A lot of golf's been played since I last updated my ranking of the LPGA's Rookie Class of 2007 at the end of the 2001 season. At the time, In-Kyung Kim was the #1 player in the class and Inbee Park was #4 (behind Song-Hee Kim and Eun-Hee Ji). Obviously, a lot has changed in the last season and a half!
Let's take a look at the key career results for Inbee and IK:
NAME/$/STARTS/MAJORS/WINS/TOP3/TOP10/TOP20/WD/DQ/MC/FIN (RATE)
Inbee Park, $6.79M (#24), 147/3/8/19/44/64/1/1/22/123 (.837)
In-Kyung Kim, $5.65M (#37), 152/0/3/17/55/80/1/0/19/132 (.868)
As you can see, In-Kyung has been a way more consistently elite golfer than Park, who's gone through more slumps than her compatriot. But Inbee's peaks have been way higher than IK's. World #1 Park has definitely done a much better job of converting good play into victories than the 15th-ranked Kim:
Wins/Top 20s: Inbee 12.5%, IK 3.8%
Wins/Top 10s: Inbee 18.2%, IK 5.5%
Wins/Top 3s: Inbee 42.1%, IK 17.6%
When you looks at key performance stats this year, you'll see why IK has been so consistent and why Inbee has been so dominant:
Driving Accuracy: IK 81.4% (#4), Inbee 71.9% (#55)
Greens in Regulation: Inbee 71.6% (#17), IK 70.9% (#19)
Putts per Green in Regulation: Inbee 1.702 (#1), IK 1.780 (#15)
Birdies per Round: Inbee 4.72 (#3 in total birdies), IK 3.95 (#22)
Under-Par Rounds: Inbee 73.8% (#2), IK 61.9% (#12)
Rounds in the 60s: Inbee 54.8% (#1), IK 28.6% (#30)
Scoring Average: Inbee 69.643 (#1), IK 70.595 (#11)
Clearly, Inbee's approach shots and putting have been light-years beyond IK's, even though IK's are both very very good by normal planetary standards. Given that Sebonack's super-wide fairways take away IK's big driving accuracy advantage over Inbee, she's going to have to upgrade the rest of her game to continue competing with her over the last 2 rounds. Obviously anything can happen in 36 holes at a U.S. Women's Open, but you have to say going by both career and more recent stats that Inbee has a big advantage over IK.
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