My rating system now has 458 players rated. The top 100 are listed below. Currently there are 51 players that have 9 wins or more. Six of those players are not ranked in the top 50, but all are in top 100. Most of those players were from the 1950's and early 1960's when there were less players and it was easier to win due to a lot less competition. Currently there are 100 players who have 4 wins or more. There are 13 players with 4 or more wins that are not rated in the top 100. Alice Miller won 8 times with 1 major and is rated #138, because she had 3 years where she played very well and won 7 times, but otherwise her record is very poor. Jiyai Shin also has 8 wins with 1 major and is not currently rated. Jiyai Shin has 5 wins as an LPGA player but only played in 61 tournaments as an LPGA member and should be rated by the end of 2013. Yani Tseng has 12 wins with 5 majors, but only has 94 tournaments as an LPGA member. However Tseng is rated at #45 even with the penalty for not enough tournaments. My equations calculate a rating with less than 100 tournaments, but normally players do not rate very high until they have enough tournaments. Jiyai Shin's rating would not put her in the Top 100. Na Yeon Choi has 5 wins with 97 tournaments played so I included her rating in the list and she is #71. Tseng and NYC will both go over the 100 tournament threshold when they play 10 tournaments this year. Laura Baugh is the highest rated player without a win at #98. Laura Baugh was second 10 times and she had seven (7) children while she was competing on the LPGA.

1) Annika Sorenstam - 2) Mickey Wright - 3) Kathy Whitworth - 4) Nancy Lopez - 5) Pat Bradley - 6) Karrie Webb - 7) Sandra Haynie - 8) JoAnne Carner - 9) Patty Sheehan - 10) Lorena Ochoa

11) Louise Suggs - 12) Beth Daniel - 13) Betsy King - 14) Betsy Rawls - 15) Julie Inkster - 16) Carol Mann - 17) Patty Berg - 18) Amy Alcott - 19) Judy Rankin - 20) Donna Caponi

21) Jane Blalock - 22) Meg Mallon - 23) Dottie Pepper - 24) Se Ri Pak - 25) Sandra Palmer - 26) Ayako Okamoto - 27) Marilynn Smith - 28) Laura Davies - 29) Jan Stephenson - 30) Rosie Jones

31) Paula Creamer - 32) Marlene Hagge - 33) Cristie Kerr - 34) Hollis Stacy - 35) Babe Zaharias - 36) Shirley Englehorn - 37) Beverly Hanson - 38) Suzann Pettersen - 39) Jane Geddes - 40) Sally Little

41) Clifford Ann Creed - 42) Mi Hyun Kim - 43) Liselotte Neumann - 44) Kelly Robbins - 45) Yani Tseng - 46) Tammy Green - 47) Jo Ann Prentice - 48) Mary B Mills - 49) Betty Jameson - 50) Brandie Burton

51) Sherri Steinhauer - 52) Sandra Post - 53) Christa Johnson - 54) Hee-Won Han - 55) Pat Hurst - 56) Colleen Walker - 57) Catriona Matthew - 58) Lorie Kane - 59) Helen Alfredsson - 60) Susie Maxwell Berning

61) Fay Crocker - 62) Ruth Jessen - 63) Rachel Hetherington - 64) Sandra Spuzich - 65) Mary Lena Faulk - 66) Morgan Pressel - 67) Ai Miyazato - 68) Jeong Jang - 69) Donna Andrews - 70) Judy Dickenson

71) Na Yeon Choi - 72) Grace Park - 73) Kathy Cornelius - 74) Michele Redman - 75) Danielle Ammaccapane - 76) Angela Stanford - 77) Seon Hwa Lee - 78) Dawn Coe-Jones - 79) Debbie Austin - 80) Candie Kung

81) Deb Richard - 82) Sophie Gustafson - 83) Debbie Massey - 84) Kathy Postlewait - 85) Michelle McGann - 86) Val Skinner - 87) Barb Mucha - 88) Murle Breer - 89) Brittany Lincicome - 90) Maria Hjorth

91) Emilee Klein - 92) Donna White -93) Margaret Smith - 94) Wendy Ward - 95) In-Kyung Kim - 96) Laura Diaz - 97) Hiromi Kobayashi - 98) Laura Baugh - 99) Stacy Prammanasudh - 100) Christina Kim

102) Patty Rizzo / 4 wins - 109) Cindy Rarick / 5 wins - 115) Jackie Pung / 5 wins - 116) Joyce Ziske / 5 wins - 130) Alison Nicholas / 4 wins - 138) Alice Miller / 8 wins - 147) Dorothy Delasin / 4 wins - 166) Carol Jo Callison Whitted / 4 wins - 169) Penny Hammel - 171) Betty Burfeindt / 4 wins - 205) Mary Beth Zimmerman / 4 wins - 291) Sue Roberts / 4 wins

362) Hilary Lunke / lowest rated player with a major win - 343) Birdie Kim / second lowest rating for a player with a major win - 445) Mary Bea Porter-King / lowest rated player with a win

Active players in Top 50 - 6) Karrie Webb / stayed at #6, good shot at moving to #5 if she continues to perform - 15) Julie Inkster / stayed at #15 and unlikely to move / just had surgery - 24) Se Ri Pak / dropped one spot from #23 / this year should establish minimum career rating with 10 tournaments as this will be 15 years / lower rating than expected based on wins due to injuries and burnout - 28) Laura Davies / moved up one spot from #29 due to correction in calculation - 31) Paula Creamer / moved up from #35 / moved into top 10 on career money list - 33) Cristie Kerr / stayed at #33 and set a minimum career rating / will probably move up this year - 38) Suzann Pettersen / moved up from #41 - 42) Mi Hyun Kim / dropped from #39 / could fall further unless she returns to previous form - 45) Yani Tseng was not rated - 54) Hee-Won Han dropped out of the top 50 / she was #50

New to Top 100 - 45) Yani Tseng / not rated - 71) Na Yeon Choi / not rated - 89) Brittany Lincicome / moved up from #132 - 95) In-Kyung Kim / not rated - 98) - Laura Baugh / moved up from 102

Dropped out of Top 100 - 102) Patti Rizzo / dropped from #98 - 103) Tina Barrett / dropped from #99 - 104) Jee Young Lee / dropped from #95 - 105) Natalie Gulbis / dropped from #96 - 108) Janice Moodie / dropped from 100

Morgan Pressel is #66 with 2 wins one a major and Ai Miyazato is #67 with 7 wins. Both players were rookies in 2006. Pressel has played on average 2 more tournaments per year for the last six years and rates higher than Ai Miyazato mostly because of lower penalties for too few tournaments. Both players should pass the 150 tournament mark on the LPGA this year. At that time Miyazato will pass Pressel as she has played at a higher level. With a good year and a victory Ai Miyazato has a good shot at moving into my Top 50 by the end of the year.

The following list is my top 100 LPGA players of 2011 based on their play in LPGA sponsored and co-sponsored events. So Yeon Ryu and Alexis Thompson were not members of the LPGA in 2011 but with their victories on the LPGA won the right to become members and therefore are included. Chie Arimura would have been at #63 and Miki Saiki would have been at #68 based on their performance but are not LPGA members. My data shows 319 professional players played at least one tournament during the year.

1) Yani Tseng - 2) Suzann Pettersen - 3) Stacy Lewis - 4) Na-Yeon Choi - 5) Brittany Lincicome - 6) Karrie Webb - 7) Cristie Kerr - 8) Paula Creamer - 9) Catriona Matthew - 10) Maria Hjorth

11) Angela Stanford - 12) Ji-Yai Shin -13) Ai Miyazato - 14) In-Kyung Kim - 15) Amy Yang - 16) Sandra Gal -17) Hee Young Park - 18) Morgan Pressel - 19) Anna Nordqvist - 20) Mika Miyazato

21) Brittany Lang - 22) Michelle Wie - 23) So Yeon Ryu - 24) Shanshan Feng - 25) Azahara Munoz - 26) Momoko Ueda - 27) Hee Kyung Seo - 28) Inbee Park - 29) Meena Lee - 30) Sun Young Yoo

31) Karen Stupples - 32) Se Ri Pak - 33) Sophia Gustafson - 34) Chelle Choi - 35) Song-Hee Kim - 36) Jimin Kang - 37) Christel Boeljon -38) Tiffany Joh - 39) Katie Futcher - 40) Candie Kung

41) Mindy Kim - 42) Juli Inkster - 43) Beatriz Recari - 44) Alexis Thompson - 45) Pornanong Phatlum - 46) Eun- Hee Ji - 47) Jennifer Johnson - 48) Mi Hyun Kim - 49) Natalie Gulbis - 50) Mina Harigae

51) Kristy McPherson - 52) Amy Hung - 53) Wendy Ward - 54) Vicky Hurst - 55) Paige Mackenzie - 56) Lorie Kane - 57) Caroline Hedwall - 58) Jenny Shin - 59) Stacy Prammansudh - 60) Ryann O'Toole

61) Hee-Won Han - 62) Amanda Blumenherst - 63) Katherine Hull - 64) Christina Kim - 65) Dewi Claire Schreefel - 66) Karine Icher - 67) Pat Hurst - 68) Gerina Piller - 69) Lindsey Wright - 70) Cindy LaCrosse

71) Jennifer Song - 72) Marcy Hart - 73) Jin Young Pak - 74) Haeji Kang - 75) Leta Lindley - 76) Kyeong Bae - 77) Kris Tamulis - 78) Becky Morgan - 79) Heather Bowie Young - 80) Seon Hwa Lee

81) Belen Mozo - 82) Amelia Lewis - 83) Stephanie Lewis - 84) Julieta Granada - 85) Karin Sjodin - 86) Harukyo Nomura - 87) M J Hur - 88) Jessica Shepley - 89) Grace Park - 90) Silvia Cavalleri

91) Ashli Bunch - 92) Taylor Leon - 93) Aree Song - 94) Reilley Rankin - 95) Sarah Jane Smith - 96) Moira Dunn - 97) Alison Walshe - 98) Jessica Korda - 99) Anna Grzebien -100) Meaghan Francella

NOTE:  This is Tatkins' Top 100.  The HD Top 70 will be posted within the next couple of days.

As of the end of the Women's British Open my rating system has 260 professional players rated. Amateurs are not rated. There are 67 players that have played at least 10 tournaments and 76 that have played from 5 to 9 tournaments. The other 117 have played between 1 and 4 tournaments. Players get full ratings for victories and money won. All other factors gain 10% for each tournament played and 10 or more tournaments results in full ratings points.

1) Yani Tseng - 2) Karrie Webb - 3) Suzann Pettersen - 4) Stacy Lewis - 5) Cristie Kerr - 6) In-Kyung Kim - 7) Brittany Lincicome - 8) Maria Hjorth - 9) Angela Stanford - 10) Paula Creamer

11) Ji-Yai Shin - 12) Morgan Pressel - 13) Na-Yeon Choi - 14) Amy Yang - 15) Sandra Gal - 16) Ai Miyazato - 17) Mika Miyazato - 18) Catriona Matthew - 19) Sun Young Yoo - 20) So Yeon Ryu

21) Mindy Kim - 22) Inbee Park - 23) Michelle Wie - 24) Hee Young Seo - 25) Anna Nordqvist - 26) Se Ri Pak - 27) Shanshan Feng - 28) Brittany Lang - 29) Sophie Gustafson - 30) Karen Stupples

31) Meena Lee - 32) Candie Kung - 33) Song-Hee Kim - 34) Katie Futcher - 35) Azahara Munoz - 36) Chella Choi - 37) Hee Young Park - 38) Eun-Hee Ji - 39) Pornanong Phatlum - 40) Natalie Gulbis

41) Julie Inkster - 42) Jimin Kang - 43) Katherine Hull - 44) Paige Mackenzie - 45) Beatrice Recari - 46) Stacy Prammansudh - 47) Wendy Ward - 48) Momoko Ueda - 49) Marcy Hart - 50) Kristy McPherson

51) Vicky Hurst - 52) Amy Hung - 53) Karine Icher - 54) Lorie Kane - 55) Cindy LaCrosse - 56) Mi Hyun Kim - 57) Ryann O'Toole - 58) Mina Harigae - 59) Jennifer Johnson - 60) Chie Arimura

61) M.J. Hur - 62) Leta Lindley - 63) Lindsey Wright - 64) Haeji Kang - 65) Miki Saiki - 66) Pat Hurst - 67) Heather Bowie Young - 68) Christina Kim - 69) Amanda Blumenherst - 70) Kyeong Bae

71) Jin Young Pak - 72) Julieta Granada - 73) Seon Hwa Lee - 74) Tiffany Joh - 75) Meaghan Francella - 76) Christel Boeljon - 77) Sarah Jane Smith - 78) Gerina Piller - 79) Melissa Reid - 80) Jennifer Song

81) Michele Redman - 82) Caroline Hedwall - 83) Becky Morgan - 84) Aree Song - 85) Shin-Ae Ahn - 86) Ran Hong - 87) Caroline Masson - 88) Harukyo Nomura - 89) Silvia Cavalleri - 90) Dewi Claire Schreefel

91) Kris Tamulis - 92) Jane Park - 93) Lee-Anne Pace - 94) Virginie Lagoutte-Clement - 95) Jessica Korda - 96) Jenny Suh - 97) Gwladys Nocera - 98) Karin Sjodin - 99) Ayako Uehara - 100) Dana Ford Bordner

An additional 14 players have reached the 10 tournament minimum for my rating system. Five of those players (Sandra Gal, Chella Choi, Eun-Hee Ji, Gwladys Nocera, and Mariajo Uribe) do not have the minimum 100 tournaments to be rated. In-Kyung Kim has gone over the 100 tournament mark and and shows to be rated in the Top 100 at #93. Jee Young Lee has not played well this year and has now dropped out of the Top 100 and will have to play much better the rest of the year to get back in the Top 100. Brittany Lincicome is now in the #100 spot but already had the minimum 10 tournaments.

Suzann Pettersen reached the 10 tournament minimum and has gone over the 150 tournament mark so her rating no longer has the built-in penalty for too few tournaments. Pettersen has moved from #41 into the #38 spot. Pat Hurst and Catriona Matthew now have 17 rated years. Pat Hurst is #53 and Matthew has moved from #68 up to #58. Lindsay Wright now has 7 years and is not in the Top100. Katie Futcher now has 6 years but is not in the Top 100. Meena Lee now has 7 years and is at the #106 spot in the list. If she continues to play well she could move into the Top 100 by the end of the Year, but I would not bet on it.

Ai Miyazato won in her tenth tournament of the year and has moved from #81 to #73 in the Top 100. Morgan Pressel is ranked at #72, just ahead of Miyazato. Ai Miyazato has won 7 times without a major and Pressel has won 2 times with 1 major. There are two reasons why Pressel is currently ranked above Ai Miyazato. The biggest reason is that Pressel has played 133 tournament and Ai has played just 122 tournaments. The penalty for too few tournaments is greater for Ai than for Pressel. The second reason has to do with consistancy of play. Pressel has made 89.5 percent of the cuts in her tournaments and Ai has only made 84.4 percent of the cuts in her tournaments. If Ai had made the cut in 2 more tournaments she would currently rate above Pressel. With my cloudy crystal ball I don't do predictions. However, if I extrapolate the data to when both players reach the 150 tournaments played mark late next year, Ai Miyazato will be in the Top 50 and Morgan Pressel will not be. Bottom line is that Ai Miyazato is playing at a higher level than Morgan Pressel, but has not played as often.  

An additional 13 players reached the 10 tournament mark for the year at the U.S. Women's Open. 8 of those players have not yet reached the 100 tournament threshold to be rated - Na-Yeon Choi, Haeji Kang, Mika Miyazato, Anna Nordqvist, Hee Young Park, Hee Kyung Seo, Michelle Wie, and Ji-Yai Shin. Ji-Yai Shin presents the horns of a dilemma. Based on my data, Shin is the only non-member to ever play in 10 tournaments in a year. If I rate her only as an LPGA member then I have to ignore a year that she won 3 times with a major. But my rating system up till now has always considered only play as an LPGA member. Currently I am running the calculations with and without the 2008 year. Either way, if Shin continues to perform as she has, she will make the Top 50 LPGA Players List.

Alena Sharp has reached the 10 tournament mark and is over the 100 tournament threshold but is not in the Top 100. Candie Kung has now reached the 10 year mark and is #75 in the Top 100. Sophie Gustafson is up to 13 years and is rated #81. Maria Hjorth is now up to 14 years and is rated #91. Hjorth at the end of last year before the final tournament was outside the Top 100. When Hjorth won the last tournament of the year she made the Top 100 at #97. It will be interesting to see how high she goes by the end of this year as she won earlier this year.

Se Ri Pak is the other player that reached the 10 tournament mark. There have been a lot of stories about Yani Tseng and her 4 majors and 8 victories in this her 4th year. Se Ri Pak had 4 majors and 18 victories in her first five years. So Yani Tseng has a year and a half to get 10 more victories to get the same hot start that Se Ri Pak had. Se Ri is currently rated at #24. After 7 years Se Ri Pak would have been rated #19 and projected to be in the Top 5 players if she continued her yearly average rating. Then she was injured and had a mental burnout. That is why my crystal ball is always cloudy (injury, illness, surgery, mental burnout are always possible hurdles for a players career).

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.

Since Hound Dog has put up his Top 70 players with a combination of last years plus this years ratings and Tony Jesselli at "Mostly Harmless" has posted his Top 61 ranking for this years tournaments, I will  post my Top 100 based only on this years tournaments. My ranking is based on my full rating system with a small modification. I give full value to wins and money, but only partial value for the other factors in my system. For partial years the other factors gain 10% for each tournament played until a players has played 10 tournaments. The full points are awarded after 10 tournaments. The current number is 162 players rated and includes professionals from other tours that have played in LPGA events. The amateurs are not rated.

1) Karrie Webb - 2) Yani Tseng - 3) Stacy Lewis - 4) Sandra Gal - 5) In-Kyung Kim - 6) Morgan Pressel - 7) Paula Creamer - 8) Michelle Wie - 9) Cristi Kerr - 10) Angela Stanford

11) Ji-Yai Shin - 12) Sun Young Yoo - 13) Brittany Lincicome - 14) Julie Inkster - 15) Amy Yang - 16) Na Yeon Choi - 17) Suzann Pettersen - 18) Mika Miyazato - 19) Chie Arimura - 20) Anna Nordqvist

21) Katie Futcher - 22) Maria Hjorth - 23) Stacy Prammanasudh - 24) Shanshan Feng - 25) Song-Hee Kim - 26) Mindy Kim - 27) Jimin Kang - 28) Sophie Gustafson - 29) Catriona Matthew - 30) Kyeong Bae

31) M.J. Hur - 32) Ai Miyazato - 33) Pornanong Phatlum - 34) Seon Hwa Lee - 35) Inbee Park - 36) Momoko Ueda  - 37) Beatriz Recari - 38) Karine Icher - 39) Candie Kung - 40) Kristy McPherson

41) Vicki Hurst - 42) Meaghan Francella - 43) Natalie Gulbis - 44) Sarah Jane Smith - 45) Amy Hung - 46) Amanda Blumenherst - 47) Se Ri Pak - 48) Katherine Hull - 49) Hee Young Park - 50) Wendy Ward

51) Azahara Munoz - 52) Paige Mackenzie - 53) Christina Kim - 54) Leta Lindley - 55) Jane Park - 56) Brittany Lang - 57) Becky Morgan - 58) Hee Kyung Seo - 59) Eun-Hee Ji - 60) Marcy Hart

61) Pat Hurst - 62) Lee-Anne Pace - 63) Lindsey Wright - 64) Stephanie Louden - 65) Karen Stupples - 66) Alena Sharp - 67) Dana Ford Bordner - 68) Aree Song - 69) Lorie Kane - 70) Christel Boeljon

71) Chella Choi - 72) Mina Harigae  - 73) Sarah Lee - 74) Pernilla Lindberg - 75) Reilley Rankin - 76) Nicole Castrale - 77) Stephanie Sherlock - 78) Jean Reynolds - 79) Jennifer Song - 80) Mi Hyun Kim

81) Laura Davies - 82) Amelia Lewis - 83) Jenny Suh - 84) Heather Bowie Young - 85) Jennifer Johnson - 86) Julieta Granada  - 87) Melissa Reid - 88) Jessica Shepley - 89) So Yeon Ryu - 90) Nannett Hill

91) Meena Lee - 92) Marijo Uribe - 93) Slvia Cavalleri - 94) Shi Hyun Ahn - 95) Gwladys Nocera - 96) Samantha Richdale - 97) Yukari Baba - 98) Mollie Fankhauser - 99) Jenny Shin -100) Gerina Piller

The Women's U.S. Open has been contested from 1946 through 2010, 65 times to date. The LPGA Championship has been contested from 1955 though 2010, 56 times. The Kraft Nabisco Championship has been contested 38 times as a major tournament from 1983 though 2011. The Women's British Open has been contested 10 times as a major championship from 2001 through 2010. The duMaurier Classic was contested as a major tournament from 1979 through 2000, 22 times and was replaced as a major tournament by the Women's British Open. The Western Open was contested from 1930 through 1967, 38 times. The Titleholders Championship was contested from 1937 through 1942 and then fron 1946 through 1966 and in 1972, a total of 28 times. A total of 248 championships with 3 more later this year. Since the LPGA was founded there have been 214 of the 248 total. After the LPGA was formed in 1950, there were only 2 majors for a period of ten years from 1968 through 1978 except for 1972. For 11 years total there were 3 major championships, 1950 through 1954, 1967, 1972 and 1979 through 1982. Counting this year that leaves 42 years when there were 4 major chamionships from 1955 through 1966 and 1983 through 2011.

Many people seem to think that the majors are the way to determine the all time greatest players. At one time there was a blog that attempted to rank the top 54 players based on their performance in the major tournaments. Betsy King won 6 majors and was not in the list. Needless to say, I was not impressed by that effort. However, as the numbers above show the LPGA has had less than 4 majors for one third of it history. In addition, in previous post I have pointed out the fact that in the early years of the LPGA there were only about 25 professional players playing a full schedule and the number has grown to around 150 players per year playing a full schedule since 1984. The lack of depth of the competition allowed the best early professionals to win a high number of major titles. On average the LPGA has played 30 tournaments per year. At 4 majors per year that is about 13.3% of the tournaments. Trying to rate the best players in a sport by ignoring about 87% of the tournaments played and the depth of the competition is totally without logic or merit. The idea that a player must win the Women's U.S. Open to be considered among the all time greatest is even more illogical and has less merit (1 tournament out of 30 - 3.33%).  The LPGA awards 2 points toward the LPGA Hall Of Fame for winning a major tournament versus 1 point for a regular tournament win. So winning a major tournament is more important than winning a regular tournament and is treated as such. My rating system awards double value for winning a major. The Women's U.S. Open has the most value in my rating system as it pays the most for winning and part of my rating is based on money won versus the average purse size per year.

There were 34 championship determined before 1950 when the LPGA was formed by the 13 Founders. Fourteen women won those 34 championships, 4 (Patty Berg, Louise Suggs, Babe Zaharias, and Betty Jameson)  were LPGA Founders and later won more championship as LPGA members. Additionally, 3 more Founders (Helen Hicks, Opal Hill and Helen Dettweiler) won before the LPGA was formed, but they never won more championships or even a regular LPGA tournament. Beatrice Barrett, Marissa McDougall, Jane Weiller, and Mrs Lee Mida all won the Western Open as amateurs. LPGA Founder Helen Dettweiler also won the Western Open as an amateur. Peggy Kirk Bell (as Peggy Kirk)  won the Titleholders Championship as an amateur and was later a part time player on the LPGA. Dorothy Kirby won the Titleholder Championship twice as an amateur. June Beebe won the Western Open twice as an amateur. Founder Opal Hill twice won the Western Open as an amateur but never won as an LPGA player. Founder Helen Hicks won the Titleholders Championship and the Western Open but also never won as an LPGA player. LPGA Founder Betty Jameson won the Western Open as an amateur and later as an LPGA player and also won the Women's U.S. Open as a professional before the LPGA was formed. Babe Zaharias Won 3 Western Opens and 1 Titleholders Championship as an amateur and the Women's U.S. Open as a professional before the LPGA was started. Zaharias then won 2 Women's U.S. Opens, 2 Titleholders Championships and 1 Western Open as an LPGA member (10 total major tournament wins). Louise Suggs won 2 Western Open and 1 Titleholders Championship as an amateur and 1 Western Open and 1 Women's U.S. Open as a professional before the start of the LPGA. Suggs then won 1 Women's U.S. Open, 1 LPGA Championship, 1 Western Open and 3 Titleholders Championships as an LPGA member (11 total major tournament wins). Patty Berg won 3 Titleholders Championships as an amateur and 1 Titleholder Championship, 3 Western Opens, and 1 Women's U.S. Open as a professional before the LPGA was formed. Perg then won 3 Titleholders Championships and 4 Western Opens as an LPGA member (15 total major tournament wins).

Since the founding of the LPGA, 2 amateurs have won major championships. In 1951 Pat O'Sullivan won the Titleholders Championship and in 1967 Catherine LaCoste won the Women's U.S. Open.

LPGA Founder Patty Berg has the most major championship at 15, but I would say that the 13 won by Mickey Wright in a time when the depth of competition was increasing is a better record, and that the 10 won by Annika Sorenstam with the most competition is just a little better. Louise Suggs won 11 and Babe Zaharias won 10, both were LPGA Founders. No other players have 10 or more wins in the majors.

After the LPGA was founded, to date there have been 214 tournaments won by 91 players, 2.35 wins per winning player. Of the players who have won a major, they have an average of 6.46 wins per major win. Currently there have been 10 players (11% of major winners) whose only win was a major. Hilary Lunke is rated at 353 of 449 players rated by my system. The lowest rating by a winner of a major tournament. Of the money Lunke has won, over 63% was won by winning the 2003 Women's U.S.Open. Birde Kim is the second lowest rated major winner at 334 of 449, and won about 47% of her total money by winning the 2005 Women's U.S.Open. Just as not winning a particular major tournament does not disqualify a player from being among the greatest of all time, winning a major including the most important major does not make the winner a good professional player.

Continue reading this post »

Since the LPGA had no tournaments scheduled for three weeks this is a good time for other LPGA related things. Hound Dog has a link on the home page to "2009 Rookie Class - The Greatest?" So this post is a look at how those rookie classes rank over a full career. It must be noted that the ranking for the 1995 to 2009 classes are very much in play and some will be changing throughout this year. For this comparison I decided to look at the number of tournament wins as the ranking measurement. The tie breaker is the number of majors won. The second tie breaker is the number of players that actually won at least one tournament. So highest to lowest total wins, then highest to lowest major tournament wins, and then highest to lowest tournament winners. Hound Dog started with 1962 through 2009 and this ranking looks at the same years. HOF indicated the named player is in the LPGA and World Golf Halls Of Fame. WHOF indicates only the World Golf Hall Of Fame. HDRR# is the Hound Dog Rookie Class Ranking and based only on rookie year and shows the Top 20 rookie classes. As a way to indicate the currently active rookie classes and their possibilities for upward movement the number of players with Priority 1 playing privileges and number of players with Priorities 1 thru 18 and 20 are shown. Retired players are not included and there are several with playing privileges.

Rank #1 - At the top of the mountain is the 1978 rookie class - 99 wins with 12 majors and 14 players that won -Nancy Lopez HOF has 48 wins with 3 majors - Betsy King HOF has 34 wins with 6 majors - HDRR#4.

Rank #2 - 1994 rookie class - 75 wins with 10 majors and 4 players with wins - Annika Sorenstam HOF has 75 wins with 10 majors - HDRR# not in top 20 - Priority 1 = 0 and Priority 1 thru 20 = 1.

Rank #3 - 1984 rookie class - 64 wins with 11 majors and 14 players with wins - Juli Inkster HOF has 31 wins with 7 majors and Priority 1 status - Jane Geddes has 11 wins and 2 majors - HDRR# 6.

Rank #4 - 1988 rookie class - 64 wins with 7 majors and 11 players with wins - Laura Davies has 20 wins with 4 majors and Priority 1 status - Dottie Pepper has 17 wins with 2 majors - Liselotte Neumann has 13 wins with 1 major - HDRR#5.

Rank #5 - 1981 rookie class - 64 wins with 7 majors and 6 players with wins - Patty Sheehan HOF has 35 wins with 6 majors - Ayako Okamoto WHOF has 17 wins with 0 majors - Christa Johnson has 9 wins with 1 major - HDRR#12.

Rank #6 - 1975 rookie class - 55 wins with 9 majors and 8 players with wins - Amy Alcott HOF has 29 wins with 5 majors - Hollis Stacy has 18 wins with 4 majors -  HDRR#18.

Rank #7 - 1996 rookie class - 49 wins with 7 majors and 5 players with wins - Karrie Webb HOF has 37 wins with 7 majors and Priority 1 status - HDRR#13 - Priority 1 = 2 and Priority 1 thru 20 = 4.

Rank #8 - 1979 rookie class - 49 wins with 2 majors and 8 players with wins - Beth Daniel HOF has 31 wins with 1 major - Alice Miller has 8 wins with 1 major - HDRR#19.

Rank #9 - 1974 rookie class - 48 wins with 9 majors and 3 players with wins - Pat Bradley HOF has 31 wins with 6 majors - Jan Stephenson has 16 wins with 3 majors - HDRR# not in top 20.

Rank #10 - 1970 rookie class - 47 wins with 2 majors and 2 players with wins - JoAnne Carner HOF has 43 wins with 2 majors - HDRR# not in top 20.

Rank #11 - 2003 rookie class - 41 wins with 3 majors and 7 players with wins - Lorena Ochoa Hall Of Fame points but not 10 years has 27 wins with 2 majors - Susann Petersen has 6 wins with 1 major - HDRR#14 - Priority 1 = 6 and Priority 1 thru 20 = 7.

Rank #12 - 1998 rookie class - 39 wins with 5 majors and 6 players with wins - Se Ri Pak HOF has 25 wins with 5 majors - HDRR#10 - Priority 1 = 3 and Priority 1 thru 20 = 4.

Rank #13 - 1969 rookie class - 39 wins with 1 major and 5 players with wins - Jane Blalock has 27 wins with 0 majors - HDRR# not in top 20.

Rank #14 - 1962 rookie class - 35 wins with 3 majors and 2 players with wins - Judy Rankin HOF has 26 wins with 0 majors - Mary Mills has 9 wins with 3 majors - HDRR# not in top 20.

Rank #15 - 1964 rookie class - 30 wins with 6 majors and 2 players with wins - Sandra Palmer has 19 wins with 2 majors - Susie Maxwell Berning has 11 wins with 4 majors - HDRR# not in top 20. 

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I do not do predictions, but I enjoy reading the predictions of those who like to make them. This post has historical data to help those who do make predictions. I have distilled my database to show trends for players that start their careers in each decade and some 10 year victory  trends. The table shows the number of LPGA players in each decade, the number who won tournaments, the number who won Major Tournaments, the number that played at least 10 tournaments for at least 10 years, and the number that played at least 100 tournaments in years they played at least 10 tournaments (Players Rated). Also I calculated the percentage of players that fit each catagory. I also calculated the number of tournaments won and the number of Major Tournaments by each decades players and calculated the average number of tournaments and Major Tournaments per player that actually won a tournament. Totals do not include 2010 decade numbers. I excluded official victories that were won by players before the LPGA started in 1950. Non-member wins and amateur wins are not included unless the players were members at some point in their career.

For those who wish to predict the winners of the four Major Tournaments, my advice is to pedict mostly repeat winners of Major Tournaments. The average number of Major Winners in each decade is 15, with the most being 17. There are already 15 players from the 2000-2009 decade that are major winners.The fifteen players average 1.2 majors per player and that is half the overall average of 2.4.

For rookie of the year, there is no real clear cut way to predict who will win. There are three basic themes, 1) a player who had an excellent amateur career, 2) a player who was a winner on another tour and won on the LPGA as a non-member, or 3) the best player from another tour - the Futures Tour or a foreign tour. From what I know about the rookies for this year, those themes narrow the field to very few players. For 5 of the last 6 years a rookie has won a tournament. The most rookies to win in any year for the last 6 years was 4 in 2009.  A total of 11 rookies have won in the last 6 years, almost 2 per year. So will there be a winner or winners among the rookies this year.

Additionally, over the last 6 years and 7 of the last 10 years there has been a non-member winner of a LPGA sponsored  or co-sponsored event. So who might win as a non-member during 2011.  Over the last 10 years there have been 65 first time winners - 6.5 per year. Over the past 5 years there have been 33 first time winners - 6.6 per year. The high was 11 and the low was 3 first time winners. The non-member winners are counted here but not as official first time winners by the LPGA as they only count member first time winners. For the 2000-2009 decade there have been 50 players that have won at least one tournament. If 1 in 4 players that started in the 2000 decade win at least one tournament, an additional 20 players must become first time winners. So who might be a first time winner from the 2000 decade. Over the last 10 years there have been 52 players who have won multiple tournaments, 5.2 per year, that includes 28 different players with multiple wins in a season and those that have repeated multiple win seasons. Over the last 5 years there has been 25 players who have won multiple tournaments, 5 per year and 15 different players. The high is 7 and the low is 3 multiple winners in any one year.

In the past when there was a group of players battling for the number one position from 1980 through 1996 the players winning the most varied from 3 to 5 wins in a year, except for 2 years. In that 17 year period there was only one winner of Player of the Year (POY) two years in a row and there were 10 different winners of the POY. Also, there were 10 different winners of the Vare Trophy during that time period and 11 different winners of the Annual Money List Title (ML). So unless one or more of the current players becomes a dominate player, those year end titles (POY, Vare, ML) could be traded around among a bunch of players. Looking at the top 11 LPGA players based on Rolex Ranking gives the following list.

Song Hee Kim - RR#9 - 0 wins - improved every year - unable to win when in contention - must learn to win to be contender for awards

Inbee Park - RR#12 - 1 win (Major) - inconsistant performance but performed well last year - must win more - not yet a contender for awards unless she makes a big step up

Michelle Wie - RR#10 - 2 wins - most overrated, over hyped by golf media - injuries may be problem - part time student, part time player - not a contender for awards until full time player and more consistant

In Kyung Kim - RR#7 - 3 wins - one win per year last three years - improved every year - possible contender for awards with a step up

Na Yeon Choi - RR#4 - 4 wins - two wins per year last two years - improved every year - should contend for all the awards

Yani Tseng - RR#5 - 5 wins (3 Majors) - 3 win (2 Majors) last year - lots of success in majors - should contend for all the awards

Ai Miyazato - RR#6 - 6 wins - breakout year with 5 wins - history suggest winners of 5 tournaments in one year have trouble winning multiple times the next , does not fit profile of those that do - not a contender this year if history rules, otherwise could be a contender 

Suzann Petersen - RR#3 - 6 wins (Major) - unable to close the deal yields 6 seconds but did have 5 wins in 2007 - injuries & past surgery - has the power game to contend if can win early during year and get over all the seconds

Jiyai Shin - RR#1 - 8 wins (Major) - 3 wins most in one year - slowed by surgery - consistant player - good putter - should contend for all the awards

Paula Creamer - RR#11 - 9 wins (Major) - 4 wins in 2008 before illness, injury, surgery - US Womens Open showed her to be mentally tough - has the game to contend for all the awards if repaired thumb allows enough practice time for keeping game sharp 

Cristie Kerr - RR#2 - 14 wins (2 Majors) - oldest player in mix but not yet too old - never more than 3 wins in any year - good putter - should contend for all the awards

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2010 All-Time Player Ranking

Instead of limiting the calculation to the best 50 or best 100 of all time, the new ratings show all players that have at least 100 qualified tournaments. To qualify for the LPGA Hall Of Fame a player must play at least 10 years. A year for the LPGA in this context is at least 10 tournaments. For 10 tournaments a year and 10 years the minimum number of tournaments that a player could play and be eligible is 100, so the ratings were based on a player having played at least 100 total tournaments in years they played at least 10 tournaments. Since most players will play 100 tournaments in 4 to 6 years and that is a very short career, the equations have factors built in that prevent a player from being overrated if they have a few very good years at the start of their careers and have not played enough years for a full career. The base for the caculation is always the yearly average rating even for those with currently short careers.  A career for these calculations is 15 years as most of the best players play at least 15 years. The idea is to calculate a career rating as the average of a players 15 prime years. Once a player goes over 15 years then the extra years are eliminated from the calculation. The first choice of years to eliminate is years adversely effected by pregnancy - childbirth, injury - surgery, or illness that resulted in a bad statistical year or years. Next the additional years are eliminated from the first years if the player did not start strong and then the years a player plays after their prime. The idea is to keep the years as continuous as possible. Since there were only about 25 players playing a full schedule in the 1950s and that has grown to about 150 players a year since 1984, the number of players are a factor in the coefficients for the equations. The coefficients have been slightly modified from the last calculation. The new calculations I believe give a more accurate and slightly lower value to the players from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This rating system is based on results, how a player gets those results is not considered. This analysis does not care if the player is a good putter or bad, or good or bad iron player, or a long hitter or a short hitter, only the results achieved.

The first statistic used is the number of wins. The Major Tournament wins count twice as much as the other tournament wins. The coefficients are adjusted as a function of the number of players and the length of the career. The second statistic used is the money won. The coefficients are a function of average purse size and the number of places paid as well as the length of the career. The third and fourth statistics are the percentage of Top 3 finishes and Top 10 finishes. The coefficients are adjusted based on the number of players and the number of tournaments played. Equal to or greater than 150 tournaments played makes the tournament factor equal 1.0 for these two calculatons as well as the fifth and sixth statistics. The fifth statistic is the scoring average and the target scoring average is adjusted when the players winning the Vare Trophy for low scoring average break through to a lower plateau. The lower scoring average target has gone lower because of  improved course conditions and equipment (drivers, irons, wedges, putters and balls), leading to lower scoring. To differentiate the worst players this factor is setup to calculate a negative number if the player is more than 5 strokes per round worse than the target stroke average. The sixth statistic is the percentage of cuts made (in the early years when there was no cut it uses the percentage of tournamets with money won). This factor is also set to go negative to diffentiate the worst players. The coefficients are set to have wins and money count for 50% of the total rating. The other 4 factors account for the other 50% in the ratings.

There are almost 450 players rated. The first two columns are the players names, A few players have two numbers after their last name. The numbers are the total wins and Major wins after the LPGA started and not their official wins that are given in other columns. The third column is their career earnings. The fourth column is the year they gained LPGA player status, except for some who became professionals before 1950 and the year is the year they became professionals. Some players that started before 1963 are listed as 63 to indicate starting year unknown. The fifth column has a series of notes about the players. The notes are explained below. The sixth column is the number of official wins and the seventh column is the number of official Major wins. The numbers include professional wins before 1950 and amateur wins in the Majors before the LPGA started. The eighth column is the number of years that the player played at least 10 tournaments. The ninth column show the players that have played in at least 100 tournaments and those that have played 150 or more. No number means they have played at least 10 years. The Tenth column is the career rating for the players.

The following show the number of players rated in the Top 50 and Top 100 that started each decade.

                                     Top 50        Top 100

       1940s                      5                    5

       1950s                      7                  13

       1960s                      8                  12

       1970s                      9                  13

       1980s                    10                  21

       1990s                     7                   21

       2000s                     4                   15

As more players from the 2000 decade and 2010 decade move into the Top 50 and Top 100,  players from the other decades will be moved out.

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As an engineer, I could discern patterns and trends in large amounts of data. I used those trends and patterns to spend money to improve the process control of chemical processes. As a retired engineer and LPGA  fan I look at the available player data to find patterns and trends. The problems is to explain those trends and patterns to non engineering types of LPGA fans in a sports blog without a ten page report, that nobody would read, because it would be too long. The second problem is to include enough information to explain the logic behind the conclusions, which I did not do. Then third, hope people don't read too much into what I write.

What I see are trends and patterns of data that the players that joined the LPGA in the 1990's were, as a whole, not as competitive as I would have expected. The table below looks at the Top 30 players from each year from 1990 through 2009. For each year it gives the number of players that started in each decade that made the Top 30 players list. Looking at the years from 1990 to 1999 it took until 1998 for the 1990 decade players to outnumber the 1980 decade players in the Top 30. The yearly average number of 1980's players in the Top 30 was 17.2  versus 8 for the 1990's players. Looking at the years from 2000 to 2009 it only took until 2005 for the 2000 decade players to outnumber the 1990 decade players in the Top 30. The yearly average number of 1990's players in the Top 30 was 12.9 versus 13.6 for the 2000's players. Looking at the table for number of players from the 1990's decade in the Top 30 for the years from 1990 through 1999 and comparing that to the number of players from the 2000's decade in the Top 30 for the years from 2000 to 2009 also shows the difference in competitiveness. Compare the year of 1999 to 2009, and year 1998 to 2008, etc. Starting with 2003 versus 1993 the 2000 decade players started to significantly exceed the 1990 decade players in taking over the Top 30 List.

This data plus the low number of 1990 decade players with at least 10 wins and their places on my Top 100 LPGA Players Of All Time List, all contribute to my questioning the competitiveness of the 1990 decade players as a whole. I do not question the competitiveness of the 1980 decade players or the 2000 decade players. I said the lack of 10 win players among the 1990 decade players made it easier for the best among them, I did not say it made it easy. Maybe there are 14 players with 10 wins instead of 18 that I would have expected that those players would be competiting against. 14 assuming another player from the 1990 decade wins their 10th and that 9 of the 2000 decade players make the 10 wins mark. There were 9 players from the 1980's decade with at least 10 wins.

I did not and do not propose 10 wins as any type of absolute borderline for a definition of a top player. It is more of the recognition that by the time the 2000 decade players finish their careers, the top 50 in victories and the Top 50 on the LPGA All Time Greatest List will probably take at least 10 wins to be on the two lists. Does anybody believe that none of the current top players  (the top 10 of the Rolex Rankings without 10 wins) will win at least 10 times before their careers are over. I might be wrong, but I believe that most of those players will have at least 10 wins, since most of them are 25 years of age or less and their best days should be ahead of them. I have speculated in the past that a lot of the best players tend to really get their game together around age 25 (for example Sorenstam and Ochoa). Ai Miyazato turned 25 this year and has 4 victories this year and Cristie Kerr started to win consistantly around that age. I believe that the quality depth of the LPGA tour is getting deeper, but that it is not yet to the point that will prevent a bunch of players from the 10 win mark during their careers. I just believe that for some currently unknown reason enough of the 1990 decade players just did not compete at the level (number of wins) that I expected, based on the past player records. The 1990 decade players were squeezed between the 1980 decade players and the 2000 decade players whom I believe to be better as a whole, but maybe not individuallly as I do not expect anybody to overtake Annika Sorenstam as the #1 player.

        YEAR          #     DECADE            YEAR          #     DECADE

         1990          7      1970's                2000           8      1980's

                         23     1980's                                  21     1990's

                          0      1990's                                   1      2000's

          1991         8      1970's                2001           6     1980's                         

                         21     1980's                                  22     1990's

                           1     1990's                                   2       2000's

           1992         7     1970's                2002           5       1980's

                          18    1980's                                 18       1990's

                            5     1990's                                 7        2000's

           1993          6     1970's               2003           4        1980's

                           18    1980's                                13       1990's

                             6    1990's                                13       2000's

            1994          7    1970's               2004           3        1980's

                            16   1980's                                  15       1990's

                              7    1990's                                 12       2000's

            1995          5    1970's                2005           3       1980's

                             18   1980's                                  10      1990's

                              7    1990's                                  17      2000's

            1996          3    1970's                2006            2       1980's 

                             17   1980's                                    9       1990's

                             10   1990's                                   19      2000's

            1997           2   1970's                2007            3       1980's

                             17   1980's                                    8       1990's

                             11   1990's                                   19      2000's

            1998          2    1970's                2008            1       1980's

                             13   1980's                                    7       1990's

                             15   1990's                                  22       2000's

             1999         1    1970's                 2009          0        1980's

                             11   1980's                                   6        1990's

                             18   1990's                                 24       2000's

          Average     4.8  1970's               Average          3.5      1980's

                          17.2 1980's                                 12.9      1990's

                             8    1990's                                 13.6      2000's

 Current data in my database shows 275 different players have won a tournament on the LPGA Tour. Three winners were amateurs (Polly Riley, Pat O'Sullivan, and Catherine LaCoste), and a fourth amateur (JoAnne Carner) won once and then 42 times as a LPGA member. There are 8 professional players that have won LPGA tournaments and not become LPGA members. One of those players, Woo-Soon Ko is the only one to win twice.  There are 4 players that won and became LPGA players who have not yet won since becomming members. There are three players that won LPGA tournaments as non-members and won again after becomming LPGA members. That leaves 264 LPGA members that have won tournaments. The database has about 1000 LPGA members and is not complete due to lack of complete data from the 1950's and early 1960's. There are only about 1 in 4 players who gain an LPGA card that actually win a tournament. So approximately 75% of the players never win during their careers on the LPGA. A non winning player's career can vary from 1 year to more than 20 years.

 Of those players who win, a little over 42% win only once. Almost 14% of the winners win exactly twice. So a little over 56% win two times or less. Almost 75% of the winners win 5 times or less. Almost 82% of the winners win 8 times or less. The top 50 players in wins, which is 18% of the winners, each has at least 9 wins and have won a total of a little over 70.5% of all the tournaments. There are 45 players with at least 10 wins, and 26 players who have won at least 20 times. Of the 26 players that have won at least 20 tournaments, all but three are in the LPGA Hall Of Fame. Jane Blalock won 27 times and has enough points, but is not in the Hall Of Fame because she never won a major tournament or was the player of the year or won the Vare Trophy for the lowest stroke average for the year. Lorena Ochoa has also won 27 times and has enough points for the Hall Of Fame, but does not have 10 years as an active member. Unless the LPGA changes that requirement, Ochoa cannot become a LPGA Hall Of Fame inductee as the rules state that a player must have 10 years as an active member to even be voted in the Hall Of Fame. Laura Davies has 20 wins and needs two more points to have the required 27 points for induction into the LPGA Hall Of Fame. So, only about 2.5% of the LPGA players win enough to get into the LPGA Hall Of Fame.

 As I look at the history of the LPGA and the average number of professional players that played a full schedule each year for each decade and the average number of wins by winning players during the decades as shown in the following table, there are a number of conclusions drawn. In the 1950's at the start of the LPGA there were less than 30 professional players. In the 1960's the number of players had started to increase and the available data shows an average of 45 professional players per year. The average number of professional players in the 1970's had grown to around 80. By the 1980's the tour had grown to include more than 150 players playing a full schedule each year and has remained at 150+ since 1983. As the number of players has increased the average number of wins by the players winning tournaments has decreased. That should be expected as increased competetion from more and better players should result in less wins per winning player. In the 1950's the avaerage wins per winning player was 11.7 wins and decreased to 9.13 in the 1960's and down to 5.14 in the 1970's. With 150+ players playing a full schedule the number of wins per winning player has decreased to 4 wins or less.

 The table also includes data on the top players that became professionals in each decade. The table gives the number of top professionals that started in each decade and the average number of  wins by those top players. For the decades of the 1950's and 1960's a player had to win at least 15 times to be considered a top player. For the 1970's a player had to win at least 12 times. Since the 1980's a top player has to have at least 10 wins. There were 4 players for the 1940's and 5 players for the 1950's, together averaging about 50 wins per year per player. For the 1960's there were 6 players and 9 players for the 1970's averaging just less than 30 wins per player. There were 9 players starting in the 1980's averaging just less than 20 wins per player. That is the kind of decrease one should expect. The 1990's produced only 4 players that have won at least 10 times and they averaged 36.5 wins per player. There was one player with 9 wins, 2 players with 8 wins and one with 7 wins, so it is still possible that additional players could make the threshold. My conclusion is that the 1990's did not produce as many top players as should have been expected. When I calculated the top 50 LPGA players of all time, I found that there were less players from the 1990's than I expected. Winning or in reality a lack of winning is the reason. Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, and Se Ri Pak all deserve to be in the LPGA Hall Of Fame, but a lack of top level competition certainly made it easier for them to win and obtain the required points. It is too early to conclude anything about players starting in the 2000's decade

 Since my crystal ball is always cloudy, I do not do predictions. However, for the 2000's decade Lorena Ochoa already has greater than 10 wins, and the following players are at least half the way to 10 wins: Paula Creamer - 9,  Jiyai Shin - 7, Suzann Pettersen - 6, Hee Won Han - 6, Grace Park - 6, and Ai Miyazato - 5.  Hee Won Han and Grace Park do not look promising as top players at the moment. Yani Tseng and Na Yeon Choi each has only 3 wins but look more promising at the moment.

 Next, winning majors.

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Frankenstats are stats calculated from multiple existing LPGA stats. Frankenstat Rankings - Version 1.0 was meant to be a proof of concept ranking system. The basis concept was that it was possible to use the existing LPGA statistics and calculate Frankenstats and the combination of LPGA stats and Frankenstats would allow a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the LPGA players golfing skills compared to each other. The system should rate the players from best to worst for a series of skills and for overall ranking. The LPGA website has data from 2004 to 2009 (six years) upon which the system must be built. Most people believe that the longer hitters have an advantage over shorter hitters. Therefore, another purpose was to show how that advantage manifests, and what shorter hitters can do to minimize that advantage. I will use individual players to illustrate the points I wish to make. However, the individual players represent the different types and Tiers of players.  Annika Sorenstam (pre injury) and Lorena Ochoa have been the only dominate players in the time span for which data is available. Discussion of either will be about what it takes to be a dominate player, which I define here as more than 5 victories in more than one season, Tier 1 players. One step down the pyramid of players is those with 3 to 5 victories in a season, Tier 2 players (Paula Creamer, Christie Kerr, Meg Mallon, Suzann Petterson, JiYai Shin, Karrie Webb)  Tier 3 players are those with 2 victories in a season or multiple seasons with a victory (too many to name all of them). Tier 4 players are those with a single victory. Tier 5 players are those who have not won. Both Tier 1 players are long hitters, over 260 yards average distance. Tier 2 players are a combination of long hitters (Pettersen with Kerr and Webb over or just under 260 dependant on the year) and those in the mid range in length of just under 250 yards (Creamer and Shin). Tier 3, Tier 4 and Tier 5 players go from long hitters to short hitters and everything in between. 

The first Frankenstat I use, I borrowed (stole) from Hound Dog. Driving Efficiency is Driving Distance * Driving Accuracy  added to Driving Distance, then divided by 1.8. The calculation gives added weight to distance, but allows the mid range hitters to score well if they hit a very high percentage of fairways. Longer hitters have an advantage because they have shorter irons into the greens which should make it easier to hit a higher Percentage of  Greens In Regulation. However, it is easier to hit the GIR from the fairway than the rough. So I believe the calculation to be a good compromise between distance and accuracy.

The first LPGA stat I use is Percent Greens In Regulation. I think that it is a good proxy for how well a players hits their irons. The better Iron players will hit a higher %GIR than a lessor iron player. Those players who score well year after year on %GIR must be the better iron players.

The second Frankenstat I use is the Stokes Tee to Green. I calculate the Scoring Average for tournaments that the LPGA keeps putting stats. The Strokes Tee to Green is then the Scoring Average minus the Average Putts Per Round. There are three things in play with respect to Stokes Tee to Green. %GIR is a big factor, then a players ability to get up and down from the sand or from around the green, and finally how many times a player is able to reach a Par 5 in two.

The second LPGA stat used is the Putts Per Green In Regulation, which is the best pure putting statistic available.

The third Frankenstat used the the Adjusted Total Putting. Using the Percent Greens In Regulation and the Putts Per Green In Regulation and Average Putts Per Round, I calculate the Adjusted Total Putting. The Adjusted Total Putting calculates the number of putts per round as if each player hit 12 greens in regulation and missed 6 greens. That calculation removes the % GIR from the putting stat to give a better comparison of total putting using an intermediate calculation of Putts Per Greens Missed. 

The Frankenstat Ranking Version 1.0 ranks the players from 1 to however many players are included in the stats for each year (146 to 169 dependant on the year). Then using the place on the list for each stat, calculates an average place on the list to give an average rating. Ordering the average from lowest to highest then ranks the players from best to worst. To be honest, that is a terrible way to determine on overall ranking. A number of players may have very close to the same value but be fairly far apart on the list. Also, there is no way to compare a ranking from one year to another. I am now working on Frankenstat  Ranking Version 2.0. The idea is to calculate a value for each of the five stats versus a set standard and weight each stat at 20% of the total and calculate a numeric value for each player. Then it is possible to compare an individual player rating from year to year as well as compare any player to another for any year (is Sorenstam's 8 win year better or worse than Ochoa's 8 win year?).

Observations below the fold.

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I have calculated Frankenstat Rankings for 2007 and 2008 and will send those spreadsheets to Hound Dog to attach to this post. So those who enjoy looking at the stats or just want to look at individual players can have fun.   The table below has the top 20 rankings for 2007, 2008, and 2009. The numbers in parentheses are the number of victories and the other numbers are the average ranking for the 5 stats used.  Five players are in the top 20 all three years: Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, Suzann Pettersen, Cristie Kerr and Angela Stanford. If I include those in the Top 30, Maria Hjorth, Karrie Webb and Seon Hwa Lee will add to the list. Yani Tseng and Na Yeon Choi are in the Top 20 both years they have been members of the LPGA. Jiyai Shin, Anna Nordqvist and Michelle Wie all made the list in their rookie years. Song-Hee Kim, Brittany Lang, and Sun Young Yoo were in the Top 40 in 2007 and in the Top 20 in 2008 and 2009, and were the top three players on The Constructivist's list for those most likely to break thru with a victory in 2010.

If you add Ai Miyazato and In-Kyung Kim to the players listed above, you have a very good start (60 %) to a prediction of the Top 30 players for 2010. The biggest problem is to get them in the right order. My crystal ball is always cloudy so I don't do predictions, but I really enjoy doing the calculations on results. On a cautionary note, illness, injury, pregnancy, or surgery can have a big effect on those who score well on this list (Jeong Jang and Mi Hyun Kim) being prime examples.

2008 Frankenstats rankings

2007 Frankenstats rankings

                 2007                                          2008                                          2009

 1. Lorena Ochoa (8)         1.6     1. Lorena Ochoa (7)           1.8    1. Lorena Ochoa (3)           5.8

 2. Paula Creamer (2)       7.4     2. Suzann Pettersen (0)     5.8    2. Cristie Kerr (1)                6.6

 3. Suzann Pettersen (5)   7.6     3. Paula Creamer (4)       10.0    3. Paula Creamer (0)        8.4

 4. Jee Young Lee (0)      13.0     3. Yani Tseng (1)              10.0    4. Ai Miyazato (1)                 8.8

 5. Mi Hyun Kim (1)           20.0     5. Annika Sorenstam (3) 12.2    4. Jiyai Shin (3)                   8.8

 6. Jeong Jang (0)            21.6     5. Cristie Kerr (1)               12.2    6. Suzann Pettersen (1) 11.6

 7. Angela Stanford (0)    23.8      7. Song-Hee Kim (0)        17.6    7. Angela Stanford (1)     12.8

 8. Morgan Pressel (1)    24.0      8. Na Yeon Choi (0)          21.4    8. Na Yeon Choi (2)         16.6

 9. Angela Park (0)           24.8      9. Karrie Webb (0)             21.6    9. Song-Hee Kim (0)       16.8

10. Karrie Webb (0)         25.8    10. Angela Stanford (2)      23.2   10. In-Kyung Kim (1)         17.4

11. Nicole Castrale (1)   26.4    10. Jeong Jang (0)              23.2   11. Yani Tseng (1)             22.2

12. Christina Kim (0)      26.8     12. Jee Young Lee (0)       27.6   11. Kristy McPherson (0)  22.2

13. Seon Hwa Lee (1)    28.4     13. Hee Won Han (0)         30.8   13. Brittany Lang (0)          22.6

14. Brittany Lincicome (1) 29.0  13. Karen Stupples (0)      30.8   14. Helen Alfredsson (0)  23.2

15. Shi Hyun Ahn (0)        30.0    15. Sun Young Yoo (0)      31.2   15. Sun Young Yoo (0)      23.4

16. Julie Inkster (0)          31.0     16. Brittany Lang (0)          35.2   16. Anna Nordqvist (2)      25.6

17. Cristie Kerr (1)           32.4     17. Sandra Gal (0)             35.8    17. Michelle Wie (1)          27.4

18. Maria Hjorth (1)          35.2     18. Giulia Sergas (0)        36.8    18. Maria Hjorth (0)           27.6

19. Se Ri Pak (1)              35.6     19. Eun-Hee Ji (1)             37.2    19. Natalie Gulbis (0)       30.4

20. Pat Hurst (0)               39.2     20. Christina Kim (0)        40.6     20. Seon Hwa Lee (0)     31.4

My next post on this subject will be what this type of analysis suggest about the strengths and weaknesses of a players game. The intent is to look at some players individually and some general observations that apply to players in general. For example take Lorena Ochoa, in 2007 and 2008, she was the dominate player on the tour with 8 and 7 wins in 2007 and 2008 and nothing worse than a fourth place finish in any of the stats. The lower rating in the %GIR and Tee to Green Strokes, indicates she did not hit her irons as well in 2009 as she did in 2007 and 2008.  For the adjusted Total Putting value to be significantly higher than the Putts per GIR value suggest a player did not get up and down from around the green as well as her competition did. 

Lorena Ochoa           2007           2008       2009

Driving Efficiency         1                   1              1

Percent GIR                1                   1              8

TtG Strokes                1                   2              9

Putts per GIR              2                   4              1

Adj Total Putting          3                   1             10

Average                      1.6               1.8            5.8

Wins                           8                  7               3

I have always enjoyed Hound Dog's Frankenstats because they attempt to rank the players by how good various parts of their game are (total driving and total putting). I carried out that idea to the maximum limit and ranked players by a combination of LPGA stats and Frankenstats, I have the  player ranking given below. Approximately 60 percent of a players strokes are from tee to green, and approximately 40 percent of a players strokes are putts. So my rankings must reflect that ratio with 40 percent based on putting stats and 60 based on stats tee to green.  The first Frankenstat used will be Total Driving. I think of it as Driving Efficiency and use a divisor of 1.8 instead of the divisor of 6 Hound Dog uses. His values start around 75 go down, while mine are above 250 and go down (closer to actual driving distance). Longer drivers still have the advantage in this rating but players with great accuracy and shorter driving distances (Paula Creamer and Jiyai Shin) rank very well. The next stat I use is Greens In Regulation which is a proxy  for how well a player plays their irons. The third stat is another Frankenstat, the total number of strokes per round a player uses to get on the green (TtG Strokes). This stat has a lot of long hitters toward the top because of their ability to reach par fives in two. The next stat is Putts Per GIR (greens in regulation), which is the closest to a true putting stat available. The last is another Frankenstat, Adjusted Total Putting which calculates putts per round a players would use if they hit 12 greens in regulation and missed 6, thereby puting all players putting on the same basis. I then average where a player ranks in each stat and order the ranking from lowest to highest average.

Frankenstats are stats that uses multiple stats from the LPGA  to calculate a new stat.

Here is the complete spreadsheet - HD:

2009 Rankings by Frankenstats

     Player                 HD Rank    TD    %GIR    TtG      PGIR    Adj Putts    AVG

 1 Lorena Ochoa           1            1          8          9           1           10          5.8

 2 Cristie Kerr               4            5          2          1          19            6          6.6

 3 Paula Creamer        11            7          1          3          27            4           8.4

 4 Jiyai Shin                 2            6         15        20           2            1           8.8

 4 Ai Miyazato              3          11        13        11          6              3            8.8

 6 Suzann Pettersen     6          16         10         4            8            20         11.6

 7 Angela Stanford        9            2         12         8           21           21         12.8

 8 Na Yeon Choi           5           20        14       12           28             9          16.6 

 9 Song Hee Kim        13          29         28       22            3              2          16.8

10 In-Kyung Kim         12          38          7        16            7             19         17.4

11 Yani Tseng              8          15         11         5           57            23         22.2

11 Kristy McPherson   18          14         16       18         35             28         22.2

13 Brittany Lang          17           4           5        15         55             34         22.6

14 Helen Alfredsson    31          17         27        25        20             27         23.2

15 Sun Young Yoo      21            9           6         7          46             49         23.4

16 Anna Nordqvist       7            41         30       28         24              5          25.6

17 Michelle Wie          10           75         21       14          5               22        27.4

18 Maria Hjorth           23            8           4         2          53              71        27.6

19 Natalie Gulbis        25           44         47       41          9               11        30.4

20 Seon Hwa Lee       27           19         40       48         34              16        31.4

21 Catriona Matthew   15           68         29      30         15               17       31.8

22 Sophie Gustafson  19          22         18        6          62               73       36.2

23 Lindsey Wright      20          42         39       33         36              32        36.4

24 Paige Mackenzie   51          21         19       27         60               57       36.8

25 Karrie Webb          14          28           9       13         78               58       37.2

26 Vicky Hurst           32          18         26       19         45              79        37.4

27 Amy Yang             34          55         31       29         39              42        39.2

28 Morgan Pressel     22          72         37       38         42              14        40.6

29 Katherine Hull        30          64         55       53         16              18        41.2

30 Janice Moodie        41          31         34       34         58              65        44.4

Hound Dog's ranking is greatly influenced by who wins. This ranking is based on who plays well in all parts of the game. So Paula Creamer ranks third here but only eleventh on HD Ranking, while Anna Nordqvist ranks sixteenth here and seventh on HD Ranking. So why did Nordqvist win twice and Creamer, who overall played much better, not win at all. The thing I remember about Nordqvist's wins was that she putted crazy good. I remember relatively poor chip shots where she made the putts and made birdies when she had a chance. Jiyai Shin had 3 wins and ranked first and second in the two putting stats. The data seems to suggest a hot putter will win a lot of tournaments. Creamer had 2 second place finishes and 4 third place finishes, suggesting only a putt here or there per round going in the hole and she could have won multiple times. 27th place in Putts Per GIR suggest Creamer putted well, but never really got hot with her putter. Paige Mackenzie being ranked 24th in this analysis is the biggest surprise in this list for me. Does this suggest that with a little improvement in her putting she could have a break out year. Brittany Lang is another player who ranks very well tee to green but must putt better to win.

 This is an updated list of the 50 greatest LPGA players and expanded to 100 players. This list uses the same equations as the last list, but some of the coefficients were modified. The stroke average calculation coefficients were adjusted to give higher ratings values. The other adjusted coefficients were to make the adjustment for the number of players consistant throughout the calculations (less than 30 LPGA players in the early 50's to over 150 players per year playing a full schedule since 1984). Active LPGA members must have played at least 100 tournaments to be considered for this list and ratings are adversely affected until 150 tournaments are played.

      a - player active       b - missing data might change rating if found     c - missing data not likeky to change rating

Active player ratings will change as more tournaments are played. Laura Baugh at 101 was the first player in the list that did not have a victory. Alice Miller at 117 has 8 victories with 1 major, she played very well in 1983-1984-1985 with 7 victories but the rest of the time was not a very good player. Babe Zaharias played at a much higher level, but only played for 6 years on the LPGA which lowered her rating significantly. A few players have two numbers for victories and major victories (first number is only LPGA, second number includes pre LPGA victories).

 Ratings are based on victories (double value for majors), money earnings (function of average purse size per year and places paid), percentage of tournaments in contention (Top 3 finishes and adjusted for number of players), percentage of tournaments playing very well (Top 10 finishes and adjusted for number of players), percentage of tournaments finishing in the money (adjusted for percentage that made money versus number that started), and stroke average per round (adjusted based on stroke average of Vare trophy winners setting lower standard).

                                40's      50's       60's      70's       80's     90's     00's

     Top 50                 6           6            9           9          10          7          3

     Top 100               6          12          13         14          21         21       13

The above shows the number of players that started in each decade in the Top 50 and the Top 100.

       Player                                       Rating               Decade Started          Wins                Majors

  1. Annika Sorenstam                  98.71                       1990                        72                     10

  2. Mickey Wright      b                   93.30                      1950                         82                     13

  3. Kathy Whitworth    c                 92.23                      1950                         88                       6

  4. Nancy Lopez                             73.77                      1970                         48                      3

  5. Sandra Haynie       c                71.64                       1960                         42                      4

  6. Pat Bradley                               69.81                       1970                         31                      6

  7. Karrie Webb          a                 69.39                       1990                         36                      7

  8. Joanne Carner                        68.28                       1970                          43                      2

  9. Patty Sheehan                         66.28                       1980                          35                      6

 10. Louise Suggs       b               65.61                        1940                    50 - 58                6 - 11           

 11. Lorena Ochoa        a              64.20                        2000                       27                        2

 12. Betsy King                               63.43                       1970                        34                        6

 13. Betsy Rawls           b              62.99                       1950                         55                       8

 14. Beth Daniel                             61.73                       1970                        33                       1

 15. Carol Mann          c                 61.33                       1960                        38                        2

 16. Julie Inkster                            58.40                       1980                        31                        7

 17. Patty Berg              b               58.38                       1940                    38 - 60                7  - 15

 18. Amy Alcott                               57.80                       1970                        29                         5

 19. Judy Rankin      b                   57.13                       1960                        26                         0

 20. Donna Caponi                       55.40                       1960                        24                         4

 21. Jane Blalock                          54.21                       1960                         27                         0

 22. Meg Mallon       a                   50.94                       1980                         18                         4

 23. Se Ri Pak           a                  50.53                       1990                         24                         5

T24. Dottie Pepper                       50.21                       1980                         17                         2

T24. Sandra Palmer                    50.21                        1960                        19                         2

 26. Marilyn Smith     b                 49.31                        1940                         21                         2

 27. Ayako Okamoto                    48.14                         1980                        17                         0

 28. Jan Stephenson                  46.38                         1970                        16                         3

 29. Marlene Hagge    b              46.27                         1940                        26                         1

 30. Laura Davies        a             45.27                          1980                        20                         4

 31. Rosie Jones                         44.36                         1980                        13                         0

 32. Hollis Stacy                           42.94                         1970                        18                         4

 33. Babe Zaharias     b d           41.84                         1940                     31 -41                  6 - 10

 34. Shirley Englehorn   b           40.74                         1950                        11                         1

 35. Mi Hyun Kim      a                 39.99                         1990                          8                          0

 36. Cristie Kerr        a                 39.91                         1990                         12                         1

 37. Beverly Hanson   b              39.56                         1950                         17                         3

 38. Jane Geddes                       38.95                         1980                         11                          2

 39. Paula Creamer    a             38.79                         2000                          8                            0

 40. Sally Little                             38.65                        1970                         15                            2

 41. Clifford Ann Creed   c         38.27                        1960                         11                            0

 42. Liselotte Neumann  a        36.45                        1980                         13                            1

 43. Jo Ann Prentice      b           35.89                        1950                          6                             0

 44. Mary Mills      c                      35.80                        1960                          9                             3

 45. Kelly Robbins                      35.66                        1990                           9                            1

 46. Hee-Won Han    a               34.93                        2000                           6                            0

 47. Tammie Green                    34.62                        1980                           7                            0

 48. Betty Jameson   b               34.52                        1940                         9 - 13                    1 - 3

 49. Sandra Post                         34.47                        1960                           8                            1

 50. Brandie Burton                    33.96                        1990                           5                             2

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Several months ago I saw a poll about who is the best American(USA) LPGA player. How does one define the best player. I am a numbers guy, a player must prove to me they are the best player by how they perform on the golf courses. As all golfers know, nobody masters golf. All players have peaks and valleys in their play. The best players have more sustained peaks and less valleys than the other players.  The peaks are higher and the valleys not as low, giving a higher overall rating to the best players. The hot golfer, the one currently playing well for the last few weeks or months is not the best golfer. The best golfer is the one who overall has been playing well for the full year or two years or three years. Choose your own time span. Using data from 1998 through 2009 I calculated the best players for each year from 2000 thru 2009 and each two and three year periods.

I am not a Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) zealot. Which means I do not make up data, I do not select only data that agrees with a position that I want to make, I do not make up fake formulas to give data analysis results that I want to see. I do not hide how I made the calculations (previous post gives specifics of calculation). I use data from all LPGA tournaments that a players starts.

The poll had the following four players: Paula Creamer, Cristie Kerr, Angela Stanford, and Michelle Wie. Those four players are the top four USA players in my analysis for 2009. Michelle Wie is not now nor has she every been the best player, anyone who thinks she is, should put on their Dunce Cap and go sit in the corner. At the end of 2008 and early 2009 Angela Stanford was the hot golfer, but never was the best USA golfer for any year. As to Paula Creamer and Christie Kerr check the results below.

                           One Year              Two Year Period           Three Year Period

       2000       Julie Inkster                  Julie Inkster                  Julie Inkster

       2001       Rosie Jones                 Julie Inkster                  Julie Inkster

       2002       Julie Inkster                  Julie Inkster                  Julie Inkster

       2003       Julie Inkster                  Julie Inkster                  Julie Inkster

       2004       Meg Mallon                    Meg Mallon                   Julie Inkster

       2005       Paula Creamer            Cristie Kerr                    Cristie Kerr

       2006       Cristie Kerr                    Cristie Kerr                    Cristie Kerr

       2007       Paula Creamer             Cristie Kerr                    Cristie Kerr

       2008       Paula Creamer          Paula Creamer             Paula Creamer

       2009        Cristie Kerr                Paula Creamer             Paula Creamer


If I look at the total numbers for the years from 2005 through 2009 Paula Creamer and Cristie Kerr are very close to the same rating with Creamer being better. Looking at those five years only Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam rate better than Creamer and Kerr. Winning is very important in my rating and only Ochoa and Sorenstam have won more tournaments during the 5 year period.

NOTE:  If T's chart does not line up properly on your browser, click into the story.

Top 100 LPGA players this year by their rookie seasons.

Rookies 2005-2009       2000-2004     1990-1999     1980-1989

                 7                                 2                       1                       0                  Top 10 players

               14                                 4                       2                       0                 Top 20 players

               19                                 7                       4                       0                 Top 30 players

               54                               27                     17                       2                Top 100 players

The numbers suggest that most of the best players on the LPGA are very young in terms of experience. If you look up the ages of those players, most are in their early 20's. So they are young in experience as well as young in age. Players develop their games at varied ages, but nobody's game is fully developed at such a young age. It will be interesting to see which players become the dominate players in the next few years as they continue to develope as players.  There are a lot of stupid comments on various web sites by people who are apparently unaware of just how young and good the young ladies are. I would much rather watch the LPGA , than watch the men on the PGA choke and puke their guts out giving Tiger a win every time Tiger is playing.

1   Cristie Kerr            5.88      (1)           16  Brittany Lincicome     3.48       (1*)

2   Lorena Ochoa       5.69      (2)           17  Lindsey Wright           3.27       (0)

3  Jiyai Shin                 5.59      (2)           18  Brittany Lang              3.11       (0)

4  Ai Miyazato               5.17      (1)           19  Kristy McPherson      3.06       (0)

5  In-Kyung Kim          5.01       (1)           20  Ji Young Oh               2.92       (1)

6  Yani Tseng              4.91       (1)          21  Hee-Won Han           2.74        (0)

7  Angela Stanford      4.76       (1)          22  Sun Young Yoo         2.54        (0)

8  Paula Creamer       4.71       (0)          23  Catrriona Matthew    2.53        (1*)

9  Eun-Hee Ji              4.57       (1*)          24  Natalie Gulbis          2.52        (0)

10 Anna Nordqvist     4.42       (1*)          25  Jee Young Lee         2.47        (0)

11 Karrie Webb          4.40        (1)           26  Morgan Pressel       2.45        (0)

12 Michelle Wie          4.05        (0)           27  Seon Hwa Lee         2.37        (0)

13 Na Yeon Choi        3.99       (0)           28  Katherine Hull          2.35         (0)

14 Suzann Pettersen 3.98       (0)           29  Hee Young Park      2.34         (0)

15 Song-Hee Kim      3.86       (0)            30  Se Ri Pak                  2.33        (0)

 This is the current rankng after the Women's British Open. The number in () is the number of wins this year. The * indicates the majors.

After my last post on this subject 'dianemarie' asked what the numbers mean in my analysis. Up till now, I only used the values to rank the players from first to worst. After her question, I decided I should look at the numbers on a historical basis to see what trends the numbers show. Looking at the ratings for the years from 2000 through 2008, gives indications as to the value of the numbers.

A value of 10.00 was basically set as the 15 year average of the best player for each criteria used in the rating. So a value of above 10.00 marks a very very good year. A rating above 9.00 marks a dominate performance by a player for the year. There have been 2 years during the period when 3 players scored above 9.00. There was one year that 2 players scored above 10.00. The best individual year was 2002 when Annika won 11 times and scored 16.345.

On average about 25 players per year score a rating above 3.00.  On average 12 players per year score a rating above 4.00. Of those 12 players, 10 win tournaments and 2 players play very well but do not win. An average of 4 players per year win and score between 3.00 and 4.00. An average of 3 players per year win and score less than 3.00.  

A lot of people apparently think that unless a player wins a tournament, then they had a worse year than any player that did. In 2000 Laurel Kean won a tournament, but was rated at 1.34 and was the 73rd ranked player. In 2001 Tina Fischer won a tournament and was rated at 1.82  and was the 65th ranked player. In 2003 Hilary Lunke won a major tournament  and was rated 2.57 and the 30th ranked player. In 2003 Birdie Kim won a major tournament and with a rating at 3.16 was the 27th ranked player. Basically, those players had one great week when they won their tournament, but played poorly the rest of the year. To me any reasonable evaluation of the season a player had, has to be much more than just winning. Every rating system currently used agrees with that position.

There has been a lot of discussion on web sites related to Wie deserving or not of a Solheim Cup Captain's pick. I guess my rating of Wie at 4.05 tells me she does. However, without a doubt she is the most overrated, over-hyped, and over-paid woman golfer ever. 

      Player                 Rating            APA     Position

 1 Lorena Ochoa        5.983        29.316      26  27

 2 Cristie Kerr             5.561        28.893        7

 3 Ji-Yai Shin               5.485       28.768        4

 4 Yani Tseng             5.103        29.097      13

 5 Angela Stanford     4.983        29.267      24 25

 6 In-Kyung Kim          4.976        29.249      22 23

 7 Eun-Hee Ji              4.649        29.525      35 38

 8 Paula Creamer      4.343        29.116      14

 9 Suzann Pettersen  4.244        29.293      25 26

10 Michelle Wie          4.224        29.127      16

11 Anna Nordqvist      3.962       28.804        6

12 Song-Hee Kim       3.894       28.412        1

13 Karrie Webb           3.789       29.875       51 53

14 Na-Yeon Choi        3.789       29.491       33 36

15 Ai Miyazato              3.769       29.051       10

16 Lindsey Wright       3.538       29.085       11

17 Brittany Lincicome 3.391       30.303       84 86

18 Brittany Lang           3.136       29.772       50 52

19 Ji Young Oh            3.059       29.708       47 49

20 Kristy McPherson   2.916       29.148      17

21 Natalie Gulbis        2.760        28.651       2

22 Jee Young Lee       2.728        30.572      99  29.877  63

23 Seon Hwa Lee        2.624        28.970      9

24 Sun Young Yoo      2.566         29.693     45 47

25 Wendy Ward          2.551           29.511    34 37

26 Morgan Pressel    2.475          29.339     29 30

27 Hee-Won Han       2.408          29.086     12

28 Katherine Hull       2.340          29.319     27 28

29 Pat Hurst                2.353          30.404     91 94

30 Meaghan Francella 2.316       30.103     72 74

This post shows the first 30 of 154 players with at least 5 tournaments played that I have rated. This rating is based only on 2009 tournaments. The Adjusted Putting Average (APA) and the position on the APA list are included. Note the small difference in APA between Creamer and Pettersen and the fact that they are 14 and 25 on the list. At this point one good tournament (a victory)  can move a person up the list significantly. So while their overall play during the year has not been that good with 5 cuts each missed Brittany Lincicome and Pat Hurst are in the top 30 and only 84 and 91  respectively in APA and each has a stroke average over 72. I guess if I knew how, I could include the spreadsheet showing all 154 rated players and the complete list of Adjusted Putting Average.

It became necessary to change some of the calculations as I found some LPGA statistics have some partial round data and other do not.

Here is the complete spreadsheet - HD

 Tatkins Player Ratings & APA

I just read the Salt and Pepper column by Martin Kaufmann on the GolfWeek.com website, where he praises Johnny Miller and Dottie Pepper. What a joke! Why don't they do some real analysis instead of superficial stuff. For example:

Looking at the statistics for Paula Creamer for the friday round where she shot (-3) 68. Creamer hit 9 fairways and 10 greens. She had been in several fairway bunkers and made 3 sand saves, so she had been in at least three greenside bunkers. Those numbers are not her normal game. It was obvious that Creamer's swing was off. Creamer and her team knew she was in trouble (Pepper noted that instead of a normal warmup, Creamer had gone through a work session on saturday before her round). They should have done a swing analysis to see why she was off. The bad round on saturday was not a surprise. The round was worse than it should have been because of the horrible bunker shot on 10. She should not have used the driver because she was not driving well, that was her mistake. Two weeks before the Open, Creamer had to withdraw from the tournament and could not even defend her title the week before the Open. She could not even practice her full swing for several days, resulting in her swing problem. The injury was a big factor in her performance. How about Open pressure, in last years Open she averaged almost 11 fairways a round and just over 12 greens per round. This year just over 9 fairways and just over 10 greens. Based on her history it was not Open pressure. Under the circumstances, the sixth place finish this year was much better than the sixth place finish last year.

This kind of analysis could be done on the top 10 on the leaderboard for a major tournament in a short period of time and give people a real insight as to why they are playing well or not. Just a simple comparative analysis of a players historic stats versus the current tournament. The closest they came was the comments about Kerr not doing well in sand saves.

Would it surprise anyone that some of the 2008 stats on the LPGA website are wrong?  In my last post about Hound Dog''s Frankenstats I suggested what I think is a better way to rate the best putters on the tour.  Based on comments, I agreed to calculate some data from 2008. I entered the data into the equations and got a rating for Adjusted Putting Average. However, when I looked at the intermediate calculations, the values were not realistic. The putts per greens missed were too low to be true. Looking at data from individual tournaments, it is obvious that the Putting Average and the Greens In Regulation Percentage numbers are not correct. Those stats show the total rounds a player played but use another number of rounds to calculate the Putting Average and the Greens In Regulation Percentage. The LPGA uses the number of rounds where they actually keep the stats (tournaments in the U.S. and the Evian Masters). The mistake appears to be they also included rounds played in the Women's British Open but they did not have the numbers for Putting and Greeens In Regulation. Therefore, values for everyone who played the Women's British Open are wrong for those two stats.

I tend to enjoy Hound Dog's Frankenstats because they recognize that a lot of the individual stats given by the LPGA and PGA do not really have a lot of meaning. The PGA Total Driving stat (that uses the place on each list and the one with the lowest total when added together is rated as the best) is a total joke. Hound Dog's method of using the actual data for each player and calculating a rating against a set standard is so far superior that the same calculation should be used to calculate the Total Driving for the PGA Tour. This would also give a numeric value for comparison of the driving of LPGA players versus the PGA players showing the strength of men versus the strength of women. 

However, I feel the calculation Hound Dog used for Total Putting missed the mark. The biggest problem is the Putts Per Round Average is a strong function of the Greens In Regulation as well as putting. Using the following data for each player I calculated an Adjusted Putting Average: total putts, number of rounds, putts per round, greens in regulation putts, percent greens in regulation. I first calculated the following: greens made per round, greens missed per round, greens in regulation putts per round, greens missed putts per round, putts per greens missed. Then using the putts per green in regulation and putts per greens missed I calculated an adjusted putting average for each player, based on each player hitting 12 greens and missing 6 greens in regulation.  I have included the top 30 below. I believe that this method gives a better comparison of how the players should be rated on average putts per round. These calculations use data available after the LPGA Championship.

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When I read Hound Dog's article on his ranking system, I mostly thought it was very good. However, he designed the system to rank a limited number of players for each year. The idea was to redesign the system to rank all of the players. Starting with the players currently playing, then adding all of the players listed in the mini biographies on the LPGA web site. All official tournament winners were then added. Additional players were then added using the players listed in the career money list. Even more players were added by looking at the Qualifying School Results to find those who qualified to play on the tour. A lot of the data was taken from the LPGA web site. The second source was the Golf Observer web site. Finally, names of players are being  taken from the players shown in individual tournaments on the Golf Observer web site. Currently, the database has data on over 900 players. The biggest problem in developing a comprehensive ranking system is the limited data from 1950 thru 1962. Another smaller problem is the conflicting data between the the two sources.  Also, the Golf Observer web site has some tounaments with two sets of results on the same date. However, the following describes the current ranking system, which must be about Version 5.0. A rating is calculated for each year there is data, an average yearly rating is calculated and a value for the All Time Best List is calculated.

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This is my answer to Hound Dog's greatest 50 LPGA players of all time.  My rating system is loosely based on Hound Dog's. The biggest difference between the systems is the inclusion of the number of active players per year (10 tournaments or more played) as a factor in the calculations in my system. Also, the rating for my system is based on average yearly ratings. My system is modified to calculate a rating for every player for every year that data is available. Currently there are over 900 players in the database. The rating system will change as more data is added and analyzed, which will result in changes to the list. The first column is Hound Dog's list, the second column is my list, the third column is the rating, and the fourth column is the decade the player turned professional. The number of players on the list for each decade is listed.

     1940's   5 players      1950's   6 players     1960's   9 players

      1970's  9 players      1980's 10 players     1990's   8 players

      2000's  3 players

Fourty eight players are on both lists. Just over half the players are ranked within 3 positions on both lists. Lorena Ochoa is 15 positions higher on my list, which is the greatest difference between the two lists.

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This is a once a year type calculation to be done after the season is over. I included all players that have over 4 million in inflation adjusted earnings. The data is inflation adjusted career earnings position, inflation adjusted career earnings, career earnings, and postion on career earnings list. Sometime next week I will have a list of all players in my database.

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Player         Year            Money        Adjusted Money    Multiple

Zaharias     1950           $61,585           $421,400          6.84

Berg             1950        $190,878        $1,174,100          6.15

Suggs          1950        $190,251        $1,164,800          6.12

Smith            1950        $268,761        $1,348,800         5.02

Hagge          1950         $454,407        $1,843,700        4.06

Rawls           1951         $289,749        $1,591,800        5.49

Wright           1955         $370,709        $1,918,300        5.17

Whitworth     1959      $1,713,360       $5,251,300         3.06

Mann             1961         $506,659        $2,147,300        4.24

Haynie          1961      $1,055,868        $3,303,300        3.13

Rankin          1962        $887,070         $2,989,000        3.37

Caponi          1965     $1,389,577        $3,749,900        2.70

Blalock          1969     $1,293,937        $3,581,200        2.77

Carner          1970      $2,973,851        $6,392,100        2.15

Bradley         1974      $5,755,947      $10,093,000        1.75

Alcott             1975      $3,419,151        $6,428,500        1.88

Lopez            1977     $5,320,873         $9,131,500        1.72

King               1977     $7,637,617      $11,544,400        1.51

Daniel           1979     $8,786,604      $12,734,600        1.45

Sheehan      1980     $5,511,843        $8,831,600         1.60

Inkster          1983    $12,433,695     $15,326,600         1.23

Davies          1988      $8,521,964     $10,636,500         1.25

Sorenstam   1994    $22,573,192    $25,750,300         1.14

Webb             1996    $14,311,587   $16,539,,500         1.16

Pak                 1998    $10,153,220   $11,566,700          1.14

Ochoa            2003    $13,197,409   $13517,500           1.02

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