Kim wins her first LPGA Tour event of season

Kim, who started the round one shot behind the leaders, won for
the eighth time on the tour. Inkster, who will turn 47 next month,
would have been the oldest player to win an LPGA Tour event. She
closed with a 2-under 69 in regulation.

Kim, who shot a 71, and Inkster finished regulation tied at
3-under, one shot ahead of Ai Miyazoto and Angela Stanford. Four
others were at 1-under, including Lorena Ochoa, Reilley Rankin and
Stephanie Louden. Rankin and Louden began the day in a four-way tie
for first.

"My goal is just top 10, top 20 this week," Kim said. "I
never [thought] about a win this week. Maybe I worry about the
cut."

Kim, whose last tour win in 2006 came after a three-hole playoff
with Natalie Gulbis in the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, hit
her second shot in the playoff to the fringe on the back of the
green, about 35 feet from the hole, and two-putted.

Inkster's second shot, using a 6-iron, sailed over the green.
She chipped 8 feet past the hole but missed the par putt.

"I don't know if it was adrenaline or what, but I just hit it
too far and didn't get it up and down," Inkster said. "Kind of
disappointing.

"I've been putting good. I just felt like if I could get it
within my reach, I could make it but it didn't happen."

Six players held the lead at some point on a cloudy, humid day.
The 6,602-yard Cedar Ridge Country Club course was soggy from
storms that hit Oklahoma the past week.

Moments after Inkster bogeyed No. 17 to fall out of the lead,
Kim curled in a breaking 15-foot birdie putt at No. 16 to take a
two-shot edge. Inkster hit a 6-foot birdie putt on No. 18 to close
the gap to one shot.

Kim hit her tee shot into the rough on the par-4 17th, but
salvaged par, knocking a 5-foot putt into the center of the hole.
On the 18th, her tee shot landed in the middle of the fairway but
she hit into a greenside bunker and two-putted for bogey.

"After the bunker shot, I was so excited and nervous, so my
hands were shaking," Kim said. "So when I marked the ball, my
hand was shaking. So when I set up the putt, I know the line, but I
can't stroke the putt."

She said she wasn't nervous during the playoff, because at that
point, "You have to get more lucky. Juli's second shot was over
the green, that was unlucky [for her]. But that was lucky for me."

The round started with four co-leaders -- Nicole Castrale,
Rankin, Louden and Karin Sjodin -- who had not won on the tour. One
by one, they all fell back.

Castrale, who led after the opening round, was still at 4 under
through five holes, but bogeyed four of the next eight. Louden had
four bogeys in her first six holes.

Sjodin, who played at nearby Oklahoma State, was tied with
Inkster for the lead after a 3-foot birdie putt on No. 6, but big
trouble followed on the 405-yard, par-4 eighth hole.

Sjodin's drive went into the deep rough and rolled into a ravine
to the right of the fairway. Instead of trying to punch out, she
tried an approach shot to the green that caromed off a tree at a
90-degree angle. Her ball ended up in tall grass by a tree adjacent
to the 12th fairway, and she kicked her golf bag after seeing where
her ball landed.

After taking a drop about 20 yards behind where her ball landed,
she reached the green with her next shot, but three-putted from 70
feet for a triple bogey.

Inkster birdied the first two holes, chipped in for par at No. 4
and took the lead with a birdie on No. 6. She held at least a share
of it until the bogey at No. 17.

"It's hard trying to win your first tournament, especially on a
course like this where it's really tight and narrow and ... it just
takes a little bit to get off," said Inkster, who has 31 tour
victories. "They will learn from this experience. You can't really
tell anybody how to react until they are in it and you have to kind
of learn how to play and play with a lead or play tied for the
lead."

Tour officials moved up Sunday's tee times by two hours and used
threesomes instead of twosomes in a successful effort to avoid
weather problems.