22nd-seeded Seon Hwa Lee and No. 12 Ai Miyazato - not exactly household names.
Lee, who despite lacking star power, is quickly becoming one of the top players on the tour, captured her second LPGA title yesterday, beating Miyazato, 2 and 1.
The South Korean Lee is one of the best young players in the world, as is the Japanese Miyazato, Though they are celebrities in their native countries, that is not the case here. It was evidenced by the paltry amount of people who actually attended the finale at Wykagyl Country Club in New Rochelle.
Such was the state of the tournament and to a greater extent, the LPGA itself, which has a handful of players who can draw a crowd. And virtually all of those players were gone by the end of the second round.
Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis were gone by Friday and Michelle Wie turned down an exemption to play in the tournament, leaving Port Chester's Meaghan Francella to keep people interested. When her run ended after the quarterfinals on Saturday, so did much interest in the event.......
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More:
NEW ROCHELLE (New York): South Korean 10th seed Kim Mi-hyun reached the semi-finals of the US$2 million Women’s World Matchplay Championship on Saturday with a one-up victory over compatriot Lee Jee-young.
Kim was just one of two players within the top 12 that made it to the quarter-finals in the upset-strewn tournament at Wykagyl Country Club.
... Meaghan Francella had her run ended with a 4 and 3 loss to Maria Hjorth of Sweden. Meaghann, a native of nearby Port Chester and the 33rd seed, had shocked top-seeded Lorena in the second round
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Kim was just one of two players within the top 12 that made it to the quarter-finals in the upset-strewn tournament at Wykagyl Country Club.
Among the top players knocked out between Thursday and Friday were world No. 1 Lorena Ochoa, third seed Annika Sorenstam, No. 5 Pak Se-ri, eighth seed Paula Creamer and No. 13 Brittany Lincicome, the defending champion.
But Kim, winner of the the SemGroup Championship in May, was able to buck the upset trend to set up a match with 22nd-seeded compatriot Lee Seon-hwa.
The 18-hole final was to follow the semi-finals.....
... Francella had her run ended with a 4 and 3 loss to Maria Hjorth of Sweden. Francella, a native of nearby Port Chester and the 33rd seed, had shocked top-seeded Ochoa in the second round. It was the second straight time that the 25-year-old upset the ...
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Seon Hwa Lee birdied the 17th hole to beat Ai Miyazato 2-and-1 in the final of the HSBC Women's World Match Play Champioship at Wykagyl Country Club in New Rochelle...
... 1-up after three holes on 40th-seeded Maria Hjorth, the player who ousted local favorite Meaghan Francella of Port Chester in yesterday's quarterfinal
Full Story: The Journal News
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Francella, Francella, Francella, and More Francella.
Francella, Wagner playing out of the country this week
Meaghan Francella will be a long way from home.
A week after returning to Westchester to play in the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship at Wykagyl Country Club in New Rochelle, the Port Chester native will be playing in the Evian Masters in Evian-les-Bains, France.
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Doubts surface about HSBC's future at Wykagyl
NEW ROCHELLE - Like Seon Hwa Lee, the unassuming South Korean who prevailed through six rounds of the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship, assessments of the tournament's debut at Wykagyl Country Club were modest in nature......
Ochoa, and Karrie Webb; and featured a number of compelling upsets, most notably Ochoa's loss on Friday to Port Chester native Meaghan Francella. But by Sunday, those upsets had yielded a final four largely devoid of star power, and the result was ...
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Officials happy with HSBC, fans not so sure
NEW ROCHELLE - Banners featuring the LPGA's biggest stars have lined North Avenue for the past month, highlighting a field at this week's HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship that featured Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa and Paula Creamer.....
... into the weekend at Wykagyl Country Club. The top nine seeds were eliminated after Friday's second round, and Port Chester native Meaghan Francella, a strong local attraction, was knocked out in Saturday's quarterfinal. According to tournament ...
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LPGA: Meaghan Francella aimed high.
Facing a blind second shot on the par-5 18th, the North Carolina alumna hit a perfect 3-wood into the middle of the green to finish off top-ranked Lorena Ochoa in the second round of the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship in New Rochelle, N.Y."I just picked out a cloud," Francella said. "I didn't know where it went and then I heard the claps."
Francella, a tour rookie from nearby Port Chester, thrilled her large, vocal gallery with the 1-up victory over No. 1 Ochoa, who dropped out along with No. 3 Annika Sorenstam, No. 5 Se Ri Pak, No. 7 Suzann Pettersen and No. 8 Paula Creamer. No. 10 Mi Hyun Kim is the top remaining seed in the final 16
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MARIA Hjorth ended Meaghan Francella's run in the Women's World Match Play Championship, beating the local favorite 4 and 3 in the quarterfinals at Wykagyl Country Club in New Rochelle, New York, on Saturday.
The 40th-seeded Hjorth, a 19-hole winner over Angela Stanford in the third round on Saturday morning, set up a semifinal match against Japanese star Ai Miyazato. The 12th-seeded Miyazato birdied the par-5 18th to beat No. 61 Amy Hung 1-up.
In the other semifinal, No. 10 Kim Mi-hyun will face No. 22 Lee Seon-hwa in an all-South Korean matchup. Kim, the highest remaining seed, beat No. 15 Lee Jee-young 1-up. Lee Seon-hwa topped No. 35 Lindsey Wright of Australia 3 and 2.
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Junior golfer Alessandra Kutz of Sanford shot an even-par 72 Saturday in the first round at the Optimist International Junior Golf Championships in Palm Beach Gardens. Kutz, competing in the girls 12-13 age division, enters round two of the three-day tournament tied for second. Kutz is entering seventh grade at Rock Lake Middle School. Leading the tournament is Thailand's Moriya Jutanugarn, who went 4 under to take a four-stroke lead. Kutz is tied for second with Briana Mao of Folsom, Calif.....
......"This week has been really, really good off the tee," Hjorth said. "I guess I'm considered as a long hitter, so that sometimes can be a bit of a help. I think also being able to have spin on the ball on these greens, because they're starting to firm up a lot and be really quick, is a big advantage, too.
"With wind gusts again making club selection difficult on the hilly course, the 33rd-seeded Francella, from nearby Port Chester, fell to Hjorth after beating No. 1 Lorena Ochoa 1-up Friday and topping Pat Hurst 2 and 1 Saturday morning.
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The large gallery that followed Meaghan Francella throughout her four rounds at the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship was left disappointed yesterday, but the crowd was perhaps not as disappointed as the tournament officials.
Francella, a Port Chester native, was eliminated in the quarterfinals, 4 and 3, by No. 40-seed Maria Hjorth, leaving the tournament with no major draws as it heads into its last day.
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Maria Hjorth ended Meaghan Francella's run in the Women's World Match Play Championship, beating the local favorite 4 and 3 in the quarterfinals Saturday at Wykagyl Country Club in New Rochelle, N.Y.
The 40th-seeded Hjorth set up a semifinal match today against 12th-seeded Ai Miyazato, who birdied the par-5 18th hole to beat 61st-seeded Amy Hung 1-up.
In the other semifinal match, 10th-seeded Mi Hyun Kim will face 22nd-seeded Seon Hwa Lee. Kim, the highest-ranked player left in the field, beat 15th-seeded Jee Young Lee 1-up, and Seon Hwa Lee topped 35th-seeded Lindsey Wright 3 and 2.
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NEW ROCHELLE - Last year the HSBC Women's World Match Play's final four were Lorena Ochoa, Juli Inkster, Paula Creamer and eventual champ Brittany Lincicome.
How many of HSBC's dollars do you think the title sponsor would pay to have any one of those players at Wykagyl for its final four today?
Never mind that. How many of HSBC's executives (or CBS-TV's) would volunteer to pick up Meaghan Francella in Port Chester and carry her and her gallery of friends, family, neighbors and former classmates - "people I haven't seen in years," Francella said - to New Rochelle today?
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NEW ROCHELLE - At the very end, when she was all out of frustration, Meaghan Francella could only manage a bemused smile. The Port Chester native had a ball in the rough, a stance in the bunker, and no realistic chance of knocking her ball close. In other words, she had her quarterfinal round in the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship summed up perfectly.
