Click here to see who has been Moving Up.  Now for those players who haven't had the greatest starts to 2009:

Moving Down:

Seon Hwa Lee

Last July, Seon Hwa ranked #5 on the HD chart, finished the year at #9 but has since fallen to #12.  After her victories at the Ginn Tribute and Arkansas, Lee collected only two more Top 10s the rest of the year.  She has two Top 10s already in 2009 but has also missed two cuts after only missing five in her first three seasons.  The numbers say she is driving and putting much better this year but Lee isn't hitting the green in regulation quite as well relative to her competition (her GIR rate is exactly the same but the Tour overall is hitting GIR better this year).  One of her Top 10s was at Corona where the stats weren't kept, so that may be clouding things up a little.  I said this early last year and I'll say it again - when you least expect it, Seon Hwa Lee will sneak up on you and win a tournament.  And sometimes she manages to do that twice in the same year.

Jeong Jang and Karen Stupples

Both of these players have missed significant time this year due to physical problems.  JJ hasn't played at all following wrist surgery and Karen missed a couple of events after an emergency appendectomy.  Stupples had already failed to make the cut twice before going into the hospital and missed it twice more when she came back before finishing T44 at Corning.  Her only 2009 stat which isn't down significantly is her Driving Distance, which still clocks in at 269 yards a pop (fifth on Tour).

Christina Kim

Many of you grew up despising it, but I absolutely love history.  U.S. history, world history, sports history, the history of space exploration, etc. etc.  One of the things that makes me enjoy it so much is when I recognize that something which has happened before is now happening again, in virtually the same manner.  Those repeating elements of history are often ones we don't like to speak of - a pessimistic fact of life which can drive away potential new historians even more.

So what the heck does this have to do with Christina Kim?  If you already know the answer, congratulations - you're a historian too!!  She's lost a lot of weight - in excess of 30 pounds since the end of last season, the last time I heard.  She's also playing poorly.  Except for a 7th-place finish at Kraft Nabisco, Kim doesn't have a single Top 30 finish this year.  Let's go back in history a little bit...  After her rookie season, the first six months of the 2006 season was the worst stretch of Christina's career.  She also underwent a dramatic weight loss prior to that season and slowly gained most of it back by the fall when she started playing more like the #20-30 caliber player she is.

A golf swing is influenced by so many moving parts, and a professional golfer's body has to be so in-sync to perform at its best that I have to assume that a large weight loss (or gain) in a relatively short period is going to affect a player's performance more often than it will not.  Christina learned how to play golf and spent years of practice as a big girl.  It could take several months of practice in her current physical condition for her to completely figure out the differences.  I applaud anybody who has the ability to change enough of their daily routine and habits to lose weight - Lord knows I could stand to lose a pound or twenty.  But the subject of this post is to explain why a player is "Moving Down" and the evidence now and from 2006 points to the slimmer Kim.

I'm not suggesting that Christina should go on an eating binge.  I'm just saying that it is going to take time for her game to catch up with her new physique, and that her game recovered in late 2006 not because she adjusted but because she regained the weight.

Candie Kung

Since winning the Hana Bank event in Korea back in November, Candie has collected only one Top 10 while missing three cuts.  This stretch has dropped her from #17 in my rankings to #36.  Her putter seems to be the primary culprit (#103 down from #49) as Kung is driving a little better but hitting slightly fewer greens than she did last year.

Inbee Park

I've written several times about the astonishing decline in Park's game since last July.  Her missed cut at Corning was her third in a row and fourth in nine 2009 starts.  A T15 at Phoenix is Inbee's only Top 40 finish this year and is her only true Top 20 finish since finishing 10^th at Arkansas, the week after her U.S. Open victory.  The only positive part of her current game is her putting - she ranks 18^th - but even that is down from her Tour-leading performance in 2008.  Park ranked as HD #6 in July but now is ranked at #38.

Laura Diaz

For the last couple of years, I had the feeling that Laura was some kind of a magician.  Her peripheral numbers didn't add up to a Top 30-caliber player.  She may still be pulling the occasional rabbit out of a bunker but her numbers this year are so bad that the usual Diaz magic can't overcome them.  #143 in Total Driving, #99 in GIR and #148 in Total Putting add up to five missed cuts in her last six events.  After ranking #24 at the end of 2008, Laura now ranks at #52.