J-Ro, Delasin hope to get back championship groove

Jennifer Rosales would only turn 32 in 2010 which means she’s still not at the peak of her career. There are so many rooms for improvement and that includes a winning season in the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) next year. The LPGA Tour fills out their fields for events based on a standard set of criteria. The better you are over the course of the current or past season or over the life of your career, the better status you have to get into LPGA Tour events. Therefore, winners of major championships, all-time money list leaders, and the likes have better priority list status than your run-of-the-mill player. Rosales, heads to the LPGA with a Priority List Category 11 which means that the LPGA will offer spots to the players in categories 1-10 before getting to the players in category 11. If the tournament fills out its allotted number of spaces and sponsors’ exemptions, then Category 11 gets no action. Category 11, like several other categories, combines a mix of two groups of players – the top 20 finishers at Q-School and players 81-100 in last season's money list. Their priority order within this group is done in alternating order based on their finish in either of those criteria. The former five-time champion of the Philippine Ladies Open earned her current status as she finished 91st in the LPGA 2008 Order of Merit with a total prize of $92,832.00. No matter, says coach Bong Lopez, whether Rosales is on Category 11 because he firmly believes that next year will be a breakout year for his ward. "Her swing has no problem. All she needs is a little bit of a good week to win an event," Lopez said of Rosales, winner of two LPGA events namely, the Chick Fil-A Charity Championship and SBS Open.

She also won the Women’s World Cup of Golf with Dorothy Delasin in 2008. Double D getting back to fighting form Dorothy Delasin had won more tournaments (four) than her fellow LPGA star Jennifer Rosales but the former was unlucky in her 2009 campaign. She missed the cut a record 16 times and earned a big flat egg in the LPGA Order of Merit. Thanks to her victory at the Women’s World Cup of Golf in 2008 with Rosales, Delasin, 29, has a Priority List Category 11 for another year. She tried the Qualifying School (Q-School) though she was not able to break in the top 30 after rounds of 90 and 95. It was very unfortunate for somebody like Delasin, who had a very promising career several years ago. In 2000, she defeated Pat Hurst on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff to win the Giant Eagle LPGA Classic and become the youngest player (19 years, 11 months, 4 days) to win an LPGA event since Amy Alcott won the 1975 Orange Blossom Classic. She was also named the top rookie that year as well. The following year, she defended her Giant Eagle LPGA Classic crown and won the Samsung World Championship. In 2002, she crossed the $1-million mark at 21 years, 7 months and 12 days. In 2003, won her fourth career title at the Mobile LPGA Tournament of Champions, where she defeated Hee-Won Han in a one-hole, sudden-death playoff. After that, it has been a roller-coaster ride for Delasin, making one wonder what really happened to her game. Lucho Singh, a Seattle-based Filipino-Indian philanthropist and an Delasin’s ex-sponsor, said that her father, Sonny, continues refusal of getting foreign sponsors for her daughter is one reason. "A lot of companies have approached the Delasin family but the father always says “thanks but no thanks," Singh said. "Sonny thought the Filipino-owned companies will assist her daughter with sponsorships. With the global financial crisis prevalent in the Philippines, his patriotism is put to waste," Singh said in an interview with GMANews.TV. The only way now for Delasin to earn the respect of the international community is to put up impressive numbers on the board and win some in the process. Otherwise, she might have a hard time reaching top-tier status again. – Adrian Flores, GMANews.TV