38.  Se Ri Pak  (63-NR-32)

Judging by the numbers in parentheses above, Pak made a bit of a comeback this year.  She collected only two Top 10s finishes (down one from '08) but came up only one shot short at State Farm to In-Kyung Kim.  Cutting over six-tenths of a stroke off her average, she reduced her missed cuts from seven to five (and one of those was a WD after opening with a 69).  Se Ri's improvement was all tee-to-green.  Off the tee she improved from #91 to #27 while raising her GIR rank from #72 to #32.  Her putting took a hit (from #71 down to #102) but overall her game was much better.

Despite her recent ups-and-downs, Pak does have one remarkable distinction in her record.  Over her 12-year LPGA career, she has collected at least one Top 3 finish in every season but one - her "burnout" year in 2005.

39.  Pat Hurst  (NR-NR-38)

Pat earned her sixth career victory at the MasterCard Classic.  She also finished T8 at the Kraft Nabisco and T11 at Navistar.  Those were her only Top 20 finishes in 2009 along with seven missed cuts.  Even so, that was a great improvement over 2008 when she also had three Top 20s (fifth at MasterCard - she really likes that course) but missed nine cuts.  Somehow, Hurst managed to improve her GIR ranking from #66 to #25 despite falling from #29 to #76 in Total Driving.  Her putting numbers were about the same - 58^th in '08, 65^th in '09.

40.  M.J. Hur  (NR-NR-40)

The fifth rookie among this year's HD Top 40, Hur won the Safeway Classic in a playoff over Suzann Pettersen and Michele Redman.  She also finished T8 at the Ochoa Invitational with six total finishes in the Top 20.  Unfortunately, her record also includes ten missed cuts.

M.J.'s strong suit is the putter, as she finished sixth in Total Putting and in the Top 10 of both traditional putting stats.  Her rankings in GIR (#113) and Total Driving (#132) show that her ball-striking needs a lot of improvement if she's ever going to repeat that Safeway victory.

46.  Stacy Lewis  (30-27-37)

After Michelle Wie, Stacy Lewis was probably the most heralded rookie in the American media at the start of 2009.  Her strong showing at the 2008 U.S. Open was most responsible for those expectations.  It wasn't a bad season but placed side-by-side with the ledgers of Shin and Nordqvist, it would be construed a letdown by some observers.  Two Top 10 finishes (in back-to-back events, the LPGA Championship and Wegmans) but only two other Top 20s and seven missed cuts.  Putting was her biggest liability (103^rd) while reaching the green in regulation was her strongest (38^th).

54.  Candie Kung  (17-22-25)

2008 was Kung's strongest season since winning three times in 2003.  If not for one event, 2009 would have been nearly the worst of her career.  She missed eight cuts in 25 events and finished worse than 40^th six other times.  Her one saving grace was the U.S. Open, where she finished second by one shot to Eun-Hee Ji.  The $350,000 prize enabled her to finish in the money list Top 40 for the seventh time in her eight-year career.

The culprit in Candie's poor season was the putter - after ranking 49^th a year ago, she dropped to 117^th.  Her driver was a little off (#64 down to #82) but her GIR was about the same.