The 2010 LPGA Elevator - Moving Down

Here are some players who haven't been performing as well this year as we expected them to:

MOVING DOWN

Kristy McPherson

Kristy finished T10 at the Jamie Farr Classic, so far her only Top 10 finish of the season after registering six (four of them Top 5s) a year ago.  She's fallen from #18 at the end of 2009 to #35.  The main culprit has been GIR - Kristy ranks 45^th in that category after coming in 16^th last year.  She is off a little with both the driver and putter, which makes me wonder - since she improved in all three after 2008, was she playing a little over her head last year?

Eun-Hee Ji

In 23 starts since her U.S. Women's Open victory in July 2009, Eun-Hee has no Top 10 finishes, only three real Top 20s (a 20^th-place finish at the 20-player Samsung shouldn't really count) and five missed cuts.  A bona fide Top 20 player even before becoming a major champion, Ji has fallen to #45 in my rankings.  She ranks #108 in Total Putting, #66 in GIR and #64 in Total Driving - meaning, a lot has gone wrong with her game in 13 months.

Lindsey Wright

After finishing 2009 ranked at #20, Lindsey currently sits at #51.  Injuries may be influencing her decline as she missed three straight events following the Kraft Nabisco.  At any rate, Wright's last Top 10 was at the '09 Farr (22 events ago) and she has only two Top 30s and three MCs in ten starts this year.  She's been putting about like usual but her GIR and driving are way off.

Seon Hwa Lee

The Stone Buddah's 2009 decline seemed to be mostly bad golfing luck as her peripheral stats showed very little difference from her previous numbers.  Not so this year - down from 40^th to 93^rd in GIR, down from 33^rd to 63^rd in Total Putting and down from 19^th to 54^th in Total Driving.  Lee has spent some of 2010 competing in Japan but didn't play well there, either.  Looking for her first Top 10 since Arkansas last September.  If this continues, Seon Hwa will fall out of my Top 40 for the first time since I started ranking players in 2006.

Natalie Gulbis

"Back problems" and "Natalie Gulbis" have been written or spoken in the same sentence so many times over the last four years that now one couplet seems weird without the other.  Natalie's career never became what it could have been primarily because of injuries and hers is unfortunately a name still associated with the group of "pretty faces who never win", despite the Evian victory in 2007.  Gulbis is only 27 and could still rebound enough to change that perception but I would estimate the chance of that happening now to be less than 1 in 20.

Ji Young Oh

Even while collecting single victories in 2008 and 2009, Oh's results otherwise weren't indicative of a Top 30 player.  This, however, is getting ridiculous - since winning at Sybase last year, Oh has only one Top 10 and two other Top 20s in 29 starts with 11 missed cuts.  That poor record pushed her out of my Top 70 in July.  JY's best finish this year came in her most recent start (T31 at the British Open) so maybe she's working things out.

Helen Alfredsson

With players in their forties, I usually expect some decline in performance from season to season.  Alfredsson finished 2009 ranked #31 - a few slots down from her comeback season of 2008 - but played well enough that I thought she might have one more Top 30 campaign left.  Apparently not.  Aside from a T16 at Evian (a layout on which she's always played well), Helen's best finish this year has been a T40 at State Farm.  She's down nearly 100 positions in Total Putting, 50 in GIR and over 30 in Total Driving.  Is she's done?  Don't ask me, I thought she was done four years ago.