2021 Bank of Hope LPGA Match Play (May 26 - 30)

[18majors]

Friday was a wild day, to say the least.

 

The beauty and also the shortcoming of Match Play is that the 32 matches mayhem of Group Play is suddenly reduced to eight and four matches today.  It solves the problems of not having enough cameras but fans' interest wander away when their favorites aren't in the field any longer.

 

Danielle Kang and Patty Tavatanakit have been the most impressive in the Group Play, but Inbee Park and Minjee Lee could also provide fireworks during the knock out rounds.

Edited May 29, 2021 by 18majors

[Argonne69]

Danielle was quite impressive. Combination of playing at home on her sponsor's course, generally aggressive play, previous match play excellence, and having Butch on the sideline made for a good combination. 

 

Nasa, Minjee, Patty, Sophia, Inbee, Minjee, Bronte, and Jenny all collected 2 1/2 points, and can certainly be a factor today. 

 

Pity we'll only see highlights from Danielle and Bronte's morning match.

 

 

[stingerfade]

On 5/28/2021 at 8:04 AM, Argonne69 said:

 

Nothing. There is no official term for being in a position where one cannot do worse than a tie. Strange.

 

Dormie is such a great word too  golfs ruling bodies are just weird sometimes. Yet I can’t get relief from a fresh divot with a perfect drive 

[Argonne69]

1 minute ago, stingerfade said:

Dormie is such a great word too  golfs ruling bodies are just weird sometimes. Yet I can’t get relief from a fresh divot with a perfect drive 

 

Lol. If it was a perfect drive it wouldn't be in a divot hole. 🙃

 

[18majors]

The bracket chart

 

[Well Played]

Anybody know if there is any way to watch this morning? I can’t find it anywhere...

[Stooch]

While execution is still key, Danielle Kang is 3 under through 10 holes on this beast, my question is "Do you think the 4 weeks leading up to this event that Danielle played on this course, under these firm conditions , was a help?" 😂

[18majors]

29 minutes ago, Stooch said:

Do you think the 4 weeks leading up to this event that Danielle played on this course, under these firm conditions , was a help?"

 

 

Of course, it helped.  But in the end, it's all ball striking and putting.

 

Bronte Law, who's a product of West Coast and UCLA and has played poorly all year, is giving Danielle all she can handle at this point.

Edited May 29, 2021 by 18majors

[Golf Dino]

3 minutes ago, 18majors said:

 

 

Of course, it helped.  But in the end, it's all ball striking and putting.

 

Bronte Law, who's a product of West Coast and UCLA and has played poorly all year, is giving Danielle all she can handle at the moment.

 

 

She's playing for a captains pick!  😄 

[Argonne69]

27 minutes ago, Stooch said:

While execution is still key, Danielle Kang is 3 under through 10 holes on this beast, my question is "Do you think the 4 weeks leading up to this event that Danielle played on this course, under these firm conditions , was a help?" 😂

 

Bronte birdied the 12th to go one down.

 

Patty is on a roll, 4 up after 8.

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Argonne69

[18majors]

One point of view:

 

[Argonne69]

Bronte is not going away. Another birdie on the 14th to tie the match.

 

Minjee is 5 up after 13. Patty 4 up after 9.

 

Inbee and Sophia tied at the turn.

 

Looks like some really good matches. Too bad we're in the dark here. Pfffttttt.

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Argonne69

[18majors]

3 minutes ago, Argonne69 said:

Bronte is not going away. Another birdie on the 14th to tie the match.

 

 

 

Bronte won #12 with a par and #14 with a birdie.

 

The pressure is all on Danielle at this point; it doesn't look good!

 

[18majors]

 

I hope Inbee hangs on and wins her match; otherwise, Patty Tavatanakit will steam roll over Sophia Popov.

 

Maybe Patty will steam roll over Inbee too; but at least it would be a good match that I'd love to watch.

 

 

[18majors]

Minjee is the first to move into quarterfinals with a 5&4 win over Mel Reid; I haven't been this happy for a while!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by 18majors

[Argonne69]

Danielle righted the ship, closing with a birdie on the 18th for a 2 up win. 

 

Ariya with a solid 4&3 win over Anna. 

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Argonne69

[18majors]

6 minutes ago, Argonne69 said:

Danielle righted the ship, closing with a birdie on the 18th for a 2 up win. 

 

Ariya with a solid 4&3 win over Anna. 

 

 

 

We're into the meat of the event at the quarterfinals; Minjee vs. Ariya and potentially Patty vs. Inbee.  

 

All those four players can emerge as the winner tomorrow.

[Golf Dino]

1 hour ago, 18majors said:

 

 

Bronte won #12 with a par and #14 with a birdie.

 

The pressure is all on Danielle at this point; it doesn't look good!

 

 

A potential Solheim Cup preview ... whatever or no matter happens in medal play, the European women are fierce competitors in match play!  

[18majors]

2 minutes ago, Golf Dino said:

 

A potential Solheim Cup preview ... whatever or no matter happens in medal play, the European women are fierce competitors in match play!  

 

 

Yes, Europeans take full advantage of carrying chips on their shoulders; they fully believe that they're unequally treated by the world and Americans are born with silver spoons in their mouths.

 

That makes the world go around and are never ending stories.

[18majors]

Hope she'll give Patty Tavatanakit a fight for her money

 

 

[18majors]

Shsnshan to the rescue

 

 

[18majors]

 

It'll be in the high nineties in the afternoon, physical fitness will be a factor.

 

Will Danielle, Minjee, Eun Hee and Sophia take advantage of that!

 

 

[Argonne69]

Bah. High nineties in Vegas and you need a sweater. 

 

[Argonne69]

I was skeptical when Sophia won the WBO. I figured we had another Pernilla on our hands. While she has only managed two top tens since then, she has been fairly steady, and just needs to get the handful of meh rounds out of her system to become a bigger factor. 

[Argonne69]

1 hour ago, Golf Dino said:

 

A potential Solheim Cup preview ... whatever or no matter happens in medal play, the European women are fierce competitors in match play!  

 

Yeah, I can't figure it out. Seems world rankings go out the window when it comes to match play. On paper it should be no competition, but they find a way to win. 

 

[18majors]

35 minutes ago, Argonne69 said:

I was skeptical when Sophia won the WBO. I figured we had another Pernilla on our hands. While she has only managed two top tens since then, she has been fairly steady, and just needs to get the handful of meh rounds out of her system to become a bigger factor. 

 

 

Agreed, Popov has games.

 

I noticed her in 2016-2018 when she played her occasional LPGA events, but she didn't deliver at that time.  She's a tremendous short game and is a good ball striker.

 

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by 18majors

[dcmidnight]

On 5/27/2021 at 10:20 AM, Stooch said:

The one thing I will say is, the LPGA needs to improve the on course infrastructure for covering the event.   They basically had camera's set up on 12, 13 14 and 15 and couple single camera people running around trying to catch the other action.  There was no flow and was hard to get into any of the matches while watching on TV, the coverage of the event so far is actually hurting me enjoy the match play event.  Having just enough camera's kinda works in stroke play but really does a disservice to watching Match play.  Example Danielle was on fire and they sent out a solo camera person to show her last 2 shots, on the PGA, we would have gotten to see much more of that match.

 

I've been very disappointed in the coverage so far. There are so many great holes out there with cool vistas or interesting landscape/scenery shots and I've seen almost none of it. On the coverage last night they mentioned something about a technical issue - but they never really expanded on what that meant.

Definitely noticed players having yardage issues on 17 last night. Factoring in for the altitude it can be at least one club less than you think but I still saw several balls over the green. Thought that was strange for such a short hole. Not strange for Joe Dummy off the street, strange for professionals that had already played a few rounds there.

 

 

[Argonne69]

12 minutes ago, dcmidnight said:

 

I've been very disappointed in the coverage so far. There are so many great holes out there with cool vistas or interesting landscape/scenery shots and I've seen almost none of it. On the coverage last night they mentioned something about a technical issue - but they never really expanded on what that meant.

Definitely noticed players having yardage issues on 17 last night. Factoring in for the altitude it can be at least one club less than you think but I still saw several balls over the green. Thought that was strange for such a short hole. Not strange for Joe Dummy off the street, strange for professionals that had already played a few rounds there.

 

 

 

The big problem on 17 is the rock hard greens. It's hard to land a wedge on a pool table. 

 

[dcmidnight]

The bigger problem was - knowing that - they still tried to fly it right at the pin.

 

The first thing my caddie told me was put it right on the front part of the green, better to have a long first putt than to be picking your ball out of the waterfall.

 

Its a fantastic looking hole later in the day, IMO just proves you dont need to make a par 3 240 yards long to be difficult as hell.

 

Sorry heres a better crop of it

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by dcmidnight

[Argonne69]

Another nit with the coverage. It's a possibility that Eun Hee will win this thing, and we'll wind up seeing less than a dozen of her shots from the first 5 rounds. She's "quietly" going about her business.