Wegmans LPGA Championship - Epilogue

Hmmm...where to begin?  Yani Tseng's victory puts her at 13 Hall of Fame points, nearly half the required 27.  It was her third win of 2011, her second straight and the eighth win of her career.  While it wasn't quite the margin that Cristie Kerr built up on the same course a year ago, the ten shot victory was only the ninth double-digit win in LPGA major championship history.  You already know Tseng is the youngest player ever to win four majors but did you know that she has already surpassed these players in terms of career majors - Nancy Lopez (3), JoAnne Carner (2), Carol Mann (2), Beth Daniel (1), Lorena Ochoa (2), Judy Rankin (0), Cristie Kerr (2)?  There are only 14 players ahead of her on the all-time list of major victories.

It has been about 14 months since Lorena Ochoa announced her retirement.  For most of that time, we had a half-dozen players jockeying for the title of World's Number One.  Yani Tseng took that mantle in my book last September when she won in Arkansas.  She held on to win the Player of the Year award and kicked off 2011 with a victory in Thailand along with three wins on other tours.  While she was certainly a solid #1 through the spring, I don't think anybody regarded her as head-and-shoulders above the crowd like Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam were.  The month of June has changed that.  Tseng's win at State Farm followed up by this weekend's performance makes her the obvious favorite to win her second straight POY no matter what happens in the year's final two majors or other dozen events.  Having said that, she's the defending champion at the British and finished T10 at last year's U.S. Open so I imagine I won't be the only one expecting Yani to finish the year with more than four majors.

The scoring average of 73.08 was more than a stroke lower than last year's championship.  They were playing lift-clean-place yesterday and judging by the lower averages, I'll assume Sunday wasn't the only day those rules were in effect because the layout appeared to be the same as last year.

As often happens when a less-experienced player makes the final Sunday pairing, Cindy LaCrosse faltered to a 77 and finished -3 T14.  It wasn't a career best finish (T11 at ShopRite) and it was the third Top 20 in her last four starts but I feel inclined to give Cindy a tiny share of the Big Surprise Award for just making that final group.  The lion's share of the Award goes to Pat Hurst, who finished T8 for her first Top 10 since the 2009 Kraft Nabisco.  Pat came into the event riding four straight MCs so anybody who predicted this result is either a sorcerer or time-traveler.

The only somewhat-valid Big Disappointment candidate I could find was Ai Miyazato, who missed the cut by two shots.  She's not exactly pushing Song-Hee Kim for the title of Biggest Disappointment of 2011 but Ai-chan has only one Top 10 and three total Top 20s in eight starts.  The MC was her second of the year.

One more thing about the 22-year-old Yani Tseng - players you might be surprised to find out are older than her include Stacy Lewis (26!), Song-Hee Kim, Anna Nordqvist, Amanda Blumenherst, Beatriz Recari, Azahara Munoz and Cindy LaCrosse.