As evident by the 17 total career championships between them, Paula Creamer and Jiyai Shin are familiar with the type of grind it takes to win professional golf tournament.
In their 10 combined years on tour, however, neither could remember enduring a day quite like Sunday, when the two spent seven-plus hours on the course and were still tied after 26 holes – 80 total dating back to Thursday
“Winning is always tough,” Shin said. “But not like this.”
After completing 18 holes of regulation tied at 16-under, Creamer and Shin battled eight more times on hole No. 18 before mutually agreeing that it was too dark to continue.
“I teed up (on hole 18 for a ninth playoff hole) and looked at my driver, my white, Taylor Made driver, and it was brighter than the golf ball,” Creamer said. “I was sitting there thinking this wasn’t a good idea, and I looked over at Jiyai and Jiyai shook her head no.”
So instead, Creamer and Shin will return to Kingsmill’s River Course Monday morning to resume their marathon playoff at 9. Admission will be free to all spectators and on-site parking will be available at the Kingsmill Resort.
The sudden-death playoff will begin on hole No. 16. If needed, they will move on to 17, and then…
“It will be interesting to see if we get back to 18 again,” Creamer said with a smile. “I mean, we played it eight times around and 16 pars, that’s pretty good.”
The longest playoff in LPGA Tour history came at the 1972 Corpus Christi Civitan Open where Jo Ann Prentice defeated Sandra Palmer and Kathy Whitworth in 10 holes. The longest playoff between two competitors occurred at the 2004 LPGA Takefuji Classic where Cristie Kerr defeated Seol-An Jeon in seven holes.
Creamer entered the day with a two-stroke lead on Shin, but that vanished after she double-bogeyed hole No. 6, which broke a 26-hole bogey-less streak.
After Shin bogeyed back-to-back holes to open the back nine, Creamer quickly regained the lead and was one up on Shin as they headed to No. 18.
Creamer’s drive on 18 was right down the fairway and her approach was solid. Despite being automatic with her putter all tournament, Creamer three-putted for the first time all week, dropping her to 16-under alongside Shin and subsequently forced a sudden-death playoff.
“I pulled it,” Creamer said of the five foot putt she missed that would have clinched her first win since the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open. “If could go back in time, I 100 percent would have maybe used my line on my ball or something a little bit different.
“But I can’t lose sleep over it. It happens; it’s golf. That putt could have been on the third hole, it could have been on the 17th hole…but it happened to come on the 18th hole at a big, crucial moment. You just have to learn from it. My biggest thing was to not let it get in the way of the next eight‑hole playoff that we had.”
Creamer’s missed opportunity proved costly, but Shin returned the favor on the first playoff hole.
After Creamer two-putted for par, Shin left a makeable uphill birdie putt from roughly five yards away just short.
Both players found trouble on the third playoff hole. After Creamer’s approach shot sailed left of the green and into the bunker, Shin’s approach, which she hit from a tough lie off the right side of the fairway near the spectators, rolled off the back of the green and into a bunker.
After Shin went up-and-down to save par, Creamer sank a gutsy eight-foot par putt from the right side of the green following a beautiful chip from off the side rough while standing on a slope just above a bunker.
“It’s a tough hole,” Creamer said of No. 18, which she and Shin walked a total of nine times Sunday. “It’s tough to make birdie with that back pin location. I think I was within 10 yards of each of my drives every single time. It’s a difficult hole from right there. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t change the pin or do something a little bit different, but I guess that’s learning, and next year I’m sure and other with other tournaments down the road they’ll probably change the rules about the playoff.”
Shin, who was supposed to board a charter flight to the United Kingdom around the same time she ended up walking off the course Sunday evening, didn’t object to Creamer’s suggestion.
“I agree with that,” she said.
Shin, who joined the tour in 2009, added that she’s excited to be a part of history and is trying to just soak it all in.
“The first couple holes of the playoff I was really, really nervous, but after that I started getting comfortable with it,” Shin said. “It was just a really long, tough day, but it will be good experience for us.
“We’re coming back tomorrow and then we have to go to England for the British Open. This is a really good time for me.”
