All About Winning On The LPGA

 Current data in my database shows 275 different players have won a tournament on the LPGA Tour. Three winners were amateurs (Polly Riley, Pat O'Sullivan, and Catherine LaCoste), and a fourth amateur (JoAnne Carner) won once and then 42 times as a LPGA member. There are 8 professional players that have won LPGA tournaments and not become LPGA members. One of those players, Woo-Soon Ko is the only one to win twice.  There are 4 players that won and became LPGA players who have not yet won since becomming members. There are three players that won LPGA tournaments as non-members and won again after becomming LPGA members. That leaves 264 LPGA members that have won tournaments. The database has about 1000 LPGA members and is not complete due to lack of complete data from the 1950's and early 1960's. There are only about 1 in 4 players who gain an LPGA card that actually win a tournament. So approximately 75% of the players never win during their careers on the LPGA. A non winning player's career can vary from 1 year to more than 20 years.

 Of those players who win, a little over 42% win only once. Almost 14% of the winners win exactly twice. So a little over 56% win two times or less. Almost 75% of the winners win 5 times or less. Almost 82% of the winners win 8 times or less. The top 50 players in wins, which is 18% of the winners, each has at least 9 wins and have won a total of a little over 70.5% of all the tournaments. There are 45 players with at least 10 wins, and 26 players who have won at least 20 times. Of the 26 players that have won at least 20 tournaments, all but three are in the LPGA Hall Of Fame. Jane Blalock won 27 times and has enough points, but is not in the Hall Of Fame because she never won a major tournament or was the player of the year or won the Vare Trophy for the lowest stroke average for the year. Lorena Ochoa has also won 27 times and has enough points for the Hall Of Fame, but does not have 10 years as an active member. Unless the LPGA changes that requirement, Ochoa cannot become a LPGA Hall Of Fame inductee as the rules state that a player must have 10 years as an active member to even be voted in the Hall Of Fame. Laura Davies has 20 wins and needs two more points to have the required 27 points for induction into the LPGA Hall Of Fame. So, only about 2.5% of the LPGA players win enough to get into the LPGA Hall Of Fame.

 As I look at the history of the LPGA and the average number of professional players that played a full schedule each year for each decade and the average number of wins by winning players during the decades as shown in the following table, there are a number of conclusions drawn. In the 1950's at the start of the LPGA there were less than 30 professional players. In the 1960's the number of players had started to increase and the available data shows an average of 45 professional players per year. The average number of professional players in the 1970's had grown to around 80. By the 1980's the tour had grown to include more than 150 players playing a full schedule each year and has remained at 150+ since 1983. As the number of players has increased the average number of wins by the players winning tournaments has decreased. That should be expected as increased competetion from more and better players should result in less wins per winning player. In the 1950's the avaerage wins per winning player was 11.7 wins and decreased to 9.13 in the 1960's and down to 5.14 in the 1970's. With 150+ players playing a full schedule the number of wins per winning player has decreased to 4 wins or less.

 The table also includes data on the top players that became professionals in each decade. The table gives the number of top professionals that started in each decade and the average number of  wins by those top players. For the decades of the 1950's and 1960's a player had to win at least 15 times to be considered a top player. For the 1970's a player had to win at least 12 times. Since the 1980's a top player has to have at least 10 wins. There were 4 players for the 1940's and 5 players for the 1950's, together averaging about 50 wins per year per player. For the 1960's there were 6 players and 9 players for the 1970's averaging just less than 30 wins per player. There were 9 players starting in the 1980's averaging just less than 20 wins per player. That is the kind of decrease one should expect. The 1990's produced only 4 players that have won at least 10 times and they averaged 36.5 wins per player. There was one player with 9 wins, 2 players with 8 wins and one with 7 wins, so it is still possible that additional players could make the threshold. My conclusion is that the 1990's did not produce as many top players as should have been expected. When I calculated the top 50 LPGA players of all time, I found that there were less players from the 1990's than I expected. Winning or in reality a lack of winning is the reason. Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, and Se Ri Pak all deserve to be in the LPGA Hall Of Fame, but a lack of top level competition certainly made it easier for them to win and obtain the required points. It is too early to conclude anything about players starting in the 2000's decade

 Since my crystal ball is always cloudy, I do not do predictions. However, for the 2000's decade Lorena Ochoa already has greater than 10 wins, and the following players are at least half the way to 10 wins: Paula Creamer - 9,  Jiyai Shin - 7, Suzann Pettersen - 6, Hee Won Han - 6, Grace Park - 6, and Ai Miyazato - 5.  Hee Won Han and Grace Park do not look promising as top players at the moment. Yani Tseng and Na Yeon Choi each has only 3 wins but look more promising at the moment.

 Next, winning majors.

  Decade Player      Number              Average           Average Wins    Average

        Started              of Players      Number of wins   Per Winner      No. of Players

          1940's                  4                     46.25                                    

          1950's                  5                     52.60                      11.7                <30

          1960's                  6                     29.33                      9.13                <45>

          1970's                  9                     29.67                      5.14                <80>

          1980's                  9                     19.44                      4.02               >150

          1990's                  4                     36.50                      3.54               >150

          2000's                  1                     27.00                      3.74               >150

           Wins               % of Players Winning

          > 19                           9.45 %

          > 9                            16.36 %

          > 8                            18.18 %

          < 6                             74.55 %

          < 3                             56.36 %

             2                             13.82 %

             1                             42.55 %