The numbers don\u2019t paint a pretty picture of the state of American women\u2019s golf. In fact, they are almost mind-boggling.<\/p>\n
Consider that before Cristie Kerr won two of the last three tournaments, including Sunday\u2019s LPGA Championship, American players had won just one of the previous 25 events. That included a run of 17 straight wins for international players from May to November of 2009.<\/p>\n
This represents the extreme form of a trend that has been going on for more than a decade\u2014Americans haven\u2019t accounted for more than 11 wins in a season since 1999. First came the two-woman wrecking crew of Sweden\u2019s Annika Sorenstam and Australia\u2019s Karrie Webb. Then Se Ri Pak set off an explosion in women\u2019s golf in Korea, a country that has overwhelmed the LPGA Tour with its depth as well as quality at the top. For good measure, Mexico\u2019s Lorena Ochoa did her dominating thing for a while.<\/p>\n
A look at the 2010 money list tells the story. Just three of the top 15 on the list are Americans. And it\u2019s not just strength at the top. The depth of the pool of strong international players is shown by the fact that just nine of the top 40 are Americans.<\/p>\n
Is this surprising? Not really, when you consider this: How often do you see a teenage girl playing golf? Chances are, very rarely. While teenage boys play the game in fairly large numbers, flooding colleges with good players, many of whom eventually find their way to the Tour, that\u2019s not the case with girls. Women\u2019s college golf has to rely on recruiting international players. That brings many Europeans and girls from other parts of the Americas to the U.S., and many of them end up playing on the LPGA Tour.<\/p>\n
Except perhaps for Sorenstam-fueled growth in Sweden, you wouldn\u2019t say that golf is especially popular for European teenage girls, either. But with a European women\u2019s tour that is not as strong as its men\u2019s tour\u2014there aren\u2019t enough tournaments or high enough purses to make a good living there\u2014European women gravitate to the LPGA Tour.<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s tour is stronger in Japan, which, combined with the language barrier, keeps more Japanese staying at home, though the very best usually try the LPGA Tour. But then there\u2019s the 900-pound gorilla of women\u2019s golf right now, South Korea. That\u2019s the one place where teenage girls are flocking to the game, often at the behest of parents who have dreams of their daughter\u2019s success. Along with a strong work ethic, it\u2019s a recipe for flooding what is essentially a fairly weak market of young women golfers in America with an influx of Koreans.<\/p>\n
With the strength of Asian women\u2019s golf, the fact that the LPGA has become a de facto world tour, and the lack of a strong pipeline of young American players, look for the international flavor to continue. But there\u2019s one area where things look a bit more hopeful for the U.S.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, the United States has not produced a Player of the Year since Beth Daniel in 1994 or a money-list leader since Betsy King in 1993. Those honors have been owned by Sweden\u2019s Sorenstam, Australia\u2019s Webb, Mexico\u2019s Ochoa, England\u2019s Laura Davies, and Korea\u2019s Jiyai Shin.<\/p>\n
The retirement of Ochoa (like that of Sorenstam before her) has left the door open for a new No. 1. Indeed, Kerr took over the top spot in the Rolex World Ranking with her LPGA Championship victory. She\u2019s second on the money list to Japan\u2019s Ai Miyazato, who has won four times, but Kerr is within $60,000 because she has played more consistently.<\/p>\n
Kerr was certainly impressive in winning the LPGA by 12 strokes, the largest victory in a women\u2019s major since the 1949 U.S. Women\u2019s Open. She\u2019s always carried herself with the outward confidence of somebody who thinks she can be No. 1, but it must be said that her play down the stretch of big tournaments has not always matched her bravado. Kerr gave away the Women\u2019s Open last year and also missed a good chance at the Kraft Nabisco (she does own the 2007 Women\u2019s Open title as well as the 2010 LPGA among 14 victories). She finished second on the money list last year, so she doesn\u2019t need to step it up all that much in order to reach the top.<\/p>\n
Nor is she the sole American with a reasonable chance of becoming No. 1. There\u2019s Michelle Wie, of course, who seemed inexorably headed in that direction at the ages of 15 and 16 when she was finishing in the top five in about half of the LPGA events she entered. Then came the horrible slump, brought on by injury and extended by a loss of confidence.<\/p>\n
Wie eventually re-discovered her game\u2014but not quite the magic of her early-teen years. Since joining the Tour full-time in 2009, she has morphed into a steady player, one who can be counted on to finish around 20th most weeks and occasionally contend. Only once has she come through with a victory, that coming near the end of the 2009 season. So far this year, she\u2019s 15th on the money list. That\u2019s OK, but not what we had in mind for her five years ago (then again, it\u2019s better than her detractors would have predicted two years ago). Still, she\u2019s only 20 years old and with a few more refinements could reach the top.<\/p>\n
A third American with a real chance at Player of the Year and money list titles in the near future is Paula Creamer. Probably not this year, though, since a thumb injury caused her to withdraw from the first tournament of the season and miss the next seven. That\u2019s on the heels of a winless 2009 when she was plagued by a mysterious stomach ailment for much of the year. But let\u2019s not forget that Creamer won eight times in her first four years on Tour, 2005-8, and three times finished in the top three on the money list. If she hadn\u2019t joined the Tour at a time when first Sorenstam and then Ochoa were dominating, she might have claimed a money title already. And she doesn\u2019t even turn 24 until next month.<\/p>\n
Another member of what promises to be a strong generation of American golfers is Morgan Pressel, who just turned 22. Based on her first four years on the Tour, she\u2019s not as much of a threat to be No. 1 (best money-list rank of ninth) but looks poised to be a solid player for years to come (never out of the top 25 on the money list so far). And here\u2019s a good time to give her some credit for winning a tournament in Japan with a strong international field earlier in the year in the midst of the American drought on the LPGA Tour.<\/p>\n
Of course, there\u2019s been so much buzz about these players for several years that there might be a sense of disappointment that they haven\u2019t done more to stem the international stampede to the LPGA winner\u2019s circle. But it\u2019s good to remember how young they still are. Now that they have some experience, and Ochoa is out of the way, it could be their time to shine, along with the 32-year-old Kerr.<\/p>\n
The tide of Asian women shows no signs of abating. They will continue to have strength in numbers, and there are three with a good chance at challenging for No. 1\u2014Korea\u2019s Shin, Taiwan\u2019s Yani Tseng, and Japan\u2019s Ai Miyazato. But there\u2019s a good chance that, for a change, there will be some Americans keeping them company at the top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"