(4 July 2011 – Crown Point, Indiana)
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Fresh from the Wegmans LPGA Championship the week before, Tiffany Joh showed up this week on the LPGA Futures Tour, wanting to play one more tournament before taking a week off. She’ll be glad she did putting together rounds of 68-70, a 6-under par 138, to win the storm-shortened South Shore Championship by two strokes. In second place were Jane Rah, Mallory Blackwelder and Tiffany Tavee who tied at 4-under par 140.
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rnJoh had no idea she had won the tournament until she sat down to sign her scorecard and realised that some of the leaders she had been chasing had fallen off pace on the final holes. She commented, “Honestly, I’m just really tired because this is my fifth week in a row, but I said ‘let’s just try to play this week’, I didn’t really expect anything, so I’m surprised and ecstatic to win.”
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rnScheduled for a Saturday finish with a Thursday start, the inaugural South Shore Championship was hammered by more than four inches of rain on Friday and a full day of ferocious thunderstorms that suspended play Friday morning and never resumed. With more storms forecast for Saturday and a full field of players waiting, the tour canceled the second round and resumed play on Saturday as the final round making it a 36-hole event and a sprint to the finish.
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rnRah and Blackwelder both played in the morning rounds and were in a tie for the clubhouse lead at 4-under 140. But all either player could do was post their number and wait for another five hours before the winner would be determined.
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rnTavee, playing in the afternoon with Joh, had a chance to finish second outright, but bogeyed No. 9 – her finishing hole. She hit her approach shot chunky from the soggy fairway and landed 35 yards short of the green. She chipped to 18 feet, but couldn’t get up and down for par.
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rnAs the bogeys piled up on the final holes by other players in contention, Joh was the last woman standing at six under. “I had no clue,” said Joh, a 2010 Futures Tour tournament winner. “But a win is a win. I’ll take it.”
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rnAlison Whitaker was the best of the ALPG Members, finishing in a tie for 31st at 1-over par, while Cathryn Bristow was a further shot back in a tie for 37th.
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