It's Crunch Time on the LPGA and Symetra Tour This Week!

The Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic and the Symetra Tour Championship this week will have a huge bearing on who keeps or gains solid LPGA status for the 2015 season and who will have to go to Q-School to improve or secure it.

In a nutshell, those who finish in the top 100 on the 2014 LPGA money list will be able to get as many starts as they want in 2015, as will those who finish in the top 10 on the 2014 Symetra Tour money list.  Those between #101 and #125 on this year's LPGA money list will have a limited number of starts next year, and will probably choose to go to Q-School to improve on their status, while those who finish between #11 and #25 on the Symetra Tour money list will get a free pass into the final stage of Q-School and those who finish outside the top 25 will need to play in Stage II at the end of the month.  With that in mind, let's review the LPGA and Symetra Tour money lists to see who's on the edge.

Let's start with the LPGA:

90. Jaye Marie Green $88.4K
91. Kelly Tan $88.1K [not in Yokohama field]
92. Alison Walshe $85.4K
93. Lindsey Wright $84.7K
94. Kristy McPherson $83.9K
95. Ashleigh Simon $78.3K
96. Yueer Cindy Feng $77.6K
97. Alena Sharp $75.3K
98. Paz Echeverria $75.0K [not in Yokohama field]
99. Jee Young Lee $74.8K
100. Joanna Klatten $72.7K
***
101. Alejandra Llaneza $66.1K
102. Lisa McCloskey $66.0K
103. Chie Arimura $62.8K
104. Hee-Won Han $61.1K [retired]
105. Paula Reto $58.4K
106. Becky Morgan $57.7K
107. Paola Moreno $57.0K
108. Rebecca Lee-Bentham $51.9K
109. Jennifer Kirby $51.7K
110. Felicity Johnson $50.8K

So let's say someone wanted to guarantee she passed Echeverria.  A top-25 finish would be good enough for Llaneza or McCloskey, while Lee-Bentham, Kirby, and Johnson would need more like top-10 finishes.  A top-2 finish would be good enough to leapfrog anyone in the field into the top 100 who wasn't already there, while a top 5 would be good enough for almost everyone.  The only question is how many players from outside the top 100 play well enough to make a move on those near the bottom of it.  To keep their fate in their hands, the most vulnerable players in the top 100--Simon, Feng, Sharp, Lee, and Klatten--need to at least make the cut in Alabama.

On the Symetra Tour, it seems to me that if the purse is the same as last year, then everyone from #8 Kendall Dye on up has already secured their card, no matter what happens this week.  (That's why Yueer Cindy Feng is playing on the LPGA to improve on her #96 position there rather than defending her #6 position on the Symetra Tour money list).  But a top-5 finish from someone fairly far down the money list can have a huge impact on who makes the top 10 and top 25, particularly if those near the edges miss the cut:

9. Mallory Blackwelder $39.5K
10. Veronica Felibert $39.5K
***
11. Sara-Maude Juneau $36.5K
12. Lee Lopez $36.1K
13. Lindy Duncan $36.1K
14. Brittany Altomare $33.9K
15. Demi Runas $33.2K
16. Emily Talley $32.7K
17. Nicole Vandermade $31.9K
18. Olivia Jordan-Higgins $30.9K
19. Laura Gonzalez-Escallon $29.0K
20. Madison Pressel $27.9K
21. Maude-Aimee Leblanc $25.2K
22. Hye-Min Kim $24.9K
23. Daniela Iacobelli $24.2K
24. Jennie Lee $23.6K
25. Rebecca Artis $23.4K
***
26. Jean Reynolds $22.8K
27. Marta Silva $22.3K
28. Molly Aronsson $22.0K
29. Stephanie Na $21.3K
30. Therese Koelbaek $21.3K
31. Calle Neilson $20.1K
32. Megan McChrystal $20.1K [in Yokohama, not Tour Championship, field]
33. Kim Kaufman $19.6K [LPGA card already secured; fighting to make Asian Swing]
34. Casey Grice $19.5K
35. Caroline Powers $19.0K
36. Samantha Richdale $18.2K
37. Katie Kempter $18.1K
38. Madeleine Sheils $17.5K
39. Ashley Tait $17.3K
40. Garrett Phillips $16.1K

McChrystal has decided she has a better shot at improving dramatically on her #133 position on the LPGA money list ($21.8K) than even a win at the Symetra Tour Championship is worth.  Meanwhile, Cheyenne Woods (#58, $12.0K) and Kelly Shon (#71, $8.6K) basically need to win to skip to Stage III of LPGA Q-School, although Cheyenne might get lucky with a solo 2nd.

So keep an eye on these names this week!

Recommended Reading: Year-in-Review Stories

The LPGA has been counting down the top 13 stories of 2013.  What do you think of their choices?  You can tell what I think perhaps by the made-up titles I give them....

#5:  Suzann Pettersen Surfs Solheim Cup Wave to Late-Season LPGA Dominance
#6:  Rain, Rain, Go Away!
#7:  Hi, I'm Inbee Park, and I'm the #7 Story of 2013.  You Heard Me Right.  #7.  Yup.
#8:  Shanshan Feng Wins 1st LPGA Event in Home Country's Mainland with Walkoff Eagle.  And Is #8.
#9:  Look Out, World, Lexi's Learned How to Putt!
#10:  Meet the World #1s of 2013.  You May Have Heard of Them.
#11:  Karrie Webb Wins #39 for Grandma
#12:  Ariya Jutanugarn to Inbee Park:  After You!
#13:  The LPGA's Back, Baby!

Perhaps more imaginative (although it takes a lot of imagination to put Inbee's run for the Grand Slam anywhere but #1!) is bangkokbobby's approach of profiling the top 30 LPGAers and WTAers by pairing the #30, #29, and so on from each sport together.  I won't link to them all, but here are my faves thus far:

#3:  Li Na/Stacy Lewis
#4:  Maria Sharapova/Shanshan Feng
#5:  Agnieszka Radwanska/So Yeon Ryu
#7:  Marion Bartoli/In-Kyung Kim
#9:  Na Yeon Choi/Angelique Kerber
#11:  Paula Creamer/Roberta Vinci
#22:  Ji-Yai Shin/Hsieh Su-Wei
#27:  Ai Miyazato/Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
#28:  Morgan Pressel/Lucie Safarova

So what have been your favorite year-in-review stories?  I found The Sports Network's to be all right (although there was no rock involved in Feng's approach on 18 in China)....  Haven't had time to read Golfweek's multifaceted approach.  But I did enjoy Randall Mell's incredulity that Inbee Park didn't win the AP's Female Athlete of the Year award.

[Update 1 (12/31/13, 10:11 am):  Here are the LPGA's top 4 stories of 2013:

#1: The Year of Inbee
#2: Enter the Ko
#3: Euros Take 1st Solheim Cup on U.S. Soil
#4: Stacy Tames the Road Hole

OK, so move the weather story to #13 and make it clearer that the intermediate Inbee story is just that and I'm pretty ok with this list, as snarky as I was earlier....]

[Update 2 (10:15 am):  Inbee only made #6 in Golf Channel's year-end review.  What do you all think?  Behind "controversy" and "anchored stroke"?!  Come on!]

LPGA Rookie of the Year Race Scenarios

With the top 6 rookies on the LPGA--Caroline Masson, Moriya Jutanugarn, Ayako Uehara, Chie Arimura, Austin Ernst, and Lisa McCloskey--all playing in the Mizuno Classic, Ward Clayton reminds us that the points breakdown for Rookie of the Year is much more generous than for any of the other LPGA points races (say, for Player of the Year or to make the Solheim Cup)--and hence the race is much closer than it may appear.

With a win worth 150 points, a runner-up finish worth 80, the next 3 spots worth 5 fewer points each, 6th through 10th worth 3 fewer points each, 11th through 20th worth 2 fewer points each, and 21st through 40th worth 1 fewer point each, with everyone else making the cut earning 5 points (so that 5th is worth 65 points, 10th is worth 50, 20th 30, 25th 25, 30th 20, 40th 10, and 41st+ 5), Masson can lose her lead to a few of those chasing her and open the door to many in her lead chase pack with a finish of 41st place or worse this week.

Masson's 26-point lead on Jutanugarn can be erased in the following scenarios:

• Jutanugarn win, any Masson finish
• Jutanugarn 2nd, Masson 9th or worse
• Jutanugarn 3rd, Masson 11th or worse
• Jutanugarn 4th, Masson 13th or worse
• Jutanugarn 5th, Masson 16th or worse
• Jutanugarn 6th, Masson 17th or worse
• Jutanugarn 7th, Masson 19th or worse
• Jutanugarn 8th, Masson 20th or worse
• Jutanugarn 9th, Masson 23rd or worse
• Jutanugarn 10th, Masson 26th or worse
• Jutanugarn 11th, Masson 28th or worse
• Jutanugarn 12th, Masson 30th or worse
• Jutanugarn 13th, Masson 32nd or worse
• Jutanugarn 14th, Masson 34th or worse
• Jutanugarn 15th, Masson 36th or worse
• Jutanugarn 16th, Masson 38th or worse
• Jutanugarn 17th, Masson 40th or worse

By contrast, there's only one way Uehara can pass Masson:

• Uehara win, Masson 7th or worse

If Uehara doesn't win, she'll need a lot of help from Masson.  Sure, if Uehara earns a silver and Masson finishes T41 or worse, for instance, Ayako would pull within 15 points of Caroline.  However, the worse Uehara finishes and the better Masson finishes, the more pressure there is on Uehara to drop out of the LPGA ROY race.  Here's why:  if Uehara's Mizuno winnings don't count on the JLPGA money list (which I read somewhere recently but now can't find the source), she'll stay at 51st, one spot out of a guaranteed card for 2014.  Now, she's not entered in Lorena's tournament (where Masson is 1st alternate), but has qualified for the CME Titleholders.  Meanwhile, on the JLPGA, Uehara also hasn't entered next week's Ito-En Ladies.  But to get into the Ricoh Cup, the final JLPGA major of the season, which is contested the week after the Titleholders, she needs to either win on the JLPGA, be in the top 25 on the JLPGA money list, or be ranked in the top 25 of the Rolex Rankings.  So if Uehara doesn't win this week and can't enter the Ito-En late, she's going to need to choose between the Daio Paper Elleair Ladies on the JLPGA and the Titleholders on the LPGA.  In short, it's looking like the only way Uehara has a chance to get 2013 LPGA ROY and keep her dual membership on the LPGA and JLPGA in 2014 is to win the Mizuno this week.  No pressure!

Things are simpler--and strangely enough, a little less pressured this week--for Uehara's fellow LPGA-JLPGA dual member, Chie Arimura, because Arimura has clearly decided to focus on the LPGA in 2014.  No matter how she does in the Mizuno, she won't play in enough events on the JLPGA this season to be eligible for a 2014 card.  Even if Arimura wins this week, qualifies for and wins the Ricoh, and ends up in the top 50 on the JLPGA money list, she will only have 5 JLPGA starts in 2013, whereas you need 8 to have started in at least 20% of the JLPGA's total number of tournaments (36).  So Arimura has this week and the Titleholders to make it to the finish line of the LPGA ROY race in 1st.  Here's what has to happen this week for her to have a chance:

• Arimura win, Masson 41st or worse:  Arimura pulls within 32 points of Masson
• Arimura runner-up, Masson 41st or worse:  Arimura pulls within 102 points of Masson
• Arimura 3rd, Masson 41st or worse: Arimura pulls within 107 points of Masson
• [and so on:  Arimura makes up less ground on Masson if she medals and Masson finishes 40th or better (up to 15th--for more details, see below); Arimura also makes up less ground if she finishes 4th or worse, down to 16th, so long as Masson finishes 41st or worse]

But if Arimura finishes 17th or worse this week, she can't catch Masson (who's guaranteed a minimum of 10 points in her last 2 events), no matter how badly Masson plays.

Things are even simpler for Ernst and McCloskey:  they need to win this week to have a chance to be ROY.  Anything but a win eliminates them from the race.  Plus they'll need help from Masson.  For Ernst, she's eliminated if Masson finishes 5th or better, period.  Even if McCloskey wins (and hence qualifies for the Titleholders), all Masson has to do is finish 28th or better to eliminate her.

Let's continue in this vein and see what else Masson has to do this week to eliminate more of her competition from the race.  If Masson wins the Mizuno, she clinches ROY; anything else keeps Jutanugarn alive.  

Things get a little more complicated with Uehara, who's eliminated in the following scenarios:

• Masson 2nd, Uehara 26th or worse
• Masson 3rd, Uehara 31st or worse
• Masson 4th, Uehara 36th or worse
• Masson 5th, Uehara 41st or worse

If Masson finishes 5th or worse, however, she can't eliminate Uehara.  A 5th-place finish for Masson and a 40th-place finish for Uehara means the best Uehara can do is tie Masson (and force a playoff by scoring average if they are tied for 1st), assuming Masson doesn't get into Lorena's tournament.  That said, the lower down the leaderboard Uehara finishes, the more likely she is to focus on the JLPGA the rest of 2013, even if Masson doesn't statistically eliminate her.

There are even more ways Masson can knock Arimura out of the ROY race this week:

• Masson 2nd-10th, Arimura 2nd or worse
• Masson 11th-13th, Arimura 3rd or worse
• Masson 14th or 15th, Arimura 4th or worse
• Masson 16th-18th, Arimura 5th or worse
• Masson 19th, Arimura 6th or worse
• Masson 20th-22nd, Arimura 7th or worse
• Masson 23rd-25th, Arimura 8th or worse
• Masson 26th-28th, Arimura 9th or worse
• Masson 29th-31st, Arimura 10th or worse
• Masson 32nd or 33rd, Arimura 11th or worse
• Masson 34th or 35th, Arimura 12th or worse
• Masson 36th or 37th, Arimura 13th or worse
• Masson 38th or 39th, Arimura 14th or worse
• Masson 40th, Arimura 15th or worse

It's statistically possible for Arimura and Masson to end the season in a tie (assuming Arimura wins the Titleholders and Masson comes in 41st or worse that week--another scenario in which scoring average is the tie-breaker), if any of the following Arimura/Masson combinations arise this week (and Masson doesn't get into Lorena's tournament):  2nd/11th, 6th/20th, 7th/23rd, 8th/26th, 9th/29th, 10th/32nd, 11th/34th, 12th/36th, 13th/38th, 14th/40th.  But remember, all this is moot if Arimura can't finish 16th or better in the Mizuno.

In short, even if Masson plays badly this week, she can still eliminate all her competition except Jutanugarn, because McCloskey and Ernst still need to win to stay alive, while Uehara needs to win or come very close and Arimura needs to finish 16th or better.  The better Masson plays, the more of her competition she eliminates this week.  A really good week eliminates everyone but Jutanugarn, practically no matter how well they all play.

Kia Classic Sunday: Beatriz Recari Beats In-Kyung Kim in 2-Hole Playoff

OK, so let me get this straight.  World #1 Stacy Lewis was making one of her soon-to-be-patented Sunday charges at the Kia Classic, with 3 birdies in a row over her 1st 4 holes and another on the 10th to get her to -11, but she finished 3 shots out of the playoff between Beatriz Recari and In-Kyung Kim?!  IK herself was -11 with 8 holes to play, bogeyed 3 holes in a row, then offset her 2 birdies in a row with a walkoff bogey and still had a chance to win the tournament?  Recari was having a bad day, with bogeys on the par 3s 6 and 11 to fall back to single digits under par for the week, but fought back to match Kim's birdie on 16--and then also bogeyed 18?  What the heck was going on today on Aviara's back 9?

Yup, Stacy Lewis doubled 11 to fall to -9, bogeyed the par-3 14th to fall to -8, then needed a birdie to have a chance and instead doubled it.  Pornanong Phatlum had a chance to put pressure on the leaders and finish at -10 with a birdie and -9 with a par, so of course she bogeyed it.  Karrie Webb needed a birdie on it to post -9--she bogeyed it, too.  Others did their self-destructive thing a bit earlier in the round.  Mo Martin birdied 5 of her 1st 12 holes to get to -10, but immediately went bogey-par-bogey-bogey, so that her birdie on 17 left her 1 shot out of the playoff.  It was a double on 11 that knocked Cristie Kerr back from -9 to -7 and even though she fought back with a birdie on 16, it was still too little, too late.  Paula Creamer was by no means out of it when she birdied the 10th to get to -8, but she was after she had finished bogeying her next 5 holes in a row.  Lizette Salas and Jane Park were still at -8 pretty late in the day, but moved 1 shot in the wrong direction.  Even Haeji Kang, Suzann Pettersen, and Azahara Munoz had their chances--Kang birdied 5 of her 1st 11 holes to get to -7, but a double bogey-bogey-eagle run left her at -6 for the tournament, while Pettersen had birdied 3 of her 1st 10 holes to fight to -7, but a bogey on 12 and a double on 14 ended her chances and for Munoz, who was also -7 well into the back, it was a double on 13 and a walkoff bogey with made her birdies on 14 and 16 moot.  Even Giulia Sergas, who matched Phatlum's and Kang's 68s for low round of the day, bogeyed a couple of holes midway through the back 9.

This one sounds like it would have been fun to watch, with more cliffhangers than a 15-minute Japanese morning soap opera and more crashes than my '90s-era Macs.  So somebody who saw it, please tell me: how did Recari find a way to win this thing?!