Top 70 - June 2011

Even though it's been two months since I've posted an updated ranking of players, only four official events have been contested.  But since we have two major championships on-deck, this seemed to be the proper moment.  45% of these rankings are based on 2011 performance with the remainder hinging on 2010's numbers.  The third column lists the player's previous ranking and as usual, rookies are in bold and non-members are in italics.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10	Yani Tseng Cristie Kerr Jiyai Shin Na Yeon Choi Suzann Pettersen In-Kyung Kim Karrie Webb Paula Creamer Ai Miyazato Brittany Lincicome	1 2 4 3 7 6 10 8 5 15
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	Michelle Wie Stacy Lewis Morgan Pressel Amy Yang Angela Stanford Song-Hee Kim Inbee Park Maria Hjorth Sun Young Yoo Anna Nordqvist	9 17 12 13 16 11 14 25 18 21
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30	Katherine Hull Mika Miyazato Catriona Matthew Shanshan Feng Juli Inkster Hee Kyung Seo Se Ri Pak Meena Lee Jimin Kang Sandra Gal	20 19 30 26 24 29 35 34 23 50
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40	Mindy Kim Beatriz Recari Karine Icher Britttany Lang Jee Young Lee Karen Stupples Lexi Thompson Stacy Prammanasudh Kristy McPherson Katie Futcher	60 41 27 47 22 49 28 39 37 44
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50	Christina Kim Momoko Ueda M.J. Hur Azahara Munoz Hee Young Park Seon Hwa Lee Sophie Gustafson Natalie Gulbis Amy Hung Mina Harigae	42 40 36 32 33 38 51 58 43 63
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60	Eun-Hee Ji Vicky Hurst Candie Kung Jeong Jang Sarah Jane Smith Heather Bowie Young Pornanong Phatlum Kyeong Bae Wendy Ward Chella Choi	57 53 46 45 48 59 NR 62 NR 70
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70	Lindsey Wright Alena Sharp Shi Hyun Ahn Cindy LaCrosse Michele Redman Amanda Blumenherst Stephanie Louden Marcy Hart Jane Park Meaghan Francella	69 61 56 NR NR 66 52 NR NR 64
NR NR NR NR NR NR	Lorena Ochoa Na On Min Hee-Won Han Laura Davies Teresa Lu Gwladys Nocera	31 55 56 65 67 68

 

The big movers inside the Top 20 are Brittany Lincicome (win at ShopRite plus T3 at State Farm), Karrie Webb and Stacy Lewis (both rising since their victories earlier in the year have more influence now).  Song-Hee Kim finished second at Avnet but she's since missed two straight cuts and continues to fall down the list.

The margin between Players 30 through 37 is razor-thin.  I gave Sandra Gal the honor of cracking the Top 30 mainly because of her Kia Classic win but she's also collected two finishes in the Top 15 since then.  Mindy Kim's 29-slot jump is the largest on the chart - her T5 at State Farm was her fourth Top 10 in seven starts this year.

Lorena Ochoa was going to drop out of the Top 40 anyway so I decided to omit her entirely.  Other than her token appearance in last November's Ochoa Invitational, she has been inactive now for more than a year.  She wasn't going to fall below #70 before Labor Day as it was and it seemed pointless to drag out the inevitable.  When she retired last May, I didn't want to remove her from the list suddenly like Rolex did at her request (that just didn't seem like the proper thing to do) but I probably should have left her off my rankings once the 2011 season got underway.  I've left Jeong Jang listed despite her inactivity (she's expecting her first child and has decided to sit out the year) because as far as we know, she will be returning.  If all this sounds rather arbitrary, it is - it's MY list after all.  My first priority is to deliver rankings that make sense and if that requires the occasional about-face on a prior decision I've made, so be it.