The Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour completes its season this weekend with the playing of the limited-field ADT Championship at the ultra-exclusive Trump International Golf Club in the very upscale town of West Palm Beach in Florida. The LPGA Tour”s top 32 linksters are fighting it out for the largest purse in circuit history, with the winning pocketing a cool $1 million in first-place prize money.
The ADT Championship features all of the greats and near greats of the LPGA Tour, including Annika Sorenstam, Juli Inkster, Karrie Webb, Laura Davies and Se Ri Pak. Yet that listing of the five LPGA Hall of Famers now has to take a back seat to a whole new breed of young and gifted golfers. The LPGA tour is no longer the domain of Annika, Karrie and the rest.
The breakthrough performer on the LPGA Tour is Lorena Ochoa of Mexico. For the second year in a row, Ochoa was the leading money winner on tour. Her high-water-mark moment occurred this summer at the historic St. Andrews Golf Links in Scotland, the birthplace of golf. That weekend in early August Ochoa ran away from the rest of the pack to capture her first major title, the Women”s British Open.
Ochoa played her collegiate golf at the University of Arizona and has been on tour for only five years. Yet in that short amount of time she has ascended to the top of the world rankings in women”s golf. When this weekend”s golf tournament comes to a close, Ochoa will have played in 25 events in 2007. She has seven wins, 20 top-10 finishes, and is the No. 1-ranked player in rounds under bar, birdies, eagles, greens in regulation and putting. She is the third-longest driver on tour, averaging 271 yards off the tee.
So, let”s see. Ochoa drives it far, hits a ton of greens, and can putt better than anyone else. The other amazing Tiger Woods-like statistic regarding Lorena is that she is the leading money winner on the LPGA Tour this year, banking almost $3.4 million. The No. 2 and No. 3 money winners on tour have pocketed less money combined than Ochoa. It”s hard to believe that Lorena Ochoa can get any better, but then again, she is still in her 20s and she has improved upon her performance each and every year.
The No. 2-ranked golfer on the LPGA Tour is Suzann Pettersen of Norway. She too is a five-year veteran of the LPGA wars and had her best year ever in 2007. She has 11 top-10 finishes and five wins, including three victories in the month of October. After suffering through a back-nine meltdown at the Kraft Nabisco Championship (formerly the Dinah Shore), the first LPGA major of the year, Pettersen rebounded by winning the next major, the LPGA Championship.
Like Ochoa, Pettersen has had a statistically brilliant year, finishing in the top four in rounds under par, birdies, greens in regulation and driving distance. Even her putting is rock solid as he currently ranks 14th with the blade. This year was truly a big bang year as she pocketed almost $1.8 million in earnings and played for the Europeans on the Solheim Cup team. Interestingly enough, Suzann had never won before this season, and her best finish in a tournament prior to 2007 was a third. Obviously Pettersen has now learned to win and win big, putting her among the new breed of stars on her circuit.
Paula Creamer won twice in 2005 but then went winless in 2006. A Northern California product who grew up in Pleasanton and went to Foothill High School, Creamer is best know for her pink golf balls, Pink Panther head covers and pink attire. Regardless of how shocking all this pink stuff is, her performance this year transcended her wardrobe and her colorful image.
She opened the 2007 campaign by winning the SBS Open at Turtle Bay in Hawaii. Last week she won the circuit”s version of the Tournament of Champions. She has made $1.3 million in earnings this year, ranking her third on the LPGA Tour behind Ochoa and Pettersen. Creamer is now very long off the tee, ranking 84th among her peers with tee shots averaging 247 yards.
Creamer makes up for a lack of power with great driving accuracy, lots of birdies and quality putting. On top of that she is a very tenacious competitor. It”s important to remember that Paula turned 21 in August. The only thing missing from her golfing resume is a major championship, and yet it seems like a foregone conclusion that she will be winning one sometime in the very near future.
The 2007 LPGA campaign was very good to a host of others, too. Morgan Pressel won the Kraft Nabisco. Cristie Kerr had her big moment in July when she won the Women”s U.S. Open. Pressel, at age 19, is the youngest winner of an LPGA grand slam title. Kerr was a not-so-old 29 when she won the Open this summer. Natalie Gulbis won the Evian Masters, her first professional title, enhancing her reputation as a golfer to go along with her very capable marketing and promotional skills.
The LPGA Tour concludes its season Sunday at Trump Invitational in West Palm Beach. It not only marks an end to another entertaining season of women”s golf, but it also marks a generational changing of the guard as Annika and Juli get on in years and Lorena, Suzann, Paula and the rest prepare to be the new faces of the LPGA Tour.
