The Best in The Tseng Dynasty, July 2013 Edition

Wow, a lot has changed in the last year and a half on the LPGA, particularly for those in the rookie classes of 2006, 2007, and 2008!  Last January, Ya Ni Tseng was the clear #1 and Inbee Park was ranked #10 in their LPGA generation.  Now, despite the fact that right now Inbee is clearly the dominant female golfer on the planet and Ya Ni is struggling by her very high standards, the question of who is the top player in their generation over the course of their careers is actually an open one.  Should we continue calling this generation the Tseng Dynasty, should we start calling it Queen Bee's Court, or should we mash up the two titles to show how close the presumably top 2 players in the generation are?  Are they really the top 2 players in their generation?  How should we go about ranking all the top players in the generation by career?

Instead of giving you my ranking and rationale and then giving you the data, as I have in past posts of this kind, let me start this one by establishing that these questions are indeed open.  Consider the following lists, drawn from my google spreadsheet:

Career Majors
1. Ya Ni Tseng (5)
2. Inbee Park (4)
T3. Morgan Pressel, Na Yeon Choi, Shanshan Feng, Sun Young Yoo, Eun-Hee Ji (1)
T8. [everyone else in the generation] (0)

Career Victories
1. Ya Ni Tseng (15)
T2. Inbee Park, Ai Miyazato (9)
4. Na Yeon Choi (7)
5. Seon Hwa Lee (4)
6. In-Kyung Kim (3)
T7. Morgan Pressel, Sun Young Yoo, Eun-Hee Ji, Ji Young Oh, Momoko Ueda, Hee Young Park (2)

Victory Rate (adjusted for golfers with non-member wins)
1. Ya Ni Tseng (11.28%)
2. Inbee Park (6.04%)
3. Ai Miyazato (5.39%)
4. Na Yeon Choi (5.22%)
5. Seon Hwa Lee (2.35%)
6. Momoko Ueda (1.96%)
7. In-Kyung Kim (1.95%)
8. Ji Young Oh (1.50%)
9. Hee Young Park (1.47%)
10. Eun-Hee Ji (1.46%)

Top-3 Finish Rate
1. Ya Ni Tseng (27.82%)
2. Na Yeon Choi (21.64%)
3. Inbee Park (13.42%)
4. Ai Miyazato (12.57%)
5. In-Kyung Kim (11.69%)
6. Song-Hee Kim (8.33%)
7. Morgan Pressel (7.22%)
8. Seon Hwa Lee (6.47%)
9. Jee Young Lee (5.49%)
10. Shanshan Feng (5.31%)

Top-10 Finish Rate
1. Na Yeon Choi (47.76%)
2. Ya Ni Tseng (44.36%)
3. In-Kyung Kim (36.36%)
4. Ai Miyazato (34.73%)
5. Inbee Park (30.20%)
6. Song-Hee Kim (27.27%)
7. Morgan Pressel (24.44%)
8. Shanshan Feng (23.01%)
9. Jee Young Lee (21.95%)
10. Amy Yang (21.30%)

Top-20 Finish Rate
1. Na Yeon Choi (71.64%)
2. Ya Ni Tseng (63.16%)
3. Ai Miyazato (53.29%)
4. In-Kyung Kim (53.25%)
5. Inbee Park (44.30%)
T6. Morgan Pressel, Amy Yang (41.67%)
8. Song-Hee Kim (40.91%)
9. Jee Young Lee (40.85%)
10. Brittany Lang (36.98%)

Total Finish Rate (no MC, WD, or DQ)
1. Na Yeon Choi (97.76%)
2. Ya Ni Tseng (92.48%)
3. Amy Yang (89.81%)
4. In-Kyung Kim (87.01%)
5. Ai Miyazato (85.63%)
T6. Morgan Pressel, Inbee Park (83.89%)
8. Hee Young Park (82.35%)
9. Brittany Lang (81.25%)
10. Seon Hwa Lee (81.18%)

Winnings per Start
1. Ya Ni Tseng ($65.1K)
2. Na Yeon Choi ($60.8K)
3. Inbee Park ($49.6K)
4. Ai Miyazato ($44.6K)
5. In-Kyung Kim ($39.1K)
6. Amy Yang ($29.0K)
7. Song-Hee Kim ($27.8K)
8. Morgan Pressel ($27.4K)
9. Shanshan Feng ($24.6K)
10. Seon Hwa Lee ($23.9K)

Winnings per Finish
1. Ya Ni Tseng ($75.2K)
2. Na Yeon Choi ($62.2K)
3. Inbee Park ($59.2K)
4. Ai Miyazato ($52.1K)
5. In-Kyung Kim ($44.9K)
6. Song-Hee Kim ($37.4K)
7. Morgan Pressel ($32.6K)
8. Shanshan Feng ($32.4K)
9. Amy Yang ($32.3K)
10. Seon Hwa Lee ($29.4K)

Some patterns emerge among the top 5 players in the generation:

• Ya Ni is 1st in 6 of the 9 categories and 2nd in the other 3;
• NYC is 1st in those 3, 2nd in 3 others, 3rd in 1, and 4th or T4 in 2;
• Inbee is 2nd or T2 in 3, 3rd in 3, 5th in 2, and T6 in 1;
• Ai-sama is T2 in 1, 3rd in 2, 4th in 4, 5th in 1, and T8 in 1;
• Inky is 3rd in 1, 4th in 2, 5th in 3, 6th in 1, 7th in 1, and T8 in 1.

But what we really need is a formula we can use to rank all the top players in the generation, whether or not they appear in the above lists or not.  More to the point, counting by rank in each statistical category evens out what can be extreme distances between the players in the category.  Better to develop a point system that tracks actual performances and weights them according to their relative significance.  How about 100 points per major, 40 points per win, 32 points per victory rate percentage point, 16 points per top-3 rate percentage point, 8 points per top-10 rate percentage point, 4 points per top-20 rate percentage point, 1 point per total finish rate percentage point, and 1 point per $100 in winnings per start and per finish?  Using that formula, we'd arrive at the following ranking:

Simply the Best

1. Ya Ni Tseng (4053)

The Contenders

2. Na Yeon Choi (2890)

3. Inbee Park (2759)

The Next Best

4. Ai Miyazato (2278)

5. In-Kyung Kim (1800)

Quantum Leap Candidates

6. Morgan Pressel (1377)

7. Song-Hee Kim (1241)

8. Seon Hwa Lee (1238)

9. Shanshan Feng (1218)

10. Amy Yang (1113)

11. Hee Young Park (1099)

12. Eun-Hee Ji (1064)

13. Sun Young Yoo (1060)

14. Jee Young Lee (1048)

15. Brittany Lang (961)

The Best of the Rest

16. Momoko Ueda (793)

17. Julieta Granada (781)

18. Sandra Gal (698)

19. Ji Young Oh (627)

20. Kristy McPherson (623)

I've played around with different formulae in an attempt to get Inbee into the #2 position in the generation, but in none of them does she pass NYC.  In others, the gap between Ya Ni and Inbee wasn't quite so large, but it was always larger than I expected--something I probably should have, given what Tony Jesselli pointed out about the 2 last week.  The fact of the matter is, we're still in the Tseng Dynasty.  And it may well take longer to topple it than many might believe.