The penultimate event of the year on the LPGA is layered with interest.
The penultimate event of the year on the LPGA is layered with interest as some players fight for spots in the lucrative CME Group Tour Championship while others fight for their jobs.
There’s great emphasis on the 60th spot of the CME points list, the cutoff point for the season-ending event with the $7 million purse. What’s even more impactful for many players, however, is the 100th spot. The top 100 players on the points list maintain full cards for the 2024 season. The top 80 receive the best status available.
Midway leader Emily Kristine Pedersen holds a two-stroke lead at The Annika driven by Gainbridge after rounds of 63-65 put her at 12 under at Pelican Golf Club. Pedersen entered the week 80th on the CME list and is projected to move to 34th should she triumph for the first time on the LPGA. While winning will require a good bit of work, Pedersen is in fine shape to jump into the top 60.
Emily Kristine Pedersen plays her shot from the third tee during the second round of the 2023 Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican at Pelican at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida. (Photo: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)
The Dane had plenty of memorable moments at the Solheim Cup in Spain this year, including an ace, and carried that fire into the regular season.
“I think I haven’t really been good at cheering on myself in normal tournaments,” she said. “I’m kind of like getting annoyed about the bad things, but when the good things happen I take it for granted a little bit.
“So I have been trying to pat myself on the back a little bit more when I’m doing something good, and that’s definitely something I’m taken from the Solheim.”
Minami Katsu, who currently sits in second, also hopes to vault into the top 60. Currently 78th on the points list, she’s projected to move to No. 49 should she remain in that position.
Meanwhile, Muni He, who is rocketing up the board, is in a fight for full status. Players who finish 81st to 100th on the CME list fall into Category 11 on the LPGA priority list, which is used to fill fields. He started the week 113th and is tied for fourth after two days at The Annika. He is currently projected to move up to 92nd on the money list.
Those who fall between Nos. 101 to 125 on the list will be in Category 16 next season. Some players who finish outside the top 100 will go to Q-Series later this year to improve their status. The top 45 finishers from Q-Series fall in Categories 14 and 15 and are listed in the order they finish.
Here are five notables currently battling for full status:
Next week’s Aramco Saudi Ladies International features a stellar field and a $5 million purse, now the highest prize fund in women’s golf outside of the majors and the LPGA’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. Up from $1 million last season, the women’s purse now matches that of the men’s Saudi International, won last week by Abraham Ancer.
Many of the best players in the women’s game will make their 2023 season debut next week, including World No. 1 Lydia Ko, Lexi Thompson, Atthaya Thitikul and In Gee Chun. In all, 13 major winners have entered.
The 120-player field will feature 60 Ladies European Tour players, 50 from the top 300 in the Rolex Rankings and 10 sponsor invites. The event, which is presented by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, takes place Feb. 16-19 at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club. The winner will receive $750,000.
Other notable players who have committed include Danielle Kang, Nasa Hataoka, Yuka Saso, Maria Fassi, Hyo-Joo Kim, Hannah Green and Andrea Lee.
The LET’s Saudi-backed events remain controversial given the wide-ranging human rights abuses Saudi Arabia has been accused of, especially toward women.
The 13 major winners in the Saudi Ladies International field boast 18 major titles between them.
While the purse is significant for every player in the field, it’s especially impactful for those with only LET status as well as those who have limited starts before the LPGA’s first full-field event of the season in late March.
The LPGA is in the midst of a month-long break before staging back-to-back limited-field events in Thailand and Singapore.
Here’s a closer look at the 10 players who received sponsor invitations and are entered into the field, which includes a wide mix of veterans and up-and-comers:
Like the rest of the country, reactions from LPGA players competing at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship were mixed.
BETHESDA, Md. – Mariah Stackhouse was in the middle of her second round at the KPMG Women’s PGA when news broke that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that had given women the constitutional right to have an abortion in the United States for nearly 50 years. The decision is now up to individual states.
Like the rest of the country, reactions from LPGA players competing at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship – on the outskirts of Washington at Congressional Country Club – were mixed.
Stackhouse exhaled deeply before sharing her thoughts on the court’s 6-3 vote to uphold Mississippi’s law banning most abortions after 15 weeks.
“It’s incredibly disheartening that in 2022, women’s rights are being taken away,” said Stackhouse. “With the makeup of everything right now, the makeup of the court, I just don’t really see a brighter side. You’ve got to hope that there’s still some fight left in us, and we can figure this out as a country.”
Mariah Stackhouse hits her tee shot on the ninth hole during the first round for the 2022 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club on June 23, 2022, in Bethesda, Maryland. (Photo by Darren Carroll/PGA of America)
Amy Olson described the moment as huge and said one of the fundamental responsibilities of government is to protect human lives.
“Now states have the opportunity to protect every life,” said Olson. “They haven’t had the option to do that in almost 50 years.
“For those who say this hurts women, my question to them is — when does a woman’s life begin? If we can’t answer that question, how can we even have a conversation about women’s rights?”
Amy Olson during the first round of the Palos Verdes Championship Presented by Bank of America at Palos Verdes Golf Club on April 28, 2022, in Palos Verdes Estates, California. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Muni He, a U.S.-based player who was born in China and played collegiately at USC, took to Instagram to voice her frustrations.
“I simply do not understand how this is happening in our world, our country today,” He wrote. “I feel nothing but pure rage and sadness. Sick to my stomach.”
Fellow USC grad Allisen Corpuz was also disappointed to hear the court’s decision.
“I just think it’s really disappointing,” said Corpuz. “As a woman, I think it’s part of women’s healthcare just to have the right to your own body. It just feels like there’s been a lot of progress made … even going into pretty recent history of women getting the right to vote. It just kind of feels like we’re taking a step backwards.”
Katherine Kirk said she wasn’t surprised by the ruling.
“From a constitutional standpoint,” Kirk told Golfweek, “there are no provisions for abortion and the justices obviously wanted to uphold that. As a Christian, I believe all lives are important and, regardless where you stand, the Supreme Court didn’t make abortion illegal today, they simply gave the power to states to decide.”
LPGA player Muni He chatted about a race-car driving documentary that brought her out of a slump, the quest for distance and her pet bunnies.
Muni He took an early-morning call from Golfweek on Tuesday on her way to practice at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California. The 21-year-old LPGA player is gearing up for her first start of the 2021 season at the Gainbridge LPGA event in Orlando, Florida.
The former USC player has one of the largest social media followings on tour, but her boyfriend, Formula One driver Alex Albon, actually has a bigger one. Muni chatted with Golfweek about the race-car driving documentary that brought her out of a golf slump, the quest for distance and her adorable pet bunnies.
Here are excerpts from that conversation:
We’ll start with something I’ve been meaning to ask. Who calls you Muni and who calls you Lily, and which do you prefer?
Honestly, I’m OK with either. I feel like in golf, obviously if it’s on TV they always call me Muni but when I introduce myself, I tend to use Lily and all my friends and family call me Lily. I wish I had just gone with one or the other, and I really like Muni. But now it’s kind of like all complicated.
Does Muni mean anything?
It’s Buddhist. It’s actually the name of a temple and a Buddha, where my parents went to go pray for me. So I was kind of named after that temple/Buddha.
Oh, that’s beautiful. Speaking of family, how is your family in China? Have you been back since the 2019 holiday season?
No, I haven’t been back. You know my parents, they live in Los Angeles, so we’ve been fortunate that we’ve been able to be together. But my grandparents on my mom’s side are still in China and I think we FaceTime a lot more now. It seems like life is kind of back to normal for them, but at the beginning it was pretty tough.
You got a late start in 2020, playing in your first event in July. How would you describe last year and what positives can you take from it?
Last year was kind of a blur. It went by so quickly, it felt like a minute. It wasn’t my best year I would say, both mentally and physically. It probably wouldn’t have been for a lot of other people as well. Toward the end of 2019, I really started to realize that if you did want to perform, if you did want to be happy in life, you kind of have to put your mental health first. I think the thing that came out of last year was a lot of people realized that as well.
I think so. I was quite lonely in quarantine. I was back at my parents’ house and my parents kind of lived in the middle of nowhere. I’ve always been a rabbit person. When I was young, I used to rescue rabbits from the market in China.
How many do you have?
I have two rabbits. They’re siblings. The boys is named Turbo and the girl is Birdie.
Did you pick up any new hobbies during break?
In the beginning I tried everything. I picked up guitar again, I got a keyboard. Everything I did as a kid, I was like oh I have so much free time to pick back up. But toward the end of it, especially when we started to travel, I had less time. I wish I did take advantage a little bit more of the time, but I think most of the time I just watched a lot of Netflix.
You have a large Instagram audience with over 350,000 followers. But your boyfriend (Formula One driver Alex Albon) has nearly 1 million followers. How did you two meet and how do you two make it work traveling the world for work?
When we first met, I had more followers than him (laughs). Just seeing his growth, I’m so happy for him. It’s really incredible.
We met because, this is going to sound extremely bizarre but it makes me feel like the world is so small after all, back in 2019 I was in a slump. I was in a really bad place mentally. It was my rookie year and I wasn’t playing well at all. This was before I saw Lynn (Marriott) and Pia (Nilsson). A friend of mine convinced me to watch a (Formula One) documentary on Netflix called “Drive to Survive.” They said, ‘I think you’d really like it. It helps you to see another perspective of a sport that’s under so much pressure.’ So I watched the whole entire season in one day. I know as bizarre as this might sound, it got me really motivated in golf instantly.
Naturally I wanted to learn more about the sport … I started following (Alex) and really didn’t think that much of it. He said he had a pretty small following. Well, by small he meant around 190,000 to 200,000. But he saw me, and he was really getting into golf at the same time I was getting into his sport. He was watching a lot of YouTube videos and golf on TV, so then he followed me. I guess that’s how we technically met.
We started talking on the phone. We were both rookies in 2019 and I thought that was extremely cool. Eventually he had an event in the States and afterwards, he and his friend took a little break in LA and that’s how we properly met for the first time. I know it’s a long story, but everyone is always asking how in the world did you guys meet? Small world.
You guys are witty on Instagram. How much did your humor connect you two?
He’s a really funny person. I think when we first met, British humor is slightly different. It took me a while to catch on.
Have you tried race car driving at all?
I grew up with two godbrothers and a lot of my friends were guys. I was really into cars ever since high school and middle school. … We would watch ‘Top Gear’ growing up. We would go to car shows every week. But weirdly, Formula One, I was not aware of it at all. I think I was stuck on cars we drive versus motorsports.
When I was in high school, I went on one of those experience things but that’s about it. Not on track with Alex. But the way that Alex drives, sometimes I feel like I’m on a giant racetrack. So I think I’ve had enough.
When did you get cranking again for this season and what’s your main focus?
I started training toward the end of December. A part of me is a little bit intimidated, just by the whole COVID situation. As we now know, anything is possible. It just seems like looking at the schedule there are a lot of unknowns, for example our Asia swing is earlier in the year. … My goal is really just to find a balance of what I feel like I should be doing, what I think is best for my game and trusting my own instincts a lot more.
Do you have a mental coach?
I work with Vision54. They put a lot of emphasis on how you feel on the course. They think it should be positive and happy. It’s been a tremendous help for me for the past year or so. It’s aligned with everything I believe in.
We sometimes see Ariya Jutanugarn (another Vision54 student) smiling before she hits a shot. Do you have any triggers that remind you to get in that zone?
I actually write down encouragement on my green sheet or yardage book on every single hole. I used to write down, “you missed a left-to-right 5-footer,” or “you pushed that drive.” Now I would write down “that was really good speed on that putt.” I write down something positive on every hole and it actually cuts my memory shorter and makes me a little bit more focused and positive about what’s in front of me versus overthinking.
Muni He of China hits a tee shot during Round 3 of 2019 Buick LPGA Shanghai at Shanghai Qizhong Garden Golf Club. (Photo by Yifan Ding/Getty Images)
Who’s the most interesting person you’ve played with at your home club, Sherwood?
Oh, I feel like I play with so many interesting people … but if we were speaking of someone people might know more, (hip-hop artist) ScHoolboy Q, I would consider him a good friend at this point. He’s just one of the most interesting and nicest guys I’ve ever met. The fact that he loves golf and brings a very young and cool vibe into golf, that’s extremely cool and admirable.
Are you still trying to get length, or do you feel like you’re where you need to be now?
No, I think that’s another part of trusting myself more and believing in myself more. I’m not really chasing distance anymore. I think the good thing about spending the last two years chasing distance is that I’ve gained a bit of distance, although I might not be the longest hitter on tour, I feel like I could say I’m kind of average. That will do for me. Now it’s just more the consistency, the putting, the short game that I’m really trying to take to another level.
It is so tempting though because the courses on the LPGA are getting longer and longer.
Three LPGA events came off the calendar due to concern over the coronavirus outbreak, leaving players with an unexpected month off.
When Muni He triumphed at LPGA Q-Series last November, she seized control of something every professional golfer holds dear: her schedule. Being able to sign up for an event and not have to rely on the streaky nature of Monday qualifiers and the luck of the alternate list feels like a luxury for young players on the highest stage.
He, 20, decided early on that she’d skip the first three LPGA tournaments that she was eligible for and start 2020 on a three-week stretch in Asia, playing off of sponsor exemptions in limited-field events in Thailand and Singapore and the Blue Bay LPGA in her native China.
No one could’ve predicted that her first three starts would be canceled due to threats from the coronavirus. That control He worked so hard for went up in a puff of smoke. She’ll now make her first start of 2020 in late March at the LPGA event in Phoenix.
“I’m really trying hard not to stress,” He said by phone from London. Her original plans included a stop first in London to see friends. She decided to go ahead and make that trip and play Wentworth for a few days before heading back to Los Angeles to practice.
But not over-practice. Or overthink. It’s so difficult not to do both or either with so much unplanned time on the calendar.
Golfers live by the calendar. Natalie Gulbis used to literally schedule her sleep for the year, going to bed at 9 p.m. and rising at 5 a.m. Probably still does.
Danielle Kang said she was devastated to learn that her next three events had been canceled but agrees with the decision to put safety first. The Asian events are among her favorite on tour. Kang said she hasn’t had seven weeks off since high school.
“I honestly have no plans,” said Kang, who skipped the Australian swing. There’s now a four-week gap between tournaments on the LPGA schedule.
After having some time to let the news soak in, the World No. 5 started to view the unexpected break as a good thing. Kang didn’t have much of an offseason over the winter and found herself feeling tired at the first two events of the year in Florida. The idea of getting into a routine for a long period of time in Las Vegas started to sound appealing.
“I only have four weeks left!” said Kang, uttering an unheard phrase this time of year.
At the start of the week in Australia, Inbee Park was lamenting over the fact that she so often can’t buy groceries at home like a regular person because she’s not there long enough to eat them.
After collecting her 20th career LPGA victory at the ISPS Handa Australian Women’s Open, Inbee Park headed home to South Korea, where she can buy as much as she wants in the produce section with a month off. Park hadn’t originally planned to play in Phoenix, but that might change.
The top two players in the world, Jin Young Ko and Sung Hyun Park, have yet to hit a shot on the LPGA this season. Here’s a wild thought: There are now only two events remaining on the schedule before the first major of the year. Ko won the Founders Cup and ANA Inspiration in 2019.
Last year He, a former USC standout, put too much pressure on herself to get off to a fast start.
“Look at how that turned out for me,” she said.
He, who goes by “Lily,” now views the full season as she did Q-Series, one long marathon.
Born in Chengdu, China, He said she might have had trouble getting into Singapore anyway given that she travels on a Chinese passport. She was in China over the holidays to celebrate her grandfather’s birthday.
“The society isn’t really functioning at this point,” said He. “Thankfully, we left right before the whole thing broke out.”
The mysterious virus has infected more than 69,000 people, with the overwhelming majority of patients in China, where the outbreak originated.
He took off a month and a half after Q-Series, traveling to Abu Dhabi with Angel Yin for a Formula One race. Then she was off to Australia for the Presidents Cup to do media work for the PGA Tour. He, whose Instagram following is approaching 300,000, took a photo with her “idol” Tiger Woods at Royal Melbourne. Her father used to take her out to Shanghai every year to watch Woods compete in the HSBC event when she was a small child.
“I don’t get starstruck very often,” said He, “but I was starstruck in that moment.”
From there she was off to China for family time followed by New Year’s in Japan with friends. After battling through sickness for 10 days at home in California, she was back to work in January and quite pleased with her progress.
“Now with four more weeks on my hands,” she said, “I’m just trying to maintain.”
