Miyazato pulls out after crash injury

JAPAN'S Ai Miyazato yesterday withdrew from this week's Women's HSBC Champions tournament in Singapore because of neck and shoulder pain caused by a car crash that involved two other golfers.

World No. 13 Paula Creamer and seventh-ranked Suzann Pettersen were also involved in the six-car crash late on Sunday in Bangkok, where they were driving to the airport to catch a flight to Singapore for the US$1.4 million tournament which starts today.

World No. 9 Miyazato, who won in Singapore in 2010, practiced for about 15 minutes at the Sentosa Golf Club yesterday before pulling out with whiplash.

"I have pain in my neck and shoulder, so I'll sit this tournament out as a precaution," she said in a statement.

American Creamer strained a muscle in her neck and sustained whiplash, but participated in a photo shoot on Tuesday with fellow LPGA Tour players Pettersen, compatriot Angela Stanford and world No. 1 Tseng Yani of Chinese Taipei to promote the event. "I've felt better, that's for sure," Creamer said. "Those things happen all the time and you can't control something like that.

"I had pretty bad whiplash from hitting the headrest but I took it easy and hope that I can tee it up on Thursday."

Pettersen escaped the worst of the crash as her vehicle was at the end of the convoy and avoided smashing into the other vehicles, but she was still shaken by the incident. "We're just lucky enough that we all got away with no major injury," the Norwegian said.

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