Global Golf Post - November 21, 2011

BRIAN HEWITT

ORLANDO, FLORIDA | Blessedly, the LPGA these days is not a place where a rogue caddie feuds publicly with a controversially erstwhile megastar.

The LPGA is a place blessed to have a dominant player named Yani, whose monstrous future is now, and a budding phenom named Lexi, whose professional future has no horizon.

Fifty-nine of the best women golfers in the world convocated in Florida last week for the season-ending CME Group Titleholders, which paid an eye-widening $500,000 to little-known winner, Hee Young Park.

That number – 59 – is never lost on anybody who pays any attention to women’s golf. It’s the watershed score Annika Sorenstam posted 10 years ago at the Standard Register Ping in Phoenix. And it is arguably the best round ever played by a female.

Annika is gone from the competitive scene now, working and raising a family. Her immediate successor, Lorena Ochoa, is radiantly pregnant in her native Mexico and also retired, for the time being, from the LPGA.

So 22-year-old Yani Tseng, of Taiwan, and 16-year-old Lexi Thompson, of Coral Springs, Fla., are currently the top hit-get-ters if you Google women’s golf.

That may not be fair to major championship winners Suzann Pettersen, Paula Creamer and Cristie Kerr, to name a few. But it’s the reality of the moment.

(And, by he way, I’ve got a dozen brand-
new premium golf balls if you can tell me
the exact date that Michelle Wie’s name
dropped out of this conversation. In her
defense, she did post a top 10 at CME.)

said she “enjoyed” winning a pre-round bet with her caddie that she would shoot

3 under or better in the third round.

Tseng arrived in Orlando with 11 worldwide victories this year, a number even more remarkable when you consider the economy-dented LPGA schedule contained just 13 U.S. events in 2011, down from 24 in 2008.

Proud and powerful world No. 2 Pettersen didn’t hesitate to give Tseng her props.

“You can’t do anything but applaud what
she’s done,” Pettersen said of Tseng’s
season. “It makes me work even harder. I
don’t feel that there’s a huge gap between
me and Yani.”
Women’s golf will benefit in 2012 from a
challenge to Tseng’s current supremacy.

And there are people in high LPGA places rooting for that challenge to come from Thompson, who aside from being gifted at golf, is photogenic and American.

“Think about Jack Nick-
laus and Greg Norman in
their primes, think about
the young Tiger Woods;
It was awe-inspiring
to watch them swing
the club,” respected
instructor Jim McLean
told SI about his star
pupil. “That’s Lexi.

You stand near her
on the tee and you
feel the power.

The sound of the
ball being compressed – wow!”
For her part, Thompson still hasn’t
completely wised up to the fact that an
LPGA career is more work than play. And
that’s nice to see.