Today, Players 11 through 15...

11.  Paula Creamer  (2-3-2)

Not quite the year we expected out of Paula.  She doesn't rank higher because she didn't win an event and she only finished tenth on the money list.  Making only 21 starts didn't help matters, as she fought health problems most of the season.  She ranked #5 as late as August but just two Top 10s over her last seven events pushed her down to here.

She's still one of the best.  Despite her less-than-average distance off the tee, Creamer ranked sixth in Total Driving and first in GIR.  She was 34^th in putting (down from tenth) so if you're looking for a reason for the winless season, that's probably it.

12.  In-Kyung Kim  (20-20-6)

Inky won the State Farm Classic, earned over $1.2 million to finish eighth on the money list and finished in the Top 10 ten times in 25 starts.  Four missed cuts set her back a little but her third LPGA season was a definite step forward from her second, like her second was an even larger step forward from her first.  Logically, I'd expect a Top 10 performance in 2010.

An outstanding putter from the day she earned her Tour card, Kim ranked 12^th in Total Putting this year.  Where she made great strides in her game was with the driver (up from #105 to #37) and in reaching the green in regulation (from #96 to T7).  Other than the four players who ranked Top 20 in all of the Big Three stats, Inky was the only player who ranked Top 20 in GIR and Total Putting.

13.  Song-Hee Kim  (18-9-10)

Now that Ai Miyazato, Na Yeon Choi and Michelle Wie have all won events, Song-Hee owns the "honor" of being the best player on Tour with no career victories.  In a couple of respects she seems to be getting closer to her first win - 12 Top 10 finishes this year, nearly double her 2008 total and a scoring average within a half-stroke of the Vare Trophy winner.  However, she had no runner-up finishes this year after earning two in '08 and her five Top 5s were down one from the previous year.  Kim did halve her MC number - only two in 2009.

Song-Hee was the third-best putter in the LPGA this year, up from #26 a year ago.  Her driving and GIR rankings are virtually the same (#29 and #28), but they are converging from opposite directions.  She's down from fifth in GIR but up from 55^th in Total Driving.  Like Inky, her overall game has improved each year on Tour and her next logical step is into the Top 10.

14.  Karrie Webb  (15-16-8)

For the first time since I started blogging, I finally got Karrie pegged right.  I predicted a mid-teens season from her and we got just that - a victory in Phoenix with two second-place finishes (one at the British Open) and six total Top 10s.  She missed a couple of cuts over the summer and finished the season with no Top 10s over her last five events, but she showed she still has enough game to worry people.

Webb still goes tee-to-green with the best of them (28^th in driving, ninth in GIR) but her putting fell to 82^nd this year, down from 34^th in 2008 and fifth in 2006.  You always worry first about that part of an older player's game so it will be interesting to see if she can recover some with the flat stick next year.

15.  Catriona Matthew  (42-NR-15)

Matthew shocked everybody when she won the British Open in only her second start after returning from maternity leave in late July.  It was the unlikeliest major victory in a year of unlikely major championship victories.  Eun-Hee Ji was the only one of the four who was ranked in my Top 70 the week she won (Ji was #16 going into the U.S. Open).  Hell, Brittany Lincicome had played so poorly in 2008 that she was still outside my Top 70 after she won Kraft Nabisco.  Maybe hers was more unlikely than Matthew's - depends on how you look at it, I guess.

Catriona didn't play exceptionally well in 2009 aside from the win - two other Top 10s with one missed cut in 10 total starts (one start prior to going on leave).  In her limited schedule she drove and putted about the same as in recent seasons but her GIR ranking was much improved (to #29, up from 101 and 91 the previous two years).