Top 70 - September 2011

With the seven-week homestretch on the LPGA schedule now reduced to six, this is the perfect time to issue my next-to-last rankings of the 2011 season.  The influence of 2010 statistics is dwindling (down to 15% now) so the vast majority of the rating is based on the current season.  The third column is the player's previous ranking, rookies are in bold and non-members are in italics.

Yani Tseng has all but locked up HD Player of the Year.  Somebody in the top six or eight would have to win four or more of the final six events just to get close.  Jiyai Shin fell from #5 to #10, partly because she wasn't able to play the most recent two of the four events since I last ranked them but mostly because her 2010 stats aren't as influential as they were before.  Her finishes of T18 at Safeway and T6 in Canada weren't enough to keep six players from freight-training past her - players who (aside from maybe Miyazato) who have had distinctly better 2011s than Shin.  Jiyai did pass one player - In-Kyung Kim dropped from #4 to #11 because she missed two cuts and finished no better than T18 (at Arkansas).  The greater emphasis on 2011 results gives a boost to Stacy Lewis and Brittany Lincicome, among others.

There are now seven rookies on the list with four of them in the Top 40.  They aren't approaching the rookie classes of 2006 or 2009 just yet (not until a couple of them crack the Top 20) but it's clearly a solid rookie class.  Tiffany Joh is gaining rapidly on Hee Kyung Seo in the ROY race and don't count out Jennifer Johnson.

The threesome that I mentioned last time might be dropping out actually did fall off the list.  If you had told me on Labor Day 2008 that Christina Kim, Jee Young Lee and Seon Hwa Lee would all be absent from the Top 70 in September 2011, I would have called you crazy.  BTW - three years ago Seon Hwa was #7, Jelly was #21 and Christina was #22.  Given their early successes and current ages (Kim is the eldest at 27), I wouldn't be surprised if any or all of them rebounded to at least the Top 40 within a year or two.  Christina has already accomplished that maneuver once in her career.  On a related note, Mi Hyun Kim is back in the Top 70!  Missing since August of last year, Peanut's T10 at Arkansas was enough to put her back on the good side.