LPGA Best Of All Time Ratings - Where Does Your Favorite Rank

2010 All-Time Player Ranking

Instead of limiting the calculation to the best 50 or best 100 of all time, the new ratings show all players that have at least 100 qualified tournaments. To qualify for the LPGA Hall Of Fame a player must play at least 10 years. A year for the LPGA in this context is at least 10 tournaments. For 10 tournaments a year and 10 years the minimum number of tournaments that a player could play and be eligible is 100, so the ratings were based on a player having played at least 100 total tournaments in years they played at least 10 tournaments. Since most players will play 100 tournaments in 4 to 6 years and that is a very short career, the equations have factors built in that prevent a player from being overrated if they have a few very good years at the start of their careers and have not played enough years for a full career. The base for the caculation is always the yearly average rating even for those with currently short careers.  A career for these calculations is 15 years as most of the best players play at least 15 years. The idea is to calculate a career rating as the average of a players 15 prime years. Once a player goes over 15 years then the extra years are eliminated from the calculation. The first choice of years to eliminate is years adversely effected by pregnancy - childbirth, injury - surgery, or illness that resulted in a bad statistical year or years. Next the additional years are eliminated from the first years if the player did not start strong and then the years a player plays after their prime. The idea is to keep the years as continuous as possible. Since there were only about 25 players playing a full schedule in the 1950s and that has grown to about 150 players a year since 1984, the number of players are a factor in the coefficients for the equations. The coefficients have been slightly modified from the last calculation. The new calculations I believe give a more accurate and slightly lower value to the players from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This rating system is based on results, how a player gets those results is not considered. This analysis does not care if the player is a good putter or bad, or good or bad iron player, or a long hitter or a short hitter, only the results achieved.

The first statistic used is the number of wins. The Major Tournament wins count twice as much as the other tournament wins. The coefficients are adjusted as a function of the number of players and the length of the career. The second statistic used is the money won. The coefficients are a function of average purse size and the number of places paid as well as the length of the career. The third and fourth statistics are the percentage of Top 3 finishes and Top 10 finishes. The coefficients are adjusted based on the number of players and the number of tournaments played. Equal to or greater than 150 tournaments played makes the tournament factor equal 1.0 for these two calculatons as well as the fifth and sixth statistics. The fifth statistic is the scoring average and the target scoring average is adjusted when the players winning the Vare Trophy for low scoring average break through to a lower plateau. The lower scoring average target has gone lower because of  improved course conditions and equipment (drivers, irons, wedges, putters and balls), leading to lower scoring. To differentiate the worst players this factor is setup to calculate a negative number if the player is more than 5 strokes per round worse than the target stroke average. The sixth statistic is the percentage of cuts made (in the early years when there was no cut it uses the percentage of tournamets with money won). This factor is also set to go negative to diffentiate the worst players. The coefficients are set to have wins and money count for 50% of the total rating. The other 4 factors account for the other 50% in the ratings.

There are almost 450 players rated. The first two columns are the players names, A few players have two numbers after their last name. The numbers are the total wins and Major wins after the LPGA started and not their official wins that are given in other columns. The third column is their career earnings. The fourth column is the year they gained LPGA player status, except for some who became professionals before 1950 and the year is the year they became professionals. Some players that started before 1963 are listed as 63 to indicate starting year unknown. The fifth column has a series of notes about the players. The notes are explained below. The sixth column is the number of official wins and the seventh column is the number of official Major wins. The numbers include professional wins before 1950 and amateur wins in the Majors before the LPGA started. The eighth column is the number of years that the player played at least 10 tournaments. The ninth column show the players that have played in at least 100 tournaments and those that have played 150 or more. No number means they have played at least 10 years. The Tenth column is the career rating for the players.

The following show the number of players rated in the Top 50 and Top 100 that started each decade.

                                     Top 50        Top 100

       1940s                      5                    5

       1950s                      7                  13

       1960s                      8                  12

       1970s                      9                  13

       1980s                    10                  21

       1990s                     7                   21

       2000s                     4                   15

As more players from the 2000 decade and 2010 decade move into the Top 50 and Top 100,  players from the other decades will be moved out.

Currently Lorena Ochoa ranks 10th and for a player who retired after 7 years with her wins and other statistics, I feel the ranking is appropiate. Projecting her career forward, If Ochoa had continued to play and maintained her yearly average rating she could have easily made it to at least 4th place all time and prossibly as high as 2nd. Christie Kerr moved from 36th to 33rd place. Paula Creamer moved from 39th to 35th place. Mi Hyun Kim slipped from 35th to 39th place. Suzann Petersen moved into the Top 50 at 41th place. AI Miyazato reached the 100 tournament minimum and moved into the Top 100 at 81st place. Morgan Pressel reached the 100 tournament level and moved into 86th place. The other top young players (Tseng, Shin, N Y Choi, etc.) have not yet played the required 100 tournaments. There are players that have a high negative rating. Those players were from the early LPGA days when players did not lose playing privileges. Today it would be hard for a player to get to 100 tournaments if they play that poorly compared to their competition as they would lose their playing privileges and have to repeatedly win them back at Q-School.

Notes are a work in progress - children - illness - injury - surgery far from complete

F = LPGA founder              L = LPGA and World Hall Of Fame members    W = World Golf Hall Of Fame member

T = LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Hall Of Fame       M = Major win before the LPGA was founded

MOt3w = won Major O = US Women's Open  t = Titleholder Championship 3w = three Western Opens

B = my best player of all time without a major     N = won tournament after no longer an LPGA member

n = won tournament before becomming LPGA member      an = won LPGA tournment as amateur

o = won first tournament as LPGA member      od = won a one day tournament   c2 = co-champions

c4 = four players declared winner of a tournament      A = active player     a = not in LPGA money list

cb = children born during career       il- = illness    il-gd  = Graves Disease    i- = injury   i-b back injury

i-bu = burned  i-cw-hb  = cw car wreck  hb horeback riding  i-n-sh-b-f   neck shoulder back finger

s- surgery     s-w wrist surgery    s-c  cancar surgery    s-t  thumb surgery    s-k  knee surgery  s-el elbow surgery

d = missing data  which could effect rating    e = estimated rating too much data missing 

g = some missing data but ranking would probably not change with missing data

tt = a lot of Top Three and Top 10 finishes results in higher rating that victories would suggest

lt = player played fewer tournaments than competitors results in lower rating

mc = player missed a lot of cuts resulting in lower rating than victories suggest

3yr  = player had 3 very good years and did not play well rest of career

m = started mid year.