Doing this early this week as I am on my way to the tournament.
My field rating for this event is a solid 72%, down some from 80% last year.
My breakdown is 74% from the LPGA Priority List and 70 % from the Rolex Rankings.
Top ten players teeing it up this week:
Nelly Korda (1)
Jeeno Thitikul (2)
Lydia Ko (3)
Ruoning Yin (4)
Haeran Ryu (5)
Hannah Green (7)
Lauren Coughlin (10)
Top ten players skipping the vent this week:
Lilia Vu (6)
Hyo Joo Kim (8)
Jin Young Ko (9)
Defending Champion: Nelly Korda
Other Stuff:
The win by Haeran Ryu last week at the Black Desert Championship was the 3rd by a Korean Golfer this year, equalling their total for the entire 2024 season.
The LPGA has completed the first ten tournaments on the 2025 schedule. There have been ten different winners.
Nasa Hataoka (17), A Lim Kim (16), and Allisen Corpuz (13), all had their cut streaks stopped this past week. Sarah Schmelzel (20) has the longest current active streak.
Rio Takeda continues to increase her lead for thr the Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year. She leads with 416 points. Miyu Yamashita is second with 300 points. They are followed by Ingrid Lindblad (186), and twin sisters Akie Iwai (175) and Chisato Iwai (142).
Celine Boutier, Pajaree Anannarukarn, and Ayaka Furue, are the only players to tee it up in all ten tournaments this year
Rolex Rankings movement worth reporting by LPGA players:
Haeran Ryu makes the most important move this week, leaping from 12 to 5.
Ayaka Furue drops out of the top ten, slipping from 9 to 12.
Esther Henseleit powers her way up from 25 to 19.
Andrea Lee climbs from 62 to 56.
Somi Lee advances from 83 to 75.
Yan Liu surges from 131 to 95 and into my field rating.
Moriya Jutanugarn drops out of the top 100, and is no longer part of my field rating.
Outside the top 100:
Auston Kim continues her rise this week, jumping from 130 to 113.
I have been asked many times how I come up with my field ratings.
I start with the LPGA Priority List.
Every player ranked 1-25 on that list is worth 1 3/4 points (total of 43 3/4 points if everyone played).
Players ranked 26 to 50 are worth 1 1/4 point (total 31 1/4)
Players ranked 51 to 75 are worth 3/4 of a point (total 18 3/4 points)
Players ranked 76 to 100 given a value of 1/4 of a poiny (6 1/4 total points).
That totals 100 points if every player teed it up.
I then do the same thing for the Rolex Ranked top 100 players for that week (these rankings change weekly).
I finish by combining both the totals ( the Priority List and the Rolex Rankings), and dividing it by two.
I have been asked why I just don't use the LPGA Priority List exclusively. It is because in the most important Championships, highly ranked non-LPGA players from other tours are included in the field. These players make the field much stronger because they are highly ranked in the Rolex Rankings. If I omitted these players value from my field list, I would not be giving an accurate account of just how strong the playing field is.
I realize this is not perfect, but I think it's as accurate as I can get it.