Leaderboard

Lilia Vu, -19 (final-round 66)

Alison Lee, -16 (67)

Azahara Munoz, -16 (67)

Amy Yang, -15 (66)

Quotable

“I didn’t really expect this to happen,” Vu said. “I think I just wanted to have a good week going into CME next week and just try to be in contention, and then turned out the way it did.”

What It Means

Vu is now the second LPGA player, along with Celine Boutier, to win four times in 2023. Her previous victories, however, include two majors, the Chevron Championship and the AIG Women’s Open. That explains why the 26-year-old Californian was able to jump past Boutier in the Roles Player of the Year rankings, taking a commanding 196-169 point lead. (If she can keep it through the Tour Championship, she’ll be the first American POY since Stacy Lewis in 2014 and just the second since 1994.) Vu also is projected to ascend to the No. 1 spot in the Rolex Women’s Ranking on Monday.

With a first-place prize money payout of $475,000, Vu also passed $3 million in earnings in 2023, and $4 million for her career. It’s an incredible comeback for a player lost her LPGA card early in her pro career and considered quitting golf to go to law school.

How It Happened

Emily Kristine Pedersen led by three over Amy Yang and Vu when the final round started. But both Yang and Pedersen had their worst rounds of the week on Sunday, with Yang shooting even-par 70 and Pedersen struggling to a 74. (It proved particularly costly for Pedersen; had she parred the final hole for a 72, she would have moved into the top 60 on the CME points list, thereby earning a start in the Tour Championship. She made double, and her season ended.)

Vu, however, did not struggle on Sunday. She missed only two greens en route to shooting a four-under 66.

Best Of The Rest

A few players made crucial moves up the CME points list. Patty Tavatanakit, who started the week sitting right on the bubble in the 60th spot, had a T-15 finish to keep her inside the top 60 and get a chance to win the $2 million first prize at the CME Group Tour Championship. Similarly, Australia’s Stephanie Kyriacou’s T-5 at The Annika got her into the top 60.

Azahara Munoz started the week No. 100 on the CME points list. It was a precarious spot: Good play by just one player ranked below her could push her outside that number and cost her full status in 2024. Though, she had a few more starts to improve her position due to her recent return to the tour from maternity leave, she won’t need them: This T-2 finish locks up her card for next season.

Wei-Ling Hsu’s T-12 boosted her into the top 100, earning her 2024 LPGA Tour card. And Lydia Ko went from No. 101 on the CME points list to No. 100, though she her status in 2024 was already secure thanks to her wins in 2022.

Main image: Mike Ehrmann

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Bianca Pagdanganan, sitting 60th on the CME points list, highlights how one week can change the tenor of a year. Within the last month, the 26-year-old from the Philippines posted a T-2 and a T-3 finish to go from buried deep on the LPGA’s priority list to the final spot at the Tour Championship. Along with Pagdanganan, here are nine notable players to watch at Pelican as they attempt to earn their way into the CME and/or gain better status for 2024.

Andrea Lee

Yong Teck Lim

Race to the CME points list: 56

Lee produced a torrid stretch of play during the summer that earned her a place on the U.S. Solheim Cup team, stringing together five consecutive top-13 finishes from early August to early September, highlighted by a T-9 at the AIG Women’s Open. That also earned her way into a safe position for a spot at the Tour Championship. It was a crucial turnaround after missing seven cuts in her first 14 starts of the season, which included three no-cut events.

Madelene Sagstrom

Zhe Ji

Race to the CME points list: 57

Sagstrom’s course-record-setting closing 63 at the Buick LPGA Shanghai last month vaulted her from 38th place to T-8, earning the 30-year-old Swede her best finish of the year. The charge up the leaderboard put her into position for the CME, paying off her consistent midseason play with three straight top-20 results from late April to early June, including the first top-10 of the season at the Cognizant Founder’s Cup. Long considered a rising talent, if Sagstrom can stay in the top 60, it will be her fourth consecutive appearance at the Tour Championship.

Patty Tavatanakit

Jason Butler

Race to the CME points list: 61

The 2021 ANA Inspiration winner sits on the outside looking in at the Tour Championship. Despite a T-3 at the DIO Implant LA Open in March and a T-6 at the Women’s Scottish in August, the 24-year-old Thai native couldn’t capitalize on the seven limited-field events she played this year. Tavatanakit only beat one player between her first two starts at the Honda LPGA and the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. Her best finish in three events during the fall Asia swing was a T-28 at the BMW Ladies Championship, unable to get into the top 60 on CME despite Pagdanganan not being eligible to play in the Eastern hemisphere.

Stacy Lewis

Angel Martinez

Race to the CME points list: 83

Lewis is in danger of missing the CME for only the second time since the tournament’s creation in 2011, as she could not play in 2018 while on maternity leave. Lewis attempted to balance her role as U.S. Solheim captain while continuing to play this year, but after a season-best T-6 at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational in July, the LPGA’s team event, Lewis may have run out of steam as she has not made a cut in her her last five starts. To jump into the top 60, she’ll not only need to play the weekend but finish in a two-way tie for third or better at Pelican.

Marina Alex

Sam Hodde

Race to the CME points list: 86

The two-time winner had a solid start to the 2023 season, playing through to the weekend in her first 10 events. Alex’s late-summer cold streak, however, knocked her out of CME contention, missing six straight cuts before righting the ship in late September. The positive for the Florida resident is her second-best finish of the season came in her last tournament, a T-16 at the Ascendant LPGA in early October.

Mina Harigae

Sam Hodde

Race to the CME points list: 98

An up-and-down season finds Harigae sweating things out at the end just to maintain quality status for next year. While the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open runner-up has four top-30 finishes, she also had a habit of missing consecutive cuts, doing so four times this year. Should Harigae fall outside the top 100, her final-round 76 at Pebble Beach in July, where the Monterrey, Calif., native had more experience than anyone else in the field, looms large, as it pushed her out of the top 20 to a T-33.

Lydia Ko

Han Myung-Gu

Race to the CME points list: 101

Ko is in the awkward position of potentially becoming the first CME Group Tour Championship winner who was unable to qualify to play in the event the next year since the tournament’s inception in 2011. After an amazing comeback season in 2022, Ko has struggled finding any rythem to her game. Ko had just one top-10 finish before the fall Asia swing, a T-6 at the Honda LPGA Thailand in her season debut back in February. Defending her title at the BMW Ladies Championship seemed to rejuvenate the New Zealander, posting her best finish of the season, a solo third place, as well as a T-11 at last month’s Maybank Championship. Unfortunately, since she was a sponsor’s invite at both tournaments, Ko earned zero CME points for two of her three best performances of 2023. Outside of those three starts, she has no other finishes inside the top 30 this season. The bright spot for Ko is that she is guaranteed quality status for 2024 even if she remains outside the top 100 on CME points due to her wins last season.

Lucy Li

Vaughn Ridley

Race to the CME points list: 106

Much was expected from the 21-year-old former amateur phenom as she began her rookie season. In her second start, Li had a T-18 performance at the LA Open … which turned out to be her best result so far in 2023. Li faces losing her status in part due to a challenging stretch of missing five of six cuts from July to September. The LPGA’s European swing proved particularly trying for her, as Li missed the weekend in all three events she played in across the Atlantic Ocean. She arrives at the Annika with some momentum, having made the cut in her last two cuts. She’ll have to do that and more this week to avoid needing to go back to LPGA Q Series.

Caroline Hedwall

Jorge Guerrero

Race to the CME points list: 134

Does Hedwall have another late charge in her? The Swede’s 2023 highlight was her Solheim Cup singles performance, where she won against Ally Ewing after rallying from being 3 down with six holes to play by posting five birdies. Hedwall will need something similar if she is to push herself into the top 100. In 2023, she only made two starts on tour in 2023, both being LET/LPGA co-sanctioned events, the Women’s Scottish and the AIG, as Hedwall primarily played in Europe this season. Her T-6 at the Scottish, however, put Hedwall high enough on the CME list to be eligible for the Annika this week, giving her a chance to move back to full-time LPGA status for the first time since 2020.

The post 9 golfers facing make-or-break moments in their 2023 LPGA seasons at this week’s final full-field event appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Maria Fassi was outside of the top 60 when the Pelican Women’s Championship began earlier this week, but things started looking much better for her when she shot a first-round 62.

After being the first-round leader, she shot a 69 on Saturday and entered the final round of the shortened 54-hole tournament one shot off the lead. She struggled early on Sunday, turning in two over and finished bogey-bogey to shoot a one-over 71 and tie for seventh place.

On her final hole, Fassi had an 80-foot putt which she needed to two-putt to secure a spot at the CME finale. It’s about the last putt you’d want to see under these circumstances. Kay Cockerill, Golf Channel’s on-course reporter, said Fassi jokingly asked her if she wanted to hit it for her. The long, wildly breaking putt was brutal, and Fassi left it 20 feet short and she ultimately three-putted the hole. Had she two-putted, she’d have finished T-4 and earned 46.25 more CME points and gained entry into the tour championship. Instead, her season ends as she remained outside of the top 60, a painfully close call for the 24-year-old from Mexico.

Fassi is one of several bubble players who didn’t their way into the CME field. Though the official CME field hasn’t yet been announced, the LPGA did confirm that no one who was outside of the field before the Pelican Women’s Championship earned entry into it this week’s event via their performance.

Further down the list at the top 100 mark, Morgane Metraux was able to move from the bubble to inside the top 100 with her finish at the Pelican. The 25-year-old rookie from Switzerland finished T-4 at the Pelican to move up from 101st on the CME points list to 82nd. Thanks to the best finish of her season, she’ll keep her card for 2023.

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Mind you, that hasn’t necessarily been by choice. Grant, 25th in the Rolex Women’s Rankings, has been unable to come to the US this year because of travel restrictions related to her COVID-19 vaccination status. Those same restrictions also mean Grant, who has not been vaccinated against COVID, won’t be playing in the LPGA’s upcoming season finale, and thus missing out on the opportunity to compete for the first-place prize money payout of $2 million.

Grant’s situation is similar to the circumstances of tennis star Novak Djokovic, who could not compete in the Australian Open or US Open this year. She released a statement about the matter through her agent:

“Under normal circumstances, I would naturally love to partake in the CME. Like everybody else out there it is a clear goal to play the season-ending event, especially this year when CME is putting out the biggest check in women’s golf history. In isolation it is of course fantastic for us players, but more importantly it is a clear statement that shows direction of the true worth of women’s golf. Nevertheless, with travel restrictions to enter the US for unvaccinated still remaining, it is still not an option for me to play LPGA events in the US. This is the sole reason I am not playing the CME.

“I understand some people want to know why I am not playing in the US. I respect that. The simple reason is that I am not vaccinated. Regarding why, I ask the same respect back. It is something I want to keep internally with my family and team. What I can say is that currently there are only two scenarios making it possible for me to play events in US  — either through a positive outcome on a medical relief process or by US easing up on the travel restrictions.”

Grant earned a LPGA Tour card via Q Series last autumn, competing in Alabama. She has split her time in 2022 playing in LPGA events overseas (France, Scotland (twice), Ireland, South Korea and Japan) as well as competing regularly on the Ladies European Tour. She has four LET victories in 2022 and will play in the tour’s finale in Spain the last week of November, where she has a chance to earn LET player-of-the-year honours.

Among those four wins was a victory at the Scandinavian Mixed, a tournament run in conjunction with the DP World Tour. Grant’s nine-shot victory in the event allowed her to become the first woman to win a tournament on the men’s circuit in the tour’s history.

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The post Rising star Linn Grant forced to miss out on LPGA season finale due to vaccination issues appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Keely Levins
After three rounds at the Toto Japan Classic, the trio of players atop the leaderboard at Seta Golf Course in Shiga had more to play for than merely a title. Momoko Ueda led by one, and as a member of the JLPGA in Japan, she would have the opportunity to accept full LPGA Tour status with a win. The same was true for Miyu Yamashita, who was two shots behind Ueda. For Gemma Dryburgh, who started the final round a shot back of Ueda, a victory would jump her far enough up the LPGA’s season-long points rankings to earn a spot in the 2022 season finale, the CME Group Tour Championship, which has one of the biggest purses in women’s golf.

As Ueda and Yamashita struggled, Dryburgh separated herself from the field. With a final-round 65, the 29-year-old Scot finished the tournament at 20-under 268, a career-best 72-hole score. She finished four shots ahead of second-place Kana Nagai.

“I was in Korea last week with friends and I said to them ‘I mention you in my speech’ as a joke. But it’s overwhelming to be honest,” Dryburgh said of claiming her first career LPGA title. “This has been a dream of mine for a long time. A lot of hard work has gone into this, so it means so much.”

With a 20-foot putt on the fourth hole, Dryburgh made her first final-round birdie, then added a second on No. 7 after her approach left her with a three-footer. When Ueda made a bogey on the ninth hole, Dryburgh had the lead, but then truly started to separate herself on the 11th hole. That’s where Ueda made a double bogey to Dryburgh’s birdie after the Scot hit a 4-hybrid to four feet.

She closed things out in style with four birdies over her final six holes to cap a bogey-free finish.

A Sunday 65 to claim her first LPGA Tour win ?

Watch @gemmadryburgh's final round highlights! ? pic.twitter.com/dkUwOa7FRY

— LPGA (@LPGA) November 6, 2022

Dryburgh joined the LPGA in 2018 after playing college golf at Tulane, where she won twice. Entering the Toto Japan Classic, she was ranked 199th in the world. More importantly, she was 78th on the CME points list with the top 60 players after next week’s Pelican Women’s Championship qualifying for the CME Group Tour Championship. After the win, and the 500 CME points that go with it (she also earned $300,000), she’s up to No. 41. The no-cut event in Naples, Fla., has the fifth-largest purse on the LPGA Tour ($7 million). This will be the first time Dryburgh has qualified for the event.

The win is also significant to Dryburgh’s home country: she’s just the fourth Scot to win on the LPGA Tour and the first to do so since 2011 when Catriona Matthew won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational.

Despite never having won on the LPGA before—and only earning $434,975 in her career previously—and this being her first time playing the Toto Japan Classic, Dryburgh was unexpectedly comfortable in the moment.

“I was surprisingly calm,” Dryburgh said after the win. “When I dreamt of this moment, I thought I’d be super, super nervous. I was nervous, I’m not going to lie. But I was incredibly calm to honest. Kind of focused on my breathing and that really got me through.”

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By Kent Paisley
For those successful on the LPGA Tour, the offseason comes like a brief reprieve. The CME Group Tour Championship finishes near Thanksgiving, and a mere six weeks later, the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions kicks things off once more. The constant grind causes Lydia Ko to only take a month off each offseason.

In turn, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 presented a silver lining for the Kiwi star, forcing the 16-time LPGA winner to go on the most extended break of her career. She got away from competitive golf for six months, honing her technique and mental game with coach Sean Foley.

The work paid off in 2021 with 11 top-10 finishes in 20 starts and a victory at the LOTTE Championship in April that ended a three-year winless streak. The consistent play brought her another reward on Sunday when the 24-year-old was officially awarded the LPGA’s Vare Trophy for the season’s low scoring average for the first time in her storied eight-year LPGA career, thanks to her 69.3 average.

“Every season is a new chapter in a book,” Ko said, “and I think the break was a whole new chapter itself for me.”

Those short off-seasons had hindered Ko’s opportunity to rebuild herself after her World No. 1 run through 2016. Stuck in the seemingly endless schedule churn, Ko felt discouraged until her seven-stroke victory at the LOTTE Championship.

“When you do all those things and it doesn’t work,” Ko explained, “even though you try to be patient, sometimes it’s hard to be patient when things just don’t go your way. But to have kind of have that momentum shifted, I think it just helped a lot with the confidence.”

The Vare Trophy was the only major annual award that Ko didn’t already have in her trophy case, although not for a lack of trying. Twice she had narrowly missed winning it. In 2015, Ko lost to Inbee Park by .03. In 2016, she fell to In Gee Chun by .01.

Ko holds the Vare Trophy on Sunday after finishing up the 2021 LPGA season with the official low season scoring average of 69.3. Michael Reaves

This year, she beat Lexi Thompson by .3 to win after finishing T-19 at the CME Group Tour Championship on Sunday with a 15-under 273 total. But it came with a caveat; neither Nelly Korda and Jin Young Ko, who both had lower marks, were eligible to win because they had not played the minimum 70 rounds.

Until a few months ago, Ko also appeared as if she’s miss out, only adding an extra event to her schedule (Pelican Women’s Championship) to nudge her over the 70 mark.

While new LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan recognized the potential need to change the minimum rule, Ko’s winning score tied for the fifth-lowest average in Vare history alongside Annika Sorenstam in 2005. In addition, it gave Ko a 20th LPGA Hall of Fame point with 27 needed to enter the hallowed territory.

“It’s really special because obviously it sums up the whole season,” Ko said. “All the other things do, too, but at the end of the day golf is about how consistently well you can play and what kind of low score you can shoot.”

The post Lydia Ko’s comeback season helps her claim the one LPGA award she was still missing appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Keely Levins
In the end, there wasn’t a lot Nelly Korda could do on Sunday at the CME Group Tour Championship. The 23-year-old World No. 1 entered the final event of the 2021 LPGA season with a slight lead in the Rolex Player of the Year over Jin Young Ko. She hoped that a solid performance would allow her to walk off with a fifth tour victory on the year and POY honours, the two tied at 14 under with one round to play at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Fla.

And Korda got that solid performance, shooting a three-under 69. But it wasn’t enough to keep up with the eventual champion, Ko shooting a mesmerising bogey-free 63 to be the one walking off with her fifth title and POY.

Ko set the tone early in the final round, playing the front nine in six-under 30 and leaving Korda in the unenviable position of having to make up ground on one of the best players in the world, one who appeared unable to miss a green. By the time she was done with the round, Ko had hit 63 consecutive greens in regulation at the Tour Championship.

“Honestly, it was definitely the ‘Jin Young Ko Show’ today,” said Korda, who finished T-5, six back of Ko. “It was really cool to witness.

“Obviously, I wish I could have kind of given it a better run, but in all, I think I had a great year. So, I’m just going to kind of look back on that and enjoy it. But today was—she just played amazing golf. There is not much you can do. Just sit back and watch honestly.”

The sting of the loss was apparent, but Korda had much to celebrate about her 2021 season. She won four times, including her first major championship title (KPMG Women’s PGA Championship). She also took home the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, a victory that didn’t count toward the LPGA POY race, and became the first American to reach World No. 1 since Stacy Lewis in 2014. She had 10 top-10 finishes in 17 starts, missed just one cut and finished no worse than T-28 when she made the cut.

“It’s honestly been crazy,” Korda said. “You know, a lot of people tried to put like the award situation I feel like in my head a little, and I guess sometimes that gets the best of you. You may come out of this thinking, Hey, I didn’t win an award. It wasn’t that good of a year. If I look back, it’s like, Jesus, I’ve done a lot.”

Ultimately, this ending doesn’t undo what was a breakout season for Korda, who will play one more time in 2021, at the PNC Championship with her father Petr.

“I’m very pleased,” Korda said. “It may not seem like that, but I’m pleased.”

The post Nelly Korda’s bid for LPGA Player of the Year ends as the ‘Jin Young Ko Show’ took over appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Paisley
NAPLES, Fla. — The setup for the final-round showdown at the CME Group Tour Championship was too good to be true. Nelly Korda, Jin Young Ko and Celine Boutier, winners of the previous six tournaments on the LPGA Tour heading into the 2021 season finale, were all tied for the lead along with Nasa Hataoka, herself a two-time champ in 2021. The final threesome of Korda, Ko and Hataoka had 10 wins combined in the current calendar year.

Yet for the fifth time in her last nine starts, one star shinned brightest. With a bogey-free 63, Ko rose above the fray at Tiburon Golf Club, closing out the championship by hitting all 18 greens to finish a remarkable run of 63 straight greens in regulation. While Hataoka tried to keep up, shooting an impressive 64, it was one shot too many as Ko, with a 23-under 265, defended her CME title, claimed the $1.5 million winner’s check and secured the Rolex Player of the Year Award.

As the 26-year-old South Korean capped a fantastic year on the golf course, she noted that it was one dimmed by the passing of her grandmother earlier in the year, a personal trauma that caused her to question if she would ever be in the winner’s circle again.

“I was really sad early of the year,” Ko said. “And then I … I couldn’t think I can be win again.”

But she battled through her emotions, winning the first of her five titles in 2021 in July in her 11th LPGA start, getting on a roll that included matching the tour’s record for the most consecutive rounds in the 60s at 14.

The amazing part of her impressive play was the fact that it came while Ko was also suffering through pain in her left wrist. It returned this week in Florida and was so strong that during Thursday’s first round, Ko’s caddie, David Brooker, asked her if she wanted to withdraw.

Ko pushed through, taking medicine and spending 30 minutes each day with the physio. Afterwards, she went through a limited warmup, putting and hitting no more than 52-degree wedges before ultimately heading to the first tee.

“First hole, the fairway is really narrow from the tee shot,” Ko said. “So I had a lot of pressure.”

Ko’s pressure was relieved by a 50-minute phone call with her mother on Saturday night, where Mom impressed upon Ko that no matter what happens, she has a Christmas vacation coming up. Instead of worrying about what would happen Sunday, she encouraged Ko to enjoy playing with Korda and Hataoka.

Korda, too, felt relatively relaxed, all things considered, at the start of play although the 23-year-old was certainly aware of the stakes after their opening tee shots. Beyond just trying to win the tournament, Korda knew if she could finish ahead of Ko at day’s end that the Player of the Year honour would be hers, starting the week with a 10-point edge in the season-long points race. It would be a fitting conclusion to a season in which Korda had won her first major title and became the first American to ascend to World No. 1 since Stacy Lewis in 2014.

After finding the fairway and outdriving her group mates by 20 yards, Korda dabbed for the cameramen and joked, “Are you ready for it?”

Michael Reaves
Beyond the LPGA season finale, Ko and Korda were fighting it out for the season-long Player of the Year title.

Turns out, Korda was foreshadowing Ko’s closing dominance. Ko birdied the first and shot a front-nine 30 that left her co-leaders struggling to keep up. Korda finished the day with a three-under 69, a solid if unspectacular round that left her six strokes back of Ko.

“Honestly, it was definitely the ‘Jin Young Ko Show’ today,” Korda said. “It was really cool to witness. Obviously, I wish I could have kind of given it a better run.”

Beside her usual impressive ball-striking, Ko had her putter working in Florida. The first signs of that came when she made seven-straight birdies early in her third round on Saturday en route to a 66.

“My putting feel was really good since yesterday,” Ko said.

Ko noted three key moments during her Sunday 63 that stood out. The first came on the third hole, when Ko hit a 7-iron to six feet. It set up a birdie that allowed her to match Hataoka at 16 under par, which became important when one hole later Ko made a 10-footer for birdie to take the solo lead.

Ko’s second turning-point moment was her approach on the eighth, when she knocked her ball pin high to five feet with a controlled 9-iron. She converted the putt for her fifth birdie of the day and was now three shots clear of the field.

Michael Reaves
The pain in her left wrist was strong enough that it caused Ko’s caddie, David Brooker, to ask during the opening round if she wanted to withdraw.

But arguably the biggest moment was on the par-5 17th. Ko had gone three holes without a birdie, and Hataoka was back within two shots. That’s when Ko hit a 6-iron on the green in two, setting up a two-putt birdie to maintain a two-stroke lead going to the last hole.

Hataoka birdied the 18th to cut Ko’s final margin to one, but only after Ko was in tap-in range for par and the title. Over last 28 holes at Tiburon, Hataoka birdied 17.

“There were few times where there was a lot of pressure,” she said. “But I was able to think simple, which helped me a lot today.”

Ko’s win added another set of accolades to an LPGA résumé that’s growth rather long in just four seasons of play. Ko made it three straight years topping the money list (with $3,502,161), her second player of the year award in the last three seasons, her 12th tour victory, and 17th LPGA Hall of Fame point (she’ll need 27 to earn a spot). She now holds the longest active streak of consecutive seasons with a win, dating back to 2017, taking the mantle from Sei Young Kim’s six-year stretch from 2015 to 2020.

Michael Reaves
In four seasons playing on the LPGA Tour, Ko has 12 tour titles and is now a two-time Player of the Year.

Perspective on her accomplishments will come with reflection, as Ko instead imagined how happy her grandmother would be for her after bounding into the media centre to the tune of “All I Do is Win” being played by an LPGA media official before heading home.

“I think,” Ko said, “she would be crying.”

Tears, no doubt, of pride in what all her granddaughter had accomplished.

The post How Jin Young Ko turned a tense LPGA season finale into a career-defining win appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
Nelly and Jessica Korda rank first and sixth, respectively, in scoring average this season on the LPGA Tour. With just two tournaments left on the 2021 schedule, Jessica’s 69.927 is too far back to catch her sister (69.074), or Jin Young Ko, who ranks No. 2 with a 69.186 average. Yet neither she, or Nelly, or Ko for that matter can go down officially as the winner of the scoring title, anyway, due to a caveat in how the honour is handed out.

To be eligible to win the LPGA’s Vare Trophy (and earn a point toward induction into the LPGA Hall of Fame), a player must have played in a minimum of 70 rounds or 70 percent of the round she is eligible to play in a given season. Add four rounds at this week’s Pelican Women’s Championship, and four more at next week’s CME Group Tour Championship, and Nelly still only will have played 66 on the season, while Jessica will have played 67. Ko also falls shy of the 70-round minimum (67) as does Inbee Park, who currently ranks No. 3 in scoring average at 69.534 but is not playing this week.

You have to go to No. 4 in the current ranking, Lydia Ko, to find the first player eligible to win the award—presuming she makes the cut this week at the Pelican and plays all four rounds next week in Naples.

Suffice it to say, the fine print associated with the award’s eligibility is something neither Nelly or Jessica knew much about or sounded all that fond of it.

“I was like, ‘Oh, OK. Cool. That sucks.’ That’s pretty much what I said in our group chat,” Nelly said ahead of the Pelican about learning that she wouldn’t have enough rounds to qualify.

“Yeah, I was like, ‘great rule,’ ” said Jessica sarcastically. “It’s just such a weird rule when your No. 1 and 2 player in the world [can’t win].”

Nelly noted that she pulled out of the LPGA stop in Portland two weeks after the Solheim Cup in September because she wasn’t feeling well. She also took off the Arkansas stop a week later. “I don’t think I could have played more events because my body was just so tired,” she said when asked about not reaching the minimum. “I typically play all the events at the start of the year, and if I play well then I’ll take some time off, because the travelling in the summer was just so crazy.”

Compounding things in 2021 was a crazy summer schedule that included Korda going to Japan and playing in the Olympics, where she won the gold medal.

This is the second straight year that the top players in scoring average aren’t eligible for the Vare Trophy because of failing to reach the minimum-round threshold, although the pandemic in 2020 understandable impacted how many events players could reasonably compete in. Still, it’s a trend that the Kordas hope causes the tour to consider changing the rule.

“There is a board of players and people higher up than us that are going to need to come up maybe with a different plan,” Jessica said.

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By Keely Levins
With this week’s Pelican Women’s Championship followed by the CME Group Tour Championship, there are two tournaments left in the 2021 LPGA Tour season. There is, however, really just one competition that has most people’s attention: Jin Young Ko vs. Nelly Korda. They’ve traded the World No. 1 ranking in the past month—Korda has it at the moment—and on a tour where the talent pool is deep, the pair have separated themselves on the Rolex Player of the Year points list.

Ko, by virtue of her four wins to Korda’s three, has 176-161 edge in the points standings (Patty Tavatanakit is third with 121). Who’ll shake out as the ultimate winner will depend on their finishes in the last two starts—players get points for top-10 finishes, 30 points for a win. That strictly objective measure of looking at the POY, which got us wondering: If you take more data into account and consider a few subjective measures, would the race between the duo look different or still be too close to call?

This is the first year that advanced data has been collected on the LPGA Tour, the KPMG Performance Insights. Golf Digest was given a look into some of that data, in hopes of trying to find something that might separate Ko and Korda. Yet even there, you’ll find the two each have their own strengths but none that allows one to stand out significantly.

Korda, 23, separated herself from her peers, including Ko, in the “birdies or better per round” stat, making 4.78 on the season. That’s .44 more than second place, according to the tour. Korda also leads in strokes gained/off the tee, and total driving—that stat combines both distance and accuracy. Lastly, she leads another category: ball-striking, which is a combination of off the tee and approach shots.

A look at Ko’s stats, however, demonstrate superiority in her long game. The 26-year-old ranked second in greens in regulation, hitting 77.9 percent of greens. She’s just behind Korda in the ball-striking stat. This season, Ko tied Annika Sorenstam and So Yeon Ryu’s record for most consecutive tournament rounds in the 60s. Knowing that, it isn’t surprising that she has the highest percentage of rounds in the 60s this season at 57.6.

Here’s some more data to compare the two, and it once more shows just how strong both have been in 2021.

So what about some other intangibles? What’s interesting about their seasons is something the data doesn’t necessarily show: the two have had very different years in terms of when they were playing their best. Ko has gotten hot in the last half of the season, while Korda won earlier.

It wasn’t until July that Ko actually won for the first time on tour in 2021. Since then, she’s won three more times in her next six starts. Conversely, Korda won the second event of the year, and got her three wins in the first 11 events of the season. One of those wins was the KPMG Women’s PGA, her first career major. But since that win in late June, she hasn’t finished higher than T-13 on the LPGA Tour and has taken a few weeks off after a long summer schedule.

Four wins to three would seem to give the edge to Ko, but with one of Korda’s victories being a major, that might subjectively be worth more. And then there’s also one other tournament that hasn’t factored into any of the metrics but seems to be a critical intangible to consider.

Korda won the gold medal at the Olympics where Ko finished tied for ninth, seven shots behind Korda.

Gregory Shamus.

Of course, this is not an LPGA Tour event, so it doesn’t count towards official Player of the Year points, but for argument’s sake, does winning the Olympics push Korda past Ko in the Player of the Year debate? The field was different from a usual LPGA Tour event, but the pressure at the event was immense, putting players in the unusual position of playing not just for themselves but for their country.

Given that, if POY came down to a vote, and that vote was taken right now, this writer would lean toward Korda. But we don’t live in this hypothetical world. Two events are indeed left on the calendar, and both players have the opportunity to make a statement with their play. Does Ko’s hot streak continues? Or can Korda can disrupt it? Needless to say, it will be fascinating to watch.

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