Ji-Yai Shin to Focus on JLPGA in 2014

Courtesy of the Seoul Sisters.com message boards, I came across this story from the Yonhap News that Ji-Yai Shin will be spending most of her time on the JLPGA next season.  According to the article, she'll still play the 12 LPGA events required to be eligible for membership in 2015, but will be making the JLPGA her primary tour for 2014.

Although this goes against the grain of the trend I just identified of formerly dual LPGA-JLPGA members deciding to focus exclusively on the LPGA, I can see why Shin is making this decision.  She can play 20+ events in Japan and have a legitimate chance of contending in most of them, which will be great for her confidence and competitive edge.  She can play more 54-hole events and travel much shorter distances, which will be great for the fatigue issues cited in the Yonhap story.  She'll be much closer to friends and family in South Korea, as well, and can also enter the occasional KLPGA event without changing time zones.

If all goes well, Shin can revitalize her game on the JLPGA like Inbee Park and Shanshan Feng have done in recent years.  And if her comeback comes quicker than expected, there's no reason she can't add more LPGA events to her 2014 schedule than currently planned.  With 9 LPGA events in the Asia-Pacific region and 5 majors, there are plenty of obvious candidates, but it would be easy to put together a worldwide schedule that minimizes travel and maximizes wins and winnings potential.  Conceivably, she could play all February on the LET and LPGA, all March on the JLPGA (perhaps playing the LPGA's Kia Classic at the end of the month), compete in the Kraft Nabisco Championship in early April, take a break in Hawaii and wait till the LOTTE, then stay on the JLPGA except for trips to the U.S. Women's Open in June, the Ricoh Women's British Open in July, the Wegmans LPGA Championship in August, and the Evian Championship in September, and finally take her pick from among the LPGA's 6 Asian swing events in the fall to round out her schedule.  If she's in the hunt for season-ending LPGA titles and the Hall of Fame points that go with them, she can play more of them and add Lorena's event and the CME to her schedule; if she's got a better chance to win the JLPGA money-list title, she can play the minimum required to get to 12 starts and keep her LPGA card for 2015.

I'll be very interested in comparing and contrasting Shin's approach to scheduling in 2014 with fellow dual-LPGA-JLPGA members Shanshan Feng and Momoko Ueda.  I would hope that Feng realizes she is a legitimate pre-season favorite for LPGA end-of-season honors in 2014 and makes the LPGA her primary tour.  I wouldn't be surprised if Ueda frontloads her LPGA schedule and doesn't play on the JLPGA until May or return to the LPGA until the fall Asian swing (except for the occasional LPGA major she qualifies for).

[Update 1 (1:42 pm):  More on this tomorrow, but it's looking like Momoko Ueda won't be playing on the LPGA in 2014 much, if at all.  With Harukyo Nomura doing the opposite and choosing the LPGA over the JLPGA, that leaves just Shin and Feng as dual LPGA-JLPGA members, although it should be noted that Teresa Lu's Mizuno Classic victory means she will also be a dual member next season....]

[Update 2 (10:18 pm):  Clark Miyazaki tweeted me a link to a longer Yonhap story on Shin's decision.  It notes that her sponsorship with Mirae Asset ends this February and will not be renewed, so she'll be seeking a Japanese sponsor in 2014.  And it emphasizes that between exhaustion and injuries to her back and wrist, the 25-year-old has been pulled thin by her hemisphere-hopping.]

[Update 3 (12/22/13, 11:07 am):  Thoughtful response from Ruthless Mike.]

[Update 4 (1/15/14, 9:34 am):  Well, Shin's name no longer appears on the 2014 LPGA Priority Status List.  She's focusing exclusively on the JLPGA in 2014!]

Will the U.S. Women's Open Jinx Cost Inbee Park Player of the Year?

That the U.S. Women's Open jinx exists--and that it's many orders of magnitude worse than the Mostly Harmless jinx--is beyond question.  Just ask Hilary Lunke or Birdie Kim.  Even better, ask Eun-Hee Ji and Paula Creamer.  Ji won in 2009 for her 2nd LPGA career victory--and is still waiting for #3.  Creamer won it the very next year at Oakmont very soon after returning to action after surgery--and hasn't won since on the LPGA.  Even So Yeon Ryu and Na Yeon Choi, USWO winners in the next 2 years, went through little dry spells before returning to the winner's circle (although Choi's was probably the shortest on record!).  Heck, even Annika took 10 years to win her third USWO after winning it twice in a row in the mid-'90s.

Inbee Park understands the USWO jinx very well, having fallen victim to it very early in her LPGA career.  She made the USWO her 1st LPGA victory in 2008, went through a drought that lasted until the Evian in 2012, and most recently won it again for her 9th career win on the LPGA, her 3rd major and 3rd win in a row, and her 6th in 2013.  And she's been stuck on those numbers ever since.  It's not just that she's been a little bit off.  Nor has she been uniformly terrible.  She's been all over the place.  But her only good finishes since then have been a top 10 on the KLPGA, a top 3 in China, and a runner-up finish last Sunday again on the KLPGA.  In other words, only 1 of her 3 good finishes since winning the 2013 USWO have netted her any serious points in the LPGA's Player of the Year race.  That's a 1 for 8 top-10 rate since the USWO win, as opposed to an 8 for 13 rate up to it in 2013 (12.5% vs. 61.5%).  In short, those 4 top 10s that Inbee didn't get since the USWO could have virtually locked up the POY race for her (depending on how high she would have finished).

But that's in the past.  The issue now is how to break the USWO jinx.  Given that NYC beat the jinx by winning the CME Titleholders in the same year she won the USWO, my advice for Inbee is to shadow her for a couple of weeks and really pick her brain.  Either that, or hang out with Eun-Hee Ji and Paula Creamer a lot and hope her jinx is swallowed up by theirs.  The good news is, Inbee has overcome the jinx before, so maybe she's developed a resistance to it.  All I know is, she doesn't have 4 years to get out from under it.  More like less than 4 weeks!

Can You Imagine Any Scenario in Which Inbee Park Should Not Win Player of the Year?

There's an interesting debate going on over in PGA Tour-land over who should be their Player of the Year.  There are a couple of main reasons why the LPGA Tour does not tend to engender similar debates.  First of all, the LPGA uses a points system, so even when the race has been close close (as when Lorena Ochoa beat Ji-Yai Shin out by a single point in 2009 or when Ya Ni Tseng had only 6 points of separation on Cristie Kerr, 8 on Na Yeon Choi, 9 on Ai Miyazato, and 18 on Ji-Yai Shin the following year), the winner was clear.  Second, in most years a dominant player emerges and often repeats (as evidenced by the number of times Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa, and Ya Ni Tseng have been POY in the 2000s--every year but 2000 [Karrie Webb] and 2012 [Stacy Lewis]), thus making debate pointless.

It seemed like this year was going to be another walk in the park for the eventual winner.  Stacy Lewis picked up where she left off last season.  But then Inbee Park started winning...and winning...and winning...and winning one major after another.  With 6 wins, 3 of them majors, it seems pretty obvious that Inbee would succeed Stacy as the 2013 POY.  But then Stacy won the Women's British Open and Suzann Pettersen brought her victory and major totals even with Stacy with 2 wins in the last 2 LPGA events, including the newly-majorized Evian Championship.  So now Inbee has 281 POY points, Suzann has 204, and Stacy has 183.  In a system where a win earns you 30 points, a runner-up gets you 12, 3rd 9, 4th 7, 5th 6, 6th 5, and so on down to 10th (1 point), Inbee has not clinched POY.

But should she have?  Can you imagine any scenario where someone who wins 3 majors and 3 other tournaments in a single season should not be POY?  I can't.

[Update 1 (11:47 pm):  Ward Clayton over at LPGA.com agrees with me that the POY race is not over, although he sounds a little more sanguine about the possibility of Suzanne or Stacy stealing it on a technicality from Inbee than I'm feeling.]

What If the KLPGA and JLPGA Were Allowed to Field Teams for the Solheim Cup?

I don't think anyone needed to know that there are only 6 Americans and 3 Europeans in the top 25 of my ranking of the best careers from among those in the LPGA rookie classes of 2005 through 2013 to convince them that the Solheim Cup won't be featuring close to all the world's best female golfers.  After all, we knew over a decades ago that the likes of Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak, and Grace Park were unable to play in the Solheim Cup when they were regularly duelling with Annika Sorenstam to be the best player in the world of women's golf.

But maybe we can use my ranking in conjunction with the better-known ones out there to play a little game of "what if?"  Today, there are only 5 Americans and 5 Europeans in the top 25 of the current Rolex Rankings, which weights performances on 6 professional tours over the past 2 calendar years, and in the current Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, which uses a different method of comparing golfers on 4 tours over the past calendar year.  Let's take a look at the actual teams first.  Generally speaking, if someone is playing the best golf of their career this year, they should be highest-ranked in the GSPI, followed by the RR, and then by the MH.  If they're playing better this year than last but still worse than their career norms, then their GSPI ranking would be higher than their RR ranking but lower than their MH ranking.  If their rookie years were before 2005 or they were never LPGA members, they don't appear in my ranking, so you'll just have to rely on the relation between the GSPI and RR and their most recent performances instead.  I'm listing the players from hottest to coldest, in my judgment, on Team USA and Team Euro.

Team USA [Captain: Meg Mallon]
Stacy Lewis (#3 GSPI, #2 RR, #6 MH)
Paula Creamer (#6 GSPI, #11 RR, #4 MH)
Angela Stanford (#20 GSPI, #16 RR,  n.r. MH)
Lizette Salas (#15 GSPI, #19 RR, #29 MH)
Jessica Korda (#26 GSPI, #28 RR, #31 MH)
Cristie Kerr (#12 GSPI, #12 RR, n.r. MH)
Morgan Pressel (#122 GSPI, #41 RR, #12 MH)
Gerina Piller (#34 GSPI, #57 RR, #47 MH)
Lexi Thompson ( #35 GSPI, #26 RR, #21 MH)
Brittany Lang (#69 GSPI, #50 RR, #27 MH)
Michelle Wie (#109 GSPI, #82 RR, #13 MH)
Brittany Lincicome (#76 GSPI, #38 RR, #10 MH)

I modified the results you'd get from rankings alone by taking into account that Lewis is coming off a win and 3 other top 7s in her last 5 starts, Stanford snapped a 3-event top-5 run with a jet-lag-induced T17 at the WBO, Creamer has finished T13 or better in 7 of her last 9 starts, and Pressel has 6 top-26 finishes in her last 8 starts, including 2 top 5s.

Team Euro [Captain: Liselotte Neumann]
Suzann Pettersen (#9 GSPI, #3 RR, n.r. MH)
Catriona Matthew (#14 GSPI, #8 RR, n.r. MH)
Beatriz Recari (#16 GSPI, #20 RR, #22 MH)
Anna Nordqvist (#18 GSPI, #22 RR, #11 MH)
Karine Icher (#17 GSPI, #24 RR, n.r. MH)
Charley Hull (#77 GSPI, #147 RR, n.r. MH)
Carlota Ciganda (#57 GSPI, #30 RR, #28 MH)
Jodi Ewart Shadoff (#63 GSPI, #45 RR, #39 MH)
Caroline Hedwall ( #30 GSPI, #29 RR, #35 MH)
Azahara Munoz (#36 GSPI, #26 RR, #20 MH)
Guilia Sergas (#92 GSPI, #62 RR, n.r. MH)
Caroline Masson (#147 GSPI, #58 RR, n.r. MH)

I'd say it's a toss-up between the 2 teams, with maybe a slight advantage to Team USA based on recent play and home-country advantage.  But how do you think they would stack up against the following hypothetical teams?

Seoul Sisters [Captain: Se Ri Pak]
Inbee Park (#1 GSPI, #1 RR,  #5 MH)
Na Yeon Choi (#4 GSPI, #4 RR, #3 MH)
So Yeon Ryu ( #5 GSPI, #5 RR, #7 MH)
In-Kyung Kim (#10 GSPI, #9 RR, #9 MH)
Ji-Yai Shin (#11 GSPI, #10 RR, #2 MH)
Hee Young Park (#28 GSPI, #15 RR, #18 MH)
Amy Yang (#22 GSPI, #23 RR, #23 MH)
Mi-Jeong Jeon (#23 GSPI, #25 RR, n.r. MH)
Sun-Ju Ahn (#19 GSPI, #34 RR, n.r. MH)
Hyo-Joo Kim (n.r. GSPI, #32 RR, n.r. MH)
Sun Young Yoo (#43 GSPI, #33 RR, #25 MH)
Ha-Na Jang (n.r. GSPI, #43 RR, n.r. MH)

Assuming 8 picks go to the LPGA and 2 each to the KLPGA and JLPGA, that's the team I'd put together.  But even if some from among the LPGA's Chella Choi, Haeji Kang, Ilhee Lee, and Hee Kyung Seo, the KLPGA's Ha Neul Kim and Soo-Jin Yang, and the JLPGA's Bo-Mee Lee get shuffled in for whatever reason (maybe Pak would want to go with a 7 LPGA/3 KLPGA/2 JLPGA mix?), anybody picked would still be inside the top 50 of the Rolex Rankings!  So obviously the Seoul Sisters are the strongest team on paper, although they might not have dominated as much as expected if Shin, Yang, Jeon, Ahn, and Yoo wouldn't have played better than they have been lately.

Now, how about the team from Japan?

Nadeshiko Japan II [Captain: Yuri Fudoh]
Ai Miyazato (#21 GSPI, #13 RR, #8 MH)
Rikako Morita (#27 GSPI, #33 RR, n.r. MH)
Miki Saiki (#32 GSPI, #37 RR, n.r. MH)
Mika Miyazato (#25 GSPI, #17 RR, #14 MH)
Chie Arimura (#44 GSPI, #36 RR, #34 MH)
Mamiko Higa ( #119 GSPI, #44 RR, n.r. MH)
Yumiko Yoshida (#52 GSPI, #66 RR, n.r. MH)
Natsuka Hori (#104 GSPI, #65 RR, n.r. MH)
Sakura Yokomine (#29 GSPI, #51 RR, n.r. MH)
Ayako Uehara (#59 GSPI, #83 RR, #44 MH)
Ritsuko Ryu (#73 GSPI, #69 RR, n.r. MH)
Momoko Ueda (#110 GSPI, #118 RR, #33 MH)

I'm assuming here that Ueda would make the team on a similar rationale as Wie made Team USA, but Shiho Oyama, Hiromi Mogi, Junko Omote, and Yukari Baba are playing better than her right now among the JLPGA's veterans and there are plenty of youngsters, including Kumiko Kaneda, Mayu Hattori, Yuki Ichinose, Maiko Wakabayashi, Asako Fujimoto, Kaori Ohe, Erika Kikuchi, and Harukyo Nomura, who could also take her place--and maybe even Uehara's.  On paper, then, Nadeshiko Japan II would be the weakest team--and momentum would not be on their side, as their biggest names are not playing the same world-class golf as the top players on the other teams right now.

Given that imbalance, I can see a case being made for turning the Seoul Sisters into Team Asia (bringing in Shanshan Feng--and, in the future, assuming she recovers well from shoulder surgery, Ariya Jutanugarn) and turning Nadeshiko Japan II into Team Pacific (bringing in Karrie Webb and Ya Ni Tseng, and giving Candie Kung, Lindsey Wright, Mariajo Uribe, Katherine Hull-Kirk, and Teresa Lu fighting chances to make the team--and, in the future, Lydia Ko).  But I'm not sure trying to dilute Korea-Japan nationalistic tensions by bringing in a China-Taiwan edge to the matches wouldn't actually play worse politically.  And picking captains and teams for both these golfing confederations would certainly be complicated by nationalism that seems somewhat more intense than what must be going on behind closed doors in the LET.  (At least they already have an EU, right?)  I suppose you could keep Japan and Korea as they are and let the ALPG and LAGT create 12-player teams of their own, but they'd clearly be the weakest of the bunch and China would eventually want to break away from the LAGT and create their own team, leaving the rest of Asia in the cold.  Hence, I can't see a viable short-term alternative to teams from the top 2 tours and countries in the world of women's golf who are excluded from the Solheim Cup being drawn into it.  In short, I still like my idea of turning the Solheim Cup into a 4-way match, in even-numbered years having the top-ranked team play the bottom-ranked team and in odd-numbered years having the winners face off and the losers face off (which would establish who plays whom in the next even-numbered year).  It's too late this year, but in 2014 it could be Seoul Sisters vs. Nadeshiko Japan II and Team USA vs. Team Euro!

Well, it could if the LPGA hadn't created the biennial International Crown, which relies on the Rolex Rankings to select 8 4-player national teams for match-play extravaganzas that are guaranteed to take place in 2014 and 2016.  (Click here to download the details--this season determines which countries will compete in its premiere in 2014!)  If it takes off, I don't see where there's room on the schedule to expand the Solheim Cup (as I'm suggesting) or clone it (as Brent Kelley suggested a while ago when he basically called for the Lexus Cup to be revived), much less create a World Cup-style event that feeds into the Olympics, as I proposed in 2009.  I wouldn't mind, because fielding a 4-person team is a much lower barrier to entry for established golfing powers like Sweden, Australia, and England and newer ones like Spain and Thailand.  The top 4 players in most of the top countries are pretty evenly matched and the format is awesome.  So I'm hoping it will take off.

If I had to bet, I'd say that for the rest of this decade we'll see the Solheim Cup joined by the International Crown and the Olympics.  And that's a huge step forward from where we are now.  Not to take anything away from the Solheim Cup, which is a great competition and will only get better as Europe's young stars mature, but professional women's golf has been planetary for decades and it's long past time we have team events that showcase everyone's excellence.

[Update 1 (2:24 am):  Almost done doing laundry and imagine my surprise that Karen Krouse agrees with me that the Solheim Cup needs to enter the 21st century!]