Walmart NW Arkansas Championship Preview

After contesting only 15 official events over the last 30 weeks, the Tour's schedule thickens considerably starting this Friday in Rogers, Arkansas.  The year's final nine events will be played over the next ten weeks, with the one "off"-week being the Solheim Cup.  If you had been yearning for the olden days when you used-ta could watch women's golf Every Single Week, well here you go.

Yani Tseng's comeback win here last year gave her eight Hall of Fame points - she has 15 now.  How long do you think she'll need to reach the magic 27 mark?  If you advance her the two points for 2011 Player of the Year and Vare (which aren't locks but are very likely), I believe she will collect point #27 during the summer of 2013.  You might call that a conservative estimate but even so, Yani would break Karrie Webb's record as the youngest player to qualify for the Hall by nearly 12 months.

As Tony Jesselli writes in his preview at Mostly Harmless, this isn't the strongest field we've seen lately but it's not the weakest of 2011 by a long shot.  The Founders Cup (61) has been the only event thus far to register a Field Score of less than 80.  Otherwise, the lowest Score of the year was the 84 at Avnet.  The sporatic schedule does give us stronger fields - we'll see which of this fall's limited-field slate will suffer the most defections amongst the upper echelon now that the off-weeks are history.  I'm a bit surprised that Jiyai Shin passed on this event (although she's probably playing in the JLPGA major being held this week).  She won here two years ago and she's still looking for her first LPGA victory this year.

The Alternates list at LPGA.com is a head-scratcher.  Using the current Priority List, Adrienne White is the last player in and Meredith Duncan is the first one out...except that Dina Ammaccapane is shown the second alternate although she is listed at position #153.  Maybe Dina was a late entry and some unpublicized rule allows her to line up behind the first alternate?  Logic fails here.

The next two weeks will go a long way towards determining next season's Priority List.  Arkansas and next week's Navistar Classic are the final two full-field events of 2011.  The money list standings after Navistar won't change for the players around the 80^th, 100^th and 125^th positions, the three levels which separate Categories 1, 11 and 15.  I'll post my annual evaluation of the races for each position in the next couple of days.