Shin - Finally - Beats Creamer in Kingsmill Championship


In the longest playoff in LPGA Tour history, one that spanned two days, Jiyai Shin sank a two-foot par putt on the 16th hole to overcome a game Paula Creamer and win the Kingsmill Championship.

After playing 18 holes of regulation Sunday and ending up tied at 16-under 268, the two players went eight extra holes - all on the 382-yard par-4 18th on the River Course at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va., without determining a winner.

Creamer could have won the tournament on the 18th in regulation, but missed a five-foot par attempt that forced the playoff. Back and forth the two went on the 18th, with each carding pars eight different times.

The two considered playing the hole a ninth time Sunday evening, and returned to the tee. But once at the starting block, they decided it was too dark to continue. "I wanted to play, but when I teed it up it was a no-go," Creamer told a Golf Channel reporter.

The two returned to the course at 9:00 a.m. (EDT) Monday, but instead of playing the diabolical 18th, they played the par-4 16th, where Shin's par beat Creamer's bogey. A couple hundred fans returned to the course to see the outcome.

For the victory - the eighth of her career and first since the 2010 Mizuno Classic - the South Korean earned $195,000, while Creamer settled for $120,655. Creamer was attempting to get her first title since the 2010 U.S. Women's Open at Oakmont.

On Monday, Creamer found the 16th green in two but sent her first putt past the cup by about five feet. She then missed the comeback par attempt.

"Jiyai played well, she played solid, and it was going to take somebody making a mistake," Creamer said. "Unfortunately, I made it."

The playoff set an all-time LPGA record for the longest between two players, breaking the previous mark set in the 2004 LPGA Takefuji Classic when Cristie Kerr went seven holes to edge Seol-An Jeon. The LPGA's all-time record remains the 1972 Corpus Christi Civitan Open, when JoAnn Prentice won on the 10th playoff hole.

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