CME Group Titleholders Preview

The 2011 season draws to a close with the playing of the inaugural Titleholders.  Each event on the schedule qualified three players for the field to generate a gathering of the best players on Tour this year.

As the final event of 2011, the Titleholders is the last chance for several prominent players to collect their first victory of the year.  Most notable of that group is Cristie Kerr, who despite having been one of the top players on Tour, is still winless.  Kerr has had at least one victory in each of the last seven seasons but hasn't been able to convert any of her six Top 3 finishes into a win.  Other high-profile players who haven't yet won in 2011 include Paula Creamer, Angela Stanford, In-Kyung Kim and (the unfortunately absent-so-she-can't-win-this-week-either) Jiyai Shin.

Back in January, I wrote how the qualifying format for this event was a roundabout way of merely selecting the Top 45 or so players.  As expected, three players who merely had to finish the Ochoa Invitational made this field - Juli Inkster (who certainly deserves to be here), Natalie Gulbis and Beatriz Recari.  Gulbis made the Ochoa field on a sponsor's invite - certainly not the most well-earned of paths - but her inclusion here doesn't exactly rip anybody off.  According to my current rankings, the highest ranked players not invited were #47 Eun-Hee Ji and #54 Kristy McPherson.  Ji's best finish was T20 at ShopRite, which was much too early in the season for that finish to have qualified.  She registered a T25 in Korea and got beat out by Shanshan Feng (T13), a much more deserving player.  McPherson followed a similar trail - T18 at Kia and T24 at Safeway were nowhere near good enough.  Players with only one Top 20 finish (and just barely that) on the season have no reason to complain about being left out.

Despite missing seven of the 66 qualifiers, the field is still very strong.  All of my current Top 10 and 35 of my Top 40 are playing.  It should be a good one to close out the season.