Vare Trophy - It's Down To Just Two

Thanks to the "minimum-70-rounds rule", the Vare Trophy (which otherwise could have been a barn-burner race much like for Player of the Year) has only two real candidates entering the final event of the season.  Suzann Pettersen and Jiyai Shin - currently third and fourth on the Scoring Average list - will come up short of 70 so this really becomes a duel between Na Yeon Choi and Cristie Kerr.

Since Choi currently leads in Scoring Average and Kerr is second, obviously Choi will win the the Vare if she ties or finishes ahead of Kerr at the Tour Championship.  But what happens if Kerr finishes ahead of Choi?  Get out your calculators!  Preliminary cypherin' tells us that Choi's lead on Kerr appears to be around six or seven strokes.  NYC's current average is 69.773 so if you subtract six from Kerr's total strokes and divide by her 70 rounds played, Cristie's average becomes 69.771.  Vice versa - you must add seven strokes to Choi for her average over 75 rounds to exceed Kerr's 69.857.  This slight imbalance makes projecting a little more difficult but if you assume that both players make the Tour Championship cut and play four rounds, a few examples can show how exactly how this could turn out.

Assuming par at Grand Cypress is 72 (doesn't matter when figuring scoring averages but making that assumption here allows me to say "-13" instead of "275"), this example shows the result if Choi shoots +6 while Kerr finishes even par:

This example shows the result if Choi shoots even par while Kerr finishes -6:

This example shows the result if Choi shoots -6 while Kerr finishes -12:

This example shows the result if Choi shoots -7 while Kerr finishes -13:

Note the diminishing margins as the scores go lower, until Kerr passes Choi at -13.  If Kerr scores -13 or better, Choi has to stay within five shots to remain in front - six wouldn't quite be enough.  In fact, it's possible for the margin to shrink to four but that would require Cristie to shoot -28.  I'm going to assume that ain't happenin'.  Now let's go in the other direction, starting by modifying that first example to where Choi finishes exactly seven shots behind Kerr - +7 versus even par:

Now, if Choi finishes +9 while Kerr finishes +2:

And finally, if Choi finishes +10 while Kerr finishes +3:

By my calculations, we can say that:

1.  If Kerr scores -28...never mind

2.  If Kerr scores -13 or better, Choi must be five shots or closer to win Vare

3.  If Kerr scores between -12 and +1, Choi must be six shots or closer to win Vare

4.  If Kerr scores exactly +2 and Choi scores exactly +9, they finish tied

5.  If Kerr scores worse than +2, Choi must be seven shots or closer to win Vare

6.  If Kerr scores worse than +17, my Sunday recap would probably pair the words "Kerr" and "stroke" in an unusual and unfortunate manner

A missed cut by one or the other changes the dynamic quite a bit so in that case, I would have to re-evaluate the possibilities prior to the start of Round Three.

There is one other player with the remotest of chances - Song-Hee Kim.  Let's say that final example above where Choi finishes +10 and Kerr finishes +3 occurs.  Kim would beat out both of them by scoring -13 275 - her average of 70 flat would edge Choi.  Without showing all of the possible combinations again (you didn't want that anyway, did you?), I feel safe in saying that Kim needs to finish at least 23 strokes ahead of Choi and 16 ahead of Kerr to steal away the prize.  And when you consider that if Choi and Kerr were both playing badly enough to give Kim this much help, one or both would likely miss the cut and make Song-Hee's climb even tougher by not being available to give her more strokes over the weekend.

As you might expect, I like Choi's chances to hold on and win the Vare Trophy but Kerr is always capable of breaking into double-digits at a 72-hole event.  Since this event holds a Hall-of-Fame-point carrot in front of her (not to mention that POY thing she could still win), you know the Tour Championship will have Cristie's full attention.  NYC almost never misses the cut (only once in three years and this event should cut only about 50 of the 120 players) and has played great in recent weeks so even if Kerr breaks the -13 threshold, I still think Choi stays close enough to take home the Trophy.