Top 100 All Time LPGA Players - Yani Tseng & Other Stuff

There are 31 players who have played 10 tournaments so far this year. As it takes at least 10 tournaments to be a year for my rating system I can now calculate an updated ranking for those players. Nine of those players have not reached the 100 tournament threshold to be ranked - Yani Tseng, Stacy Lewis, Amy Yang, Shanshan Feng, Beatrice Recari, M.J. Hur, Vicky Hurst, Amanda Blumenherst, and Azahara Munoz. However, I decided to see how Yani Tseng would rank based on my equations as she now has 8 wins with 4 majors in only 82 tournaments. With heavy penalties for a short career and less than 150 tournaments Yani still ranks as the 69th best player in my list of Top 100 LPGA Players Of All Time. By the time Yani reaches 100 tournaments, which should happen sometime next year she should be in the Top 50 LPGA Players Of All Time.

Song-Hee Kim and Kristy McPherson have both reached the 100 tournament threshold but neither player is in the Top 100 Players. Sun Young Yoo, Brittany Lang, Katherine Hull, Jimin Kang, and Keong Bae all have over 100 tournaments but less than 150 tournaments any none of them are in the Top 100 Players. Amy Hung reached the 150 tournament threshold to get rid of the penalty for too few tournaments, but is not in the Top 100. Karen Stupples is not in the Top 100 and now has 12 years.

Karrie Webb, Julie Inkster and Wendy Ward all have established minimum career ratings with 15+ years and their rankings will not change based on performance year to date. Webb is #6, Inkster is #15, and Ward is #92.

Angela Stanford, Natalie Gulbis, Stacy Prammanasudh, Christinia Kim, Seon Hwa Lee, and Morgan Pressel are all in the Top 100 but not the Top 50. All will move within the Top 100 based on their performance. The biggest move based on year to date would be Morgan Pressel from 86th place to 72nd place. Hee Won Han will drop out of the Top 50 based on performance so far this year or she must play better the rest of the year to stay in the Top 50.  Brittany Lincicome has moved from #132 to #102 and will move into the Top 100 by the end of the year if she continues to play well. Hee Won Han and Natalie Gulbis now have 10 years with 10 or more tournaments.

Paula Creamer and Cristi Kerr are the other two players with 10 tournaments played year to date. Adding in their performance year to date Cristi Kerr started at #33 on my list and is currently still at #33, while Paula Creamer has gone from #35 to #29. Kerr has 14 wins with 2 majors and Creamer has 9 wins with 1 major. Kerr has won $12,909,436 and Creamer has won $8,328,780. So why do my equations say Creamer's career to date is better than Kerr's career. Kerr has more points for victories and more points for money won. Creamer won $2,607,943 in her first 2 years and Kerr won $2,601,837 in her first 7 years. When I account for the increased purse sizes the $1,905740 that Kerr won in her first 6 years is about equivalent to what Creamer won in her first 2 years. In her first 2 years Creamer won 2 tournaments, was second 5 times, third 4 times, and had 25 top 10's. In those 6 years Kerr won 1 tournament, was second 3 times and third 6 times, and had 25 Top 10's. Creamer did so in 52 tournaments and Kerr took 149 tournaments to post very similar numbers. Creamer missed 1 cut and Kerr missed 40 cuts. So when you look at the percentage of the tournaments that Creamer was in contention (top 3 finish) and the percentage of tournaments that Creamer was playing very well (top10 finish), the percentage of cuts made in tournaments, and the yearly stroke averages versus those for Kerr, my equations say that Creamer's career is better than Kerr's.  

At the end of the year, Kerr's 15th year, she will establish a minimum career rating. Since my rating is based on the 15 prime years in a players career, Kerr should be able to improve her career rating next year as her rating would drop her first year and add her 16th year into the calculation. Kerr's first year was in a word - bad. In 27 tournaments she missed the cut 14 times, had no Top 3 finishes and no Top 10 finishes and a stroke average of 73.44 and won $49,058. Dropping that one year would make Creamer's and Kerr's careers rate close to the same.