38.  Se Ri Pak  (63-NR-32)

Judging by the numbers in parentheses above, Pak made a bit of a comeback this year.  She collected only two Top 10s finishes (down one from '08) but came up only one shot short at State Farm to In-Kyung Kim.  Cutting over six-tenths of a stroke off her average, she reduced her missed cuts from seven to five (and one of those was a WD after opening with a 69).  Se Ri's improvement was all tee-to-green.  Off the tee she improved from #91 to #27 while raising her GIR rank from #72 to #32.  Her putting took a hit (from #71 down to #102) but overall her game was much better.

Despite her recent ups-and-downs, Pak does have one remarkable distinction in her record.  Over her 12-year LPGA career, she has collected at least one Top 3 finish in every season but one - her "burnout" year in 2005.

39.  Pat Hurst  (NR-NR-38)

Pat earned her sixth career victory at the MasterCard Classic.  She also finished T8 at the Kraft Nabisco and T11 at Navistar.  Those were her only Top 20 finishes in 2009 along with seven missed cuts.  Even so, that was a great improvement over 2008 when she also had three Top 20s (fifth at MasterCard - she really likes that course) but missed nine cuts.  Somehow, Hurst managed to improve her GIR ranking from #66 to #25 despite falling from #29 to #76 in Total Driving.  Her putting numbers were about the same - 58^th in '08, 65^th in '09.

40.  M.J. Hur  (NR-NR-40)

The fifth rookie among this year's HD Top 40, Hur won the Safeway Classic in a playoff over Suzann Pettersen and Michele Redman.  She also finished T8 at the Ochoa Invitational with six total finishes in the Top 20.  Unfortunately, her record also includes ten missed cuts.

M.J.'s strong suit is the putter, as she finished sixth in Total Putting and in the Top 10 of both traditional putting stats.  Her rankings in GIR (#113) and Total Driving (#132) show that her ball-striking needs a lot of improvement if she's ever going to repeat that Safeway victory.

46.  Stacy Lewis  (30-27-37)

After Michelle Wie, Stacy Lewis was probably the most heralded rookie in the American media at the start of 2009.  Her strong showing at the 2008 U.S. Open was most responsible for those expectations.  It wasn't a bad season but placed side-by-side with the ledgers of Shin and Nordqvist, it would be construed a letdown by some observers.  Two Top 10 finishes (in back-to-back events, the LPGA Championship and Wegmans) but only two other Top 20s and seven missed cuts.  Putting was her biggest liability (103^rd) while reaching the green in regulation was her strongest (38^th).

54.  Candie Kung  (17-22-25)

2008 was Kung's strongest season since winning three times in 2003.  If not for one event, 2009 would have been nearly the worst of her career.  She missed eight cuts in 25 events and finished worse than 40^th six other times.  Her one saving grace was the U.S. Open, where she finished second by one shot to Eun-Hee Ji.  The $350,000 prize enabled her to finish in the money list Top 40 for the seventh time in her eight-year career.

The culprit in Candie's poor season was the putter - after ranking 49^th a year ago, she dropped to 117^th.  Her driver was a little off (#64 down to #82) but her GIR was about the same.

Now that I've profiled each of my Top 30 players (see Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6), the next three editions in this series will consist of various other players of interest...mine, of course.

32.  Vicky Hurst  (NR-NR-28)

Despite ranking at #32 overall, Vicky was only the fourth-best rookie on Tour this season.  Even considering the uber-rookie status of Jiyai Shin and Michelle Wie, that's quite an unusual feat.  Only during the Great Rookie Explosion of 2006 did the fourth-best rookie finish better than 32^nd (six rookies were in the Top 25 that year).  Usually Rookie #4 isn't anywhere near the Top 40 and prior to 2006, you won't find any season with more than two inside the Top 40 until you go all the way back to 1988.  I guess my point here is that having multiple rookies in the Top 40 is a very recent phenomenon in the LPGA - after only seeing it once over its first 55 seasons, we've had three or more rookies in the Top 40 every year since 2006.  The most likely reasons for this are spelled K-L-P-G-A and F-U-T-U-R-E-S.

As for Hurst, she's becoming one of my favorite players.  With her Payne Stewart hats and quirky personality, her talent for the game is a nice bonus.  Her three Top 10s in 2009 included a tie for fifth at Corning.  She led the Tour in Driving Distance which set up rankings of #18 in Total Driving and #26 in GIR.  A little improvement with the putter (#62) would make Vicky's sophomore season even more successful.

33.  Hee-Won Han  (16-13-21)

Han returned to full-time action from maternity leave in 2008 and picked up right about where she left off - #16 in my final '08 rankings.  Twice this year she threatened to win - ties for third at State Farm and the British - but the rest of season was nearly a washout.  Four missed cuts (only in her rookie season did she have more) and only five total Top 20s in 25 starts.  Her putting was about the same as during 2008 but her driving was a bit off (down from #70 to #106) and as a result, her GIR suffered (down from #32 to #63).

34.  Amy Yang  (57-NR-34)

A second-year player from Korea, Amy collected two Top 10s (one of them a tie for third at CVS) with six total Top 20s and four missed cuts.  Yang displayed a good all-around game (no worse than 54^th in any of the Big Three) with the ability to reach the green in regulation (#31) being her strong suit.

35.  Jee Young Lee  (22-11-17)

Jelly's fourth season on Tour was easily her least productive.  By my count she missed five cuts (two by withdrawing prior to the cut - poor first rounds in each meant she probably would have missed them anyway), the most of her career.  Her three Top 10s were only half of her previous low.  She did gather six more finishes in the teens for a total of nine Top 20s.

The problem?  First off, Lee dropped from 16^th in Total Driving to 55^th.  That's a terribly low ranking considering she was eighth in distance.  She also fell from 34^th in GIR (which wasn't a great number to begin with for such a long player) to 75^th.  The two WDs might indicate an injury problem but I never heard of anything specific.

36.  Juli Inkster  (32-NR-33)

My prediction of Juli's retirement didn't come true and of that I'm glad.  Even though her game slipped a tiny bit more in 2009, she is still one of the forty best players on Tour as she approaches age 50.  Despite a small improvement in driving and a huge jump in GIR (T103 to 17^th), Inkster's putting fell off a cliff (down from 15^th to 126^th) and was a noticeable problem during the Solheim Cup.  Hopefully she can recover some of that short-game magic by the time she begins her 27^th full LPGA season in February.

26.  Hee Young Park  (43-29-25)

A second-year player who seems to be this close to breaking through, Park finished runner-up twice in 2009 (at Thailand and Mizuno) and in the Top 10 a total of six times.  Six missed cuts (three in a row at the beginning of summer) prevented her from threatening the HD Top 20.  Hee Young putted better this year (up from 74^th to 38^th) but dropped a bit in GIR (from 43^rd to 59^th) and did not remain among the very best in Total Driving (down from 3^rd to 26^th).  She lost six yards per drive off her rookie season average so I wonder if she was playing 3-wood more often to improve her accuracy.  If so she accomplished that but relative to the rest of the Tour, it wasn't a good trade-off.

27.  Seon Hwa Lee  (9-6-12)

One of my favorite players, Seon Hwa seemed to struggle all year.  Residing in or near the Top 10 ever since I began blogging, Lee's current ranking is the lowest of her career.  Oddly enough, her numbers aren't terribly out of line with previous seasons.  She missed three cuts, equal to 2008 and only one more than in 2007.  Her five Top 10s are the fewest in any of her four seasons but are only two fewer than in 2006 or 2008.  What is out of line is her 28^th-place finish on the money list (12^th in 2006 was her previous worst) and the fact she went winless for the first time.  Her Big Three numbers (19-40-33) mask whatever problem she might have had.  2009 was her best driving season and her second-best putting season (#1 in 2006).  It wasn't her worst GIR ranking - she was #46 as a rookie - but she was 25^th in scoring average, the lowest ranking of her career.  Basically, Seon Hwa had a somewhat tough scoring year and wasn't ever able to bunch four good rounds together to get that victory we always expect from her.  Other than that, she was about the same player as during her first three seasons.

28.  Ji Young Oh  (23-NR-13)

While Oh's first career victory at State Farm in 2008 surprised me (only three Top 10s in 40 prior career starts), her second at the '09 Sybase might have surprised me more.  Between the two wins she started 17 events, earning two Top 10s (no Top 5s) and missing two cuts.  She really hadn't been in contention again, which is strange for a player who had just become a Tour winner.  And after Sybase, she reverted back to a level more like her rookie year of 2007 - one Top 10 and five MCs in 17 starts.  If she wins again early in 2010, I'll be even more surprised.  As you might expect from her erratic results, Oh doesn't rank highly in any of the Big Three.  She's 49^th in GIR, 70^th in putting and 93^rd in driving.

29.  Momoko  Ueda  (35-NR-29)

Momoko only made 18 starts as she spent the entire fall in Asia, playing her only LPGA events in Korea and Japan after September 6.  It's a shame, because at the time she was playing her best golf of the year.  A tie for second in Canada was her first Top 10 of the season and she was T11 and T9 in the two Asian swing events.  A couple more Top 10s could have bumped her near the Top 20.

30.  Katherine Hull  (21-10-15)

Several of my preseason predictions didn't pan out - Hull becoming a Top 10 player, Seon Hwa Lee remaining there, Jee Young Lee recovering some of her game, Angela Park remaining in the Top 20.

Of those four predictions, the one which was on the shakiest ground was Hull.  Leaping to prominence in 2008 after four indifferent LPGA seasons, Katherine really shouldn't have been expected to climb further.  Her Big Three numbers in 2008 (125-38-36) didn't support such an expectation and even though her 2009 numbers are an overall improvement (63-55-13), they don't support being a Top 10 player either.  After registering five Top 5 finishes in 2008, Hull collected only one in 2009.

21.  Sun Young Yoo  (33-28-19)

Yoo is probably the highest-rated player who even avid LPGA fans know nothing about.  She played her best golf of 2009 in back-to-back weeks, finishing tied for second at Arkansas and then tied for third at CVS.  Overall her record isn't terribly impressive - four Top 10s and two missed cuts.  What helps boost her to this position is seven other finishes in the Top 20 and the fact that the players ranked right behind her missed more cuts.

Like several others in this area of the rankings, Sun Young's game from tee-to-green is outstanding.  She ranks in the Top 10 of Total Driving and GIR but only #57 in Total Putting.  She was 27^th in putting a year ago so the chances of her moving into the Top 20 seem very good.  After four LPGA seasons of steady improvement, a win in 2010 is not out of the question.

22.  Morgan Pressel  (27-23-22)

Is this a third example of a player whose sum is greater than her parts (see yesterday's Lindsey Wright profile)?  Pressel ranked 37^th in both putting and GIR and 71^st in driving, yet collected three Top 3 finishes and rated as a solid Top 30 player all season long.  She was also Top 30 in 2008 with a win at Kapalua and a T2 at Sybase despite Big Three numbers indicative of a lesser player.  With Morgan you might naturally expect those great performances to have been on shorter courses but her win at '08 Kapalua and T2 at the '09 Ochoa Invitational were over 6600 yards and her runner-up at the '09 Farr was the only track among the five under 6400.

The trend extends backwards to 2007 as Pressel finished that year ranked fifth with Big Three numbers of 42-10-23.  In 2006 the effect is less pronounced as she ranked 18^th with a line of 15-14-57.  Before I get too excited about this "discovery", I should take a step back and investigate to see if there are players who consistently follow the opposite pattern.  I would hate to be misinterpreting my own data.

23.  Maria Hjorth  (28-NR-23)

Maria returned to action in April after the birth of her first child.  She started very slowly but by the fall she was playing as well as ever, with three straight Top 10s at CVS, Navistar and Korea and eight Top 20 finishes in her last ten starts.  Hjorth goes into the "needs to putt better" group with Brittany Lang, Sophie Gustafson and Sun Young Yoo, as she ranked eighth in Total Driving and fourth in GIR but only 71^st in Total Putting.

24.  Brittany Lincicome  (NR-NR-23)

In my opinion, Brittany executed the Shot of the Year on the final hole of the Kraft Nabisco.  Standing in the fairway of the par-5 18th needing a birdie to tie for the lead, she played her second shot over the lake to the center of the green.  The ball rode the slope around the back section of the green and came to rest about three feet from the pin.  Lincicome sank the eagle putt to win her first major championship by one stroke.

The rest of the season wasn't quite as heart-stopping.  Brittany finished fifth at the U.S. Open and collected two other Top 10s but she also missed seven cuts along with five finishes in the 60s.  Her Big Three rankings were 80-33-78.  It almost goes without saying - if Brittany Lincicome isn't in the Top 10 of Total Driving (and she hasn't been since 2007), something is bad wrong with her game.

25.  Natalie Gulbis  (56-NR-24)

On the face of it, a #25 ranking for Natalie looks pretty good.  Especially when you recall her physical problems in 2008 which kept her from playing the last three months and forced her to go through qualifying for this year's U.S. Open (which she unfortunately failed to make).

Her results weren't much to write home about, though - only two Top 10s (T10 at SBS, T7 at Michelob), five other Top 20s and three missed cuts.  And worse, she withdrew after the first round at the Ochoa Invitational and DNS'd at the Tour Championship, a sign that the health problems haven't quite gone away.  Count me among the hopefuls who are wishing Natalie a restful off-season and a return to success in 2010.

16.  Eun-Hee Ji  (13-8-9)

This U.S. Women's Open jinx is getting ridiculous.  Beginning with 2003, let me count the ways this championship has body-slammed its winner:

Granted, a couple of those wins have shaped up to be Flukes and Annika and Cristie both returned to form but we've got a real pattern happening here.  If Once is Happenstance, Twice is Coincidence and Thrice is Enemy Action, what the heck is seven times?  Like Kerr, Ji ranked higher the year before she won the U.S. Open than in the year she did.

17.  Brittany Lang  (31-24-17)

Slowly developing into one of the best in the game.  Brittany ranked in the Top 5 of both Total Driving and GIR (only Kerr did the same) after ranking in the Top 10 of both last year.  The putter is all she has left to improve on (#59, up from #77).

Lang seems to be one of the streakier players on Tour.  The last two seasons she reeled off sizeable Top 10 streaks down the stretch - four in a row with two runners-up this year and five in a row to finish 2008 (a streak she extended to seven over the first two tournaments in '09).  Something tells me that streaky putting is behind those results.

18.  Kristy McPherson  (45-NR-17)

In last year's profile, I said Kristy wasn't a great candidate for improvement because she was already pretty good in each of the Big Three Stats and didn't have one area she could specifically work on to get better.  Wrong again.  She got better across the board - up from #46 to #14 in Total Driving, from #40 to #16 in GIR and from #51 to #44 in Total Putting.  So now she does have one area to concentrate on, the flat stick.

19.  Sophie Gustafson  (37-NR-19)

The first half of 2009 was a disaster for Sophie.  After collecting a Top 10 in Thailand, she endured five missed cuts (four of them consecutive) in a six-tournament span ending with the U.S. Open.  She immediately turned it around at Evian, losing in a playoff to Ai Miyazato.  In September she rattled off four straight Top 10s including her first win in six years at the CVS.  Despite all the missed cuts it was Gustafson's first Top 20 season since 2003, a level she frequented over the first five years of her career.

One of the LPGA's longest hitters, Sophie drove the ball about the same this year as she had in 2008.  Her putting took a turn for the worse as she dropped from 30^th to 72^nd but she apparently made up for it with her improvement in GIR, up from 70^th to 18^th.  I'll go out on a limb and say that (like Brittany Lang) the good performances came when the putter was working and the missed cuts came when it wasn't.

20.  Lindsey Wright  (39-NR-15)

If Lindsey had her way, the LPGA would take all of its events held in the fall and move them to the spring.  The last two years Wright has really tailed off as the days get shorter - otherwise she might be a Top 10 player.  From August 1 on, she has one Top 10 and five missed cuts in 18 starts over the two seasons.  Prior to August 1, her numbers are seven Top 10s (four of them Top 5s and two of those in majors) and two missed cuts in 30 starts.  Altogether, Wright is still a darned good player whose results have been improving every year she's been on Tour.  This, despite the fact that her stats weren't significantly different from '08 to '09.  Her driving was up slightly this year (#50 to #41), her GIR was about the same (#42 to #39) and her putting was down slightly (#32 to #42).

Now that I think about it, Lindsey's model is actually the one you would want to follow if you were a not-quite-upper-echelon golfer.  Say you are a player with good but not great numbers like Wright.  If it were possible to choose how to distribute the 83 rounds you played in a season (the number Wright played in 2009), which distribution would maximize your value?  The obvious answer is to bundle the good rounds together in the same weeks to collect a few Top 5s and 10s (or maybe a win once in a while) and scatter the bad rounds to minimize the number of missed cuts.  That way, your less-than-stellar scoring average and peripheral stats would earn more money and ultimately rank you as a better player than if your results were randomly distributed.

Before you blow off this notion as complete nonsense, take note of this - all sports have players who get labeled as ones who "get the most out of their talent".  Laura Diaz is another player who's had multiple seasons which exceeded the sum of her stats.  Obviously Diaz and Wright don't really get to pick and choose when they play their good or bad rounds, but it seems that they do have some ability to keep a few good ones bunched together and maximize their earning potential.  Two years ago during her rookie season, Song-Hee Kim exhibited the opposite trait - she nearly lost her Tour card despite numbers which suggested a much stronger game.  One year does not establish a trend - Kim played up to her numbers in '08 and '09 - but two or more years certainly does.

Today, Players 11 through 15...

11.  Paula Creamer  (2-3-2)

Not quite the year we expected out of Paula.  She doesn't rank higher because she didn't win an event and she only finished tenth on the money list.  Making only 21 starts didn't help matters, as she fought health problems most of the season.  She ranked #5 as late as August but just two Top 10s over her last seven events pushed her down to here.

She's still one of the best.  Despite her less-than-average distance off the tee, Creamer ranked sixth in Total Driving and first in GIR.  She was 34^th in putting (down from tenth) so if you're looking for a reason for the winless season, that's probably it.

12.  In-Kyung Kim  (20-20-6)

Inky won the State Farm Classic, earned over $1.2 million to finish eighth on the money list and finished in the Top 10 ten times in 25 starts.  Four missed cuts set her back a little but her third LPGA season was a definite step forward from her second, like her second was an even larger step forward from her first.  Logically, I'd expect a Top 10 performance in 2010.

An outstanding putter from the day she earned her Tour card, Kim ranked 12^th in Total Putting this year.  Where she made great strides in her game was with the driver (up from #105 to #37) and in reaching the green in regulation (from #96 to T7).  Other than the four players who ranked Top 20 in all of the Big Three stats, Inky was the only player who ranked Top 20 in GIR and Total Putting.

13.  Song-Hee Kim  (18-9-10)

Now that Ai Miyazato, Na Yeon Choi and Michelle Wie have all won events, Song-Hee owns the "honor" of being the best player on Tour with no career victories.  In a couple of respects she seems to be getting closer to her first win - 12 Top 10 finishes this year, nearly double her 2008 total and a scoring average within a half-stroke of the Vare Trophy winner.  However, she had no runner-up finishes this year after earning two in '08 and her five Top 5s were down one from the previous year.  Kim did halve her MC number - only two in 2009.

Song-Hee was the third-best putter in the LPGA this year, up from #26 a year ago.  Her driving and GIR rankings are virtually the same (#29 and #28), but they are converging from opposite directions.  She's down from fifth in GIR but up from 55^th in Total Driving.  Like Inky, her overall game has improved each year on Tour and her next logical step is into the Top 10.

14.  Karrie Webb  (15-16-8)

For the first time since I started blogging, I finally got Karrie pegged right.  I predicted a mid-teens season from her and we got just that - a victory in Phoenix with two second-place finishes (one at the British Open) and six total Top 10s.  She missed a couple of cuts over the summer and finished the season with no Top 10s over her last five events, but she showed she still has enough game to worry people.

Webb still goes tee-to-green with the best of them (28^th in driving, ninth in GIR) but her putting fell to 82^nd this year, down from 34^th in 2008 and fifth in 2006.  You always worry first about that part of an older player's game so it will be interesting to see if she can recover some with the flat stick next year.

15.  Catriona Matthew  (42-NR-15)

Matthew shocked everybody when she won the British Open in only her second start after returning from maternity leave in late July.  It was the unlikeliest major victory in a year of unlikely major championship victories.  Eun-Hee Ji was the only one of the four who was ranked in my Top 70 the week she won (Ji was #16 going into the U.S. Open).  Hell, Brittany Lincicome had played so poorly in 2008 that she was still outside my Top 70 after she won Kraft Nabisco.  Maybe hers was more unlikely than Matthew's - depends on how you look at it, I guess.

Catriona didn't play exceptionally well in 2009 aside from the win - two other Top 10s with one missed cut in 10 total starts (one start prior to going on leave).  In her limited schedule she drove and putted about the same as in recent seasons but her GIR ranking was much improved (to #29, up from 101 and 91 the previous two years).

Numbers in parentheses are the player's final 2008 ranking, their preseason ranking and the highest position they reached during the 2009 season.

6.  Suzann Pettersen  (7-5-4)

Ended a drought of nearly two years when she won the Canadian Open in September.  Even during the dry spell, Suzann continued to perform at a level consistent with being a Top 10 player. Had she won the playoff at Safeway (losing to M.J. Hur the week prior to Canada), she would have gone down to the wire with Ochoa, Shin and Kerr for Rolex Player of the Year.  Pettersen finished 16^th in Total Driving, 10^th in GIR and 14^th in Total Putting, making her the lowest ranked player who finished in the Top 20 of all three Big Three stats.

7.  Anna Nordqvist  (NR-NR-7)

If Nordqvist had not won the season-ending Tour Championship, none of the four 2009 major champions (Lincicome, Ji, Matthew) would have ranked among my Top 10.  I don't even have to research it - that has never happened in all the LPGA seasons I've researched going back to 1950.  Just more evidence that the Tour's depth is at an all-time high.  And maybe some more evidence that those majors aren't so much harder to win after all.

As I mentioned a few days ago, four of my top six ranked in the Top 20 of each of the Big Three while the other two made the Top 20 in two of them.  Then there's Nordqvist - her best number is 24^th in Total Putting (30^th in GIR, 40^th in Total Driving).  Anna was a very steady player in that she was one of only five regulars not to miss a cut this year (Ochoa, Kerr, Miyazato, NY Choi).  But in another regard, she wasn't consistent at all.  Aside from the two victories, she only collected three Top 10s (none in the Top 5) in those 15 starts and she had five finishes of 36^th or worse.

The word "consistent" has really gotten its definition twisted around in the sporting vernacular, much like the grossly misused "mediocre".  When somebody says a player or team is consistent nowadays, they really mean "consistently good" or "consistently in contention".  Strictly speaking, I would say Lorena Ochoa is consistently in contention, Anna Nordqvist is consistently good, and (for 2009 at least) Liselotte Neumann and Dorothy Delasin are consistent.

8.  Yani Tseng  (5-4-4)

Although she won the Corning Classic in May, Yani continued her rookie habit of knocking on the door multiple times into her sophomore season.  She was the runner-up three times and collected a total of nine Top 5s in 2009.

Tseng led the Tour in birdies and ranked second in eagles.  Of course, leading in events played (she was the only player to start all 27) gave her a few more chances in those categories.  Putting seemed to be the only problem with her game this year as she finished 55^th in Total Putting (down from #22 in 2008) and wasn't in the Top 50 of either traditional putting stat.  

9.  Angela Stanford  (8-12-5)

Stanford won the season-opening SBS Open and for most of the year was among the 5-6 best players on Tour.  Her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in September so Angela took a break to be with her, skipping the Asian swing.  When she returned for the final two events of the season, she finished 33^rd and T32.  Coupled with the late wins by Choi and Nordqvist, Stanford slipped to #9.

Angela was my inspiration for developing Total Driving when I noticed she seemed to have the best combination of distance and accuracy back in 2007.  She finished second in that stat this year and wound up 12^th in GIR and 30^th in Total Putting, meaning that she only slightly fell back in GIR (from 8^th) while greatly improving in the other two (20^th and 52^nd respectively).

10.  Michelle Wie  (59-14-10)

Well, look who's here!  Wiesy played 19 events (instead of the widely-predicted 12-14), finished in the Top 4 six times and earned her first professional victory at the Ochoa Invitational, about five weeks after her 20^th birthday.  I probably won't be predicting a POY run for Michelle next year but after presuming a 14^th place performance for her rookie season, she may want me to.  Incidentally, she was #11 in my 2006 final rankings so this is the highest position Wie has ever held on the HD chart.

Until she improves on her driving accuracy rate, Wie (nor we) shouldn't expect any POY titles.  Even though she ranked 4^th in distance, her Total Driving ranking was 74^th due to only hitting the fairway at a .582 clip.  Just six players on Tour found the fairway less often than Michelle Wie.  She ranked seventh in Total Putting and despite the poor average start off the tee, she managed to finish 21^st in GIR.  That performance from fairway to green and the great putting is what ultimately made Wie a Top 10 player, ironically not her booming drives.

The days are getting shorter and the weather has gotten chilly, so it must be our favorite time of year...time for my annual player profiles!  Over the next couple of weeks, I'll tackle each of my Top 30 plus a few others of interest.  After each player's name, I'll list in order where I had her ranked at the end of 2008, my preseason ranking, and the highest position she was ranked during the season.

1.  Lorena Ochoa  (1-1-1)

Ochoa's fourth consecutive HD Player of the Year title was her most hotly contested.  Ranked #5 in mid-September, she racked up six Top 6 finishes (including a win at Navistar and two runners-up) in her final seven events to overtake the lead pack.  Since 2005, Lorena had never failed to average less than 70 strokes per round, nor failed to finish in the Top 10 60% of the time, nor won fewer than six times.  Coming up short in all of those categories (but especially "only" winning three times) made her vulnerable to losing the award.  Ochoa beat out Jiyai Shin primarily because she extended her Made-Cut streak to 97 while Shin missed the cut at SBS, the season opener.

So what brought LaReina back within reach?  She was #1 in Total Driving in 2009, marking her third straight year leading that category.  She was fourth in Total Putting - up from 12^th after being fifth in 2007 and fourth in 2006.  She slightly improved her GIR rate from .716 last year to .722 but she lost ground relative to the competition.  While she was ranked first in GIR last year (and not by a narrow margin), she fell to T7 in 2009.  Still, such outstanding combined rankings in the Big Three Stats (which nobody surpassed, but a handful of others approached) should be indicative of the game's premier player.  I'll chalk up the close POY race to a small relative drop in Ochoa's iron play but mostly to her competitors raising their own levels of performance.

2.  Jiyai Shin  (3-2-1)

Going into the final weekend of the season, Jiyai had a chance to sweep the four major LPGA awards and went down to the final hole with a chance at the biggest prize.  Shin did walk away with the money title and the Rookie of the Year award, a double not accomplished since Karrie Webb did it 13 years ago.  Speaking of Karrie...at age 21 with only one full LPGA season behind her, Jiyai has already collected seven Hall of Fame points - more than a quarter of the number needed for automatic induction.  Webb's record of qualifying for the Hall at age 25 years seven months might be in danger.

3.  Ai Miyazato  (49-NR-3)

I figured at some point Miyazato was going to return to (at least) her 2006 form but I don't think anybody could have logically predicted this.  She wasn't playing well late in '08 after coming back from a leg injury in ‘07, so I didn't even list her as Honorable Mention in my preseason Top 30 list.  I shouldn't feel too bad...even "Ai Guy" The Constructivist only predicted a 16^th place 2009 for her.

Being one of only three players to rank in the Top 15 of all Big Three Stats underlines how great a season she had.  Ai improved from 97^th to 13^th in GIR, 45^th to fifth in Total Putting, and 116^th to 11^th in Total Driving.  It's hard to imagine anybody having a better across-the-board improvement from one season to the next than that.  Whether Miyazato can maintain that level of play over multiple seasons is the next big question.

4.  Cristie Kerr  (6-7-2)

I get the feeling that 2009 was the year that Cristie Kerr should have won either Rolex Player of the Year or the money title, which would have snapped streaks of 14 and 15 years respectively that an American player had not won either title.  With Annika Sorenstam gone and Lorena Ochoa down a half-notch, the time seemed ripe.  In early September Kerr led the way in both races but Shin's win at Arkansas knocked Cristie off both mountain tops and by the time they got to Houston, Ochoa too had passed her in POY points.  Only two Top 10s over her last six events snuffed out Kerr's title hopes.

Kerr has finished in my Top 10 for six straight years (tying her with Ochoa for the longest current streak) and has won at least one event for six straight years.  It's easy to forget that Cristie played seven full seasons prior to 2004 with only one victory (in 2002) and no Top 10 money list finishes.  She never finished higher than 14^th in my seasonal rankings during that time.  Just goes to show that not all great players come out smokin' in their first couple of seasons - although most of them do.

5.  Na Yeon Choi  (10-15-5)

NYC caught the late train home to the HD Top 5.  In mid-September she was ranked #13, about where she'd been camped out for most of her first year-and-three-quarters in the LPGA.  Then she won twice in three events - Samsung and Korea - to vault herself into the POY race.  Only one Top 10 in the final three events prevented Choi from winning it all, but it was a great finish.

Na Yeon's improvement from her rookie season isn't obvious from her stats.  Her putting improved slightly (up from 39 to 31) but she actually dropped slightly in driving (12 to 20) and GIR (6 to 14).  Considering how steady her game is week-to-week (no missed cuts through 53 career starts and no finishes worse than T53), the difference in her results for 2008 and 2009 is probably the difference between poor golfing luck and good.

Using the results from the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament, I updated my estimation of the 2010 Priority list.

2010 updated Priority list  

Only one player who already had status for 2010 managed to improve herself by going to Q-School.  Julieta Granada's fourth-place finish boosted her 40 positions, from about #144 to #104.  Three other players who finished in the Top 40 had already secured Category 15 status and their finishes did not improve on that.  They were Sarah Jane Smith (won position #166 but was already #143), Diana D'Alessio (won #169, already #157) and Meredith Duncan (won #185, already #153).  Congratulations to everybody who earned status this week.

Now for some discouraging news.  The players who secured Category 16 status last year (finished 21-30 at Q-School) averaged only nine starts during 2009 and that number is inflated by Anna Nordqvist, Haeji Kang and Allison Hanna-Williams, who all improved their priority by playing well early in the season.  The Cat-20 players who finished 31-40 averaged less than two starts apiece (Pornanong Phatlum leading the way with five).  Since the 2010 schedule contains fewer events (and more importantly, fewer full-field events), these players will struggle even more to make the Big Show.

Amanda Blumenherst finished at -9, two shots ahead of Marianne Skarpnord and Katie Kempter, to earn medal honors at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament.  All three players will be LPGA rookies in 2010, having earned their first Tour cards.  2006 ADT Championship winner Julieta Granada finished in fourth place to retain her card.

You can see the final results here but here are some of the highlights.  Christi Cano and Il Hee Lee tied for 20^th place and went to playoff holes for the final Category 11 spot.  Lee birdied the third playoff hole to earn that position.  There was also a tie for 30^th place between Gerina Mendoza and Libby Smith.  Mendoza won that tiebreaker as she scored one stroke better than Smith during the final round.  There were no ties to be broken for 40^th place as only three players tied for 38^th.  Among the other players finishing in the Top 20 and earning Category 11 status for 2010 are veteran Nicole Jeray, LET and former European Solheim Cup members Iben Tinning, Gwladys Nocera and Tania Elosegui.  Amateur Cathryn Bristow and LPGA vets Jamie Hullett and Diana D'Alessio are among the group earning Category 16 status by finishing 21-30.  Meredith Duncan, Pornanong Phatlum, Kim Welch and Mallory Blackwelder grabbed the bottom rungs of the Priority ladder (31-40) and will be in Category 20 next year.  Nocera moved into the Top 20 on the final day with a 69 while Jessica Shepley posted 69 to climb into the Top 40.

Nikki Garrett was tied for the lead at -6 after two rounds but couldn't hold on.  A third-round 78 dropped her to T7 and her fourth-round 71 left her at T15 but she collapsed to a 79 today and missed the Top 40 by two shots.  Izzy Beisiegel, Sung Ah Yim, Lehua Wise and Dewi Claire Schreefel all started the last day in, but shot their way out.  Also missing out completely were Lisa Strom, Charlotte Mayorkas, Virada Nirapathpongporn and Tiffany Joh.  Janell Howland, Malinda Johnson, Brandi Jackson, Sophia Sheridan and Dorothy Delasin missed the cut after Round Four.

I'll have my updated Priority list posted sometime tomorrow.