- If The World Ended Now…:  I’d look like a genius, with Yuri Fudoh and Ji-Yai Shin, yesterday’s blog postergirls, now sharing the halfway lead at the Women’s British Open.  The pair have posted matching 66-68 scores, and marched further in lockstep by each recording three birdies, one eagle (both at the par-5 10th) and one bogey during their Friday rounds.  So…can they win?  Though clearly the more accomplished player overall, Fudoh strikes me as being the less likely prospective champion, based largely on a Major championship record that lags a bit behind her knockout JLPGA ledger.  Indeed, she has yet to log a single top-10 finish in 15 career Major starts – though it is perhaps worth noting that her best effort to date was a T11 at last year’s Women’s British Open at St. Andrews.  Shin, on the other hand, is one of the world’s elite young players, a golfer likely more talented than the cadre of young Asian stars that are already making waves on the LPGA Tour.  Because she has thus far toiled primarily on her native KLPGA Tour, Shin is largely an overlooked commodity in the west, but she has already won 19 times back home – at the tender age of 20!  More importantly, she proved herself the equal of the LET’s best last winter in Australia when she lost a sudden death playoff to Karrie Webb at the Australian Women’s Open, and she sounded a loud warning shot in America at the 2007 U.S. Women’s Open, when she rather anonymously finished 6th.  At this point then, winning might better fit Shin’s expectations of herself…though observers of the JLPGA may well scoff at that remark.  And then there is the competition…  Among other world-class players, first-round leader (and seven-time Major champion) Juli Inkster sits only one back after posting a two-under-par 70, 2007 U.S. Women’s Open winner Cristie Kerr is among those grouped two behind, and, perhaps most importantly, world number one Lorena Ochoa is lurking quietly at 137, only three off the pace.  Also worth mentioning are a pair of players tied with Ochoa, Natalie Gulbis and the young Japanese star Ai Miyazato, both of whom have struggled this season but now appear to be playing their best golf.  This event – played at legendary Sunningdale – versus the Tim Finchem Invitational at Firestone?  I guess ABC/ESPN knew exactly what they were doing when they walked away from the PGA Tour…