Priority Shuffle

Next month's State Farm Classic is event #8 on the 2010 schedule.  That is significant because it is the cutoff point for the first reshuffling of the LPGA Priority Status list.  All players in Categories 14 through 20 will be reordered by their money list standings at the end of the State Farm.  The new Priority list will go into effect as of the LPGA Championship (ShopRite will still use the original order).  If it seems I'm writing about this a little early, bear with me.  This week's Sybase event doesn't include any affected players and I have an important point to make which I wanted to get out there sooner rather than later.

To this point in the season, only six players in those categories have earned any money.  I've listed them below with their current Priority and money list position.  One player seems to be obviously missing - I'll address that omission shortly:

Should no changes occur to this list - nobody else in Cat-14 through 20 earns money at State Farm and none of these players pass any others - these six players would line up starting at position #145 beginning with the LPGA Championship.  Player #167 got into last year's event so at first glance it appears only Libby Smith has gone from a have-not to a has-got.  I'll bet Diana D'Alessio and Stephanie Louden are breathing a lot easier, though.  So basically, this is what the rest of the Cat-14 through 20s are playing for at State Farm:  make the cut and you almost certainly make the LPGA Championship and any other full-field event down the line.

I highlighted the category distinction above and mentioned it a couple more times to hammer home something I myself was mistaken about until just now.  The qualifier specifically omits Category 21 players from the reshuffle, and Erica Blasberg was a Cat-21.  Last year's Priority documents also left them out.  Thinking maybe this was just an oversight or typo, I combed through the 2009 list and found only one Cat-21 player - Nicole Jeray - who earned any money.  Unfortunately Nicole earned that money in October at Navistar, after the final reshuffle.  So I have no proof of any failure by the Tour to follow this rule exactly, and it seems that Blasberg couldn't have moved her 2010 status any higher unless she had managed to win at Tres Marias.

I had been assuming until now that everybody from Cat-14 on down who earned money would get reshuffled because it seemed reasonable and fair, and this realization doesn't change that.  Why should active players like Vicki Goetze-Ackerman, A.J. Eathorne, Ashli Bunch or Audra Burks have to wait until next year to reap any potential benefit from a good performance if retired players in Cat-19 like Jane Crafter, Kathy Postlewait or Gail Graham do not?  Goetze-Ackerman, Eathorne, et al deserve the opportunity to advance their status just as much as Libby Smith, Diana D'Alessio and Stephanie Louden are about to do.  I'll admit, I'm being more emphatic about this than I would be had I not made the erroneous point about Blasberg's potential rise in status.  But if it's wrong, it's wrong.  The Tour has tied up loose ends in the Priority process before - this one needs tying up as well.