Hjorth victory only needle-mover on day that changes nothing else

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Doubtless you have holiday turkeys to buy, tinsel to hang and credit cards to max out. So we will save you some time.
There's no need to look through the scoring agate, minutiae or the final-round autopsies from the LPGA season finale to determine the outcome of the myriad awards, honors and windfalls that were ripe for harvesting this week.
Nothing changed hands.
With a Grand Slam breakfast buffet available, everybody inside and outside the ropes settled for the status quo -- basically, a stack of white toast.
With a prologue that included four meaningful milestones available for as many as six different players -- the Player of the Year, money list, world No. 1 ranking and seasonal stroke-play trophy were all up for grabs -- nobody changed musical chairs. The four players leading those particular categories entering the LPGA Tour Championship this week went home with exactly those honors Sunday night.
Sigh. What might have been. Exit season, sans goosebumps.

Cristie Kerr gave herself a new nickname after her early problems with bunkers Sunday: 'Lawrence of Arabia.' (Getty Images)

In a related note, Swedish veteran Maria Hjorth won the tournament proper, claiming her second title in the past 11 years, holding off the admittedly brief charges of Cristie Kerr and Na Yeon Choi, who could have rerouted the hardware distribution chart had they won.
Ultimately, neither came all that close. The lone thing that happened at the '10 finale was the lone thing guaranteed to happen -- somebody won a tournament. Everybody was left wanting on all the other mantelpiece trophy maneuvers.
Kerr, 33, who started the day three shots back, could have ascended to world No. 1 and become the first America in 16 years to win Player of the Year with a victory but bogeyed the first hole after sending her approach into the sand. She was similarly bunkered on Nos. 2 and 3. So much for fast starts.
"Lawrence of Arabia," she groused.
The sands of time were only slightly less unkind to Na Yeon Choi, who begins her offseason as the top money-winner and holder of the Vare Trophy for best stroke average, races she led entering the week. She actually cemented the money title Saturday when South Korean countrywoman Jiyai Shin missed the secondary cut.
While Kerr exited with zero of the major awards, Choi briefly came close to running the table and claiming all four before an ill-timed three-jack on the 15th hole scuttled her chances. Choi started the day tied for ninth place, seven shots back and was playing four holes ahead of Hjorth. After a mostly uneventful front nine, Choi birdied Nos. 11, 12 and 14 to pull within three strokes, moving to 4 under for the day, one of the best starts of the week.
Behind her, Hjorth missed the 12th green, was in the process of making a bogey and having her lead pared to two shots or fewer. But Choi let her off the hook with a bad putt at a very poor time, blowing an 18-footer for birdie six feet past the hole and missing the return effort.
"I think I hit it good, but I think the grain, a little bit different," Choi said.
Choi, who finished T5, began the week with a projected seven-shot margin over Kerr in the Vare race, but it had been cut to three entering the final round. As it was, Kerr only picked up one shot in finishing T3. A win for Choi would have made it a clean sweep for the 23-year-old, who was sixth in earnings last year. Guess she still has a few collectible items to shoot for in 2011, anyway.
"Of course I wanted to win this tournament," she said, "but I think I did awesome and I did my best. I can't do anymore."
Since neither Choi nor Kerr could finish off the victory, Yani Tseng held on to win the points-based Player of the Year award, becoming the first player from Taiwan to do so. Tseng counted two majors among her three wins this year and was hoping to climb to world No. 1 for the first time but instead settled for the most meaningful piece of hardware.
At the awards ceremony on the final green, an overcome Tseng wept unabashedly as she read from a five-page script and thanked pretty much anybody who had helped her along the way. She could have charitably mentioned Kerr and Choi, for that matter, since their inability to deliver the goods played a role Sunday, too.
Kerr arguably had the most to digest, since she needed to win to cement any of the honors and was trying to restore the faltering American grip on the tour's steering wheel. Yet again, the Yanks contingent came up short. It's been 17 years since an American topped the money list and 16 since one won the Vare.
"I knew I had to win probably three tournaments to win Player of the Year and I just fell short, a little bit short," Kerr said. "Not much. Not enough to hang your head about."
As for the fans, they might not have felt similarly -- a multi-awards cliffhanger would have been nice.

extracted from cbssports.com