Looking Back, Part 3: Top 30 Predictions

As you may have gathered by now, the week after the Women's British Open is a good time to pause, reflect on the LPGA season to date, and enjoy the U.S. Women's Amateur. But it's also a good time to look ahead to the end of the 2008 season and beyond. This post is my pivot between those 2 ways of looking at the LPGA. It's as good a time as any to revisit my top 30 predictions and see where I went wrong and what I got right so far.

So here is my predicted top 30, with each player's current place on the LPGA money list, Rolex Rankings (last week's--even Rolex is taking the week off!), Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, and Hound Dog Top 30 listed in parentheses:

1. Lorena Ochoa (1, 1, 1, 1)
2. Paula Creamer (3, 4, 3, 3)
3. Seon Hwa Lee (6, 8, 12, 5)
4. Jee Young Lee (21, 15, 22, 18)
5. Annika Sorenstam (2, 2, 4, 2)
6. Morgan Pressel (28, 17, 37, 29)
7. Jeong Jang (9, 9, 9, 9)
8. Hee-Won Han (16, 28, 11, 13)
9. Se Ri Pak (71, 29, 79, n.r.)
10. Mi Hyun Kim (39, 20, 15, 23)
11. Angela Park (12, 14, 28, n.r.)
12. Stacy Prammanasudh (24, 21, 23, 19)
13. Cristie Kerr (14, 7, 7, 15)
14. Natalie Gulbis (52, 36, 41, n.r.)
15. Suzann Pettersen (11, 3, 2, 7)
16. Ai Miyazato (34, 37, 85, n.r.)
17. In-Kyung Kim (29, 40, 56, n.r.)
18. Momoko Ueda (35, 16, 16, n.r.)
19. Eun-Hee Ji (10, 18, 13, 11)
20. Jane Park (17, 41, 40, 20)
21. Karrie Webb (13, 6, 10, 10)
22. Brittany Lincicome (86, 44, 127, n.r.)
23. Christina Kim (19, 38, 17, 16)
24. Shi Hyun Ahn (50, 34, 51, n.r.)
25. Angela Stanford (27, 26, 27, 28)
26. Juli Inkster (33, 19, 14, n.r.)
27. Meena Lee (36, 63, 48, n.r.)
28. Laura Davies (87, 54, 82, n.r.)
29. Sophie Gustafson (32, 33, 24, n.r.)
30. Inbee Park (5, 12, 31, 6)

I'll leave it to my competition to give their own progress reports. (Mulligan Stu is welcome to guest blog here any time now that he's stepped away from running Waggle Room.)

But obviously Ya Ni Tseng, Na Yeon Choi, Inbee Park, Helen Alfredsson, Eun-Hee Ji, Karrie Webb, Song-Hee Kim, Ji Young Oh, Karen Stupples, Maria Hjorth, Laura Diaz, Teresa Lu, Sun Young Yoo, and Candie Kung are exceeding my expectations by a lot--and Annika Sorenstam, Suzann Pettersen, and Christina Kim by a little. And while Seon Hwa Lee, Jeong Jang, Hee-Won Han, Stacy Prammanasudh, Juli Inkster, and Sophie Gustafson need reasonable improvements to meet my expectations, Jee Young Lee, Morgan Pressel, Se Ri Pak, Mi Hyun Kim, Natalie Gulbis, Ai Miyazato, In-Kyung Kim, Momoko Ueda, Brittany Lincicome, Shi Hyun Ahn, Meena Lee, and Laura Davies have a much longer ways to go.

Can you believe there are only 6 more full-field events left on the LPGA schedule? And only 5 limited-field ones before the most-likely-last-ever ADT Championship? There's still a chance for the Player of the Year race to get as close as the Rookie of the Year race promises to be for the rest of the season. More on all these matters once I start looking ahead in this LPGA-less week.

[Update 1 (8/7/08, 3:36 am): Heee-ere's Hound Dog's! The interesting question now is, who among our so-far underperformers will step up at the end of the season. I have a lot of confidence in everyone except Pak, Lincicome, and Davies, although I'll admit I'm worried about Lee and Pressel right now. But when I look at the list of the players I underestimated, I don't see too many candidates for getting passed. Certainly not Tseng, Choi, Park, and Ji. Any of the others? Well, let's just say my picks had better pick up their pace! Outside the top 12, the money list is pretty bunched still, so just about anything can happen!]