Year in Review Top 10: Foreign LPGA Domination Continues

Starting at the 10 position, we find that women from all over the world continue to show up in the USA and dominate, particularly ladies from Southeast Asia.

If you look back to 2015, players from the USA won only eight of 31 tournaments. Players from Southeast Asia won 22 of those events. Inbee Park and Lydia Ko won 9 events between them.

By way of comparison, ladies from the United States managed to win only seven events all year. Stacy Lewis, who was the money leader from 2014, didn’t win once in 2015. She did manage to finish third on the money list in 2015, but had to play in 26 events to achieve that. Only one player entered that many events. (Sei-Young Kim entered 27.)

Fast forward to 2016. Women from China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Thailand won 24 of 33 events on the LPGA Tour. Throw in Inbee Park’s win at the Olympics, and you have a level of domination that is rarely seen.

American women managed only two wins in individual tournaments all year. Two.

Brittany Lang lead the American charge with 28 tournaments played, winning one and amassing $1.3 million in earnings.

Compare that to Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn. She played in an equal number of tournaments as Lang, but won five of them and collected more than twice as much money as Lang.

Watching these women from Asia is a master class in course management. They generally don’t overpower a golf course. In fact, only five ladies from Southeast Asia are in the top 25 of average driving distance. On the other hand, 20 of the top 25 in greens in regulation are from Southeast Asia, and 11 of the top 25 in birdies made are from that area of the world.

And, as you might expect, 17 ladies from Southeast Asia are in the top 25 in sub-par rounds.

What does all this mean? It means unless ladies from the USA start playing better, we should get used to this trend.

It also means that this trend is probably not going anywhere. If the last two years, and especially 2016, are any indication, we should all learn how to pronounce Ariya Jutanugarn and Shanshan Feng.

And, no, I don’t know how.

Cover Image via Flickr