The 2015 LPGA season began in January in Ocala, Fla., and ended approximately 250 miles south of that in Naples, Fla., the week before Thanksgiving. In between, there was a lot of golf to decipher.
Now comes an offseason where a lot of players will hide their clubs and relax. Others will work extra hard to improve various phases of their games.
“After this tournament here last year, I didn't touch my clubs until January 2nd, so I had a whole month and a little bit off where just no golf, I was eating, going to the mall, watching a movie, and I was just doing that teenager life,” said Lydia Ko, the 2015 Rolex Player of the Year. “So even the first week (of 2015) I was doing my pitching practice, and I was shanking maybe one out of 20. Like it was not pretty. It’s not something that I would recommend to be on Golf Channel or anything. It wasn't nice.”
So while it is fresh on our minds, consider some of the happenings during the 2015 season:
- Shot of the year: Actually, the shots of the year. At the Lotte Championship in Hawaii in April, rookie Sei Young Kim chipped in for par on the final hole to force a playoff with Inbee Park. On the same hole in the playoff, she holed an 8-iron from 154 yards for an eagle to beat Park.
- Round of the year: Actually, just a half-round. At the LPGA KEB-Hana Bank Championship in October, Amy Yang birdied every hole on the back nine to shoot a 9-under-par 27. It is believed to be the only time in a prominent professional tournament competition, men or women, that a player has recorded nine consecutive sub-par scores during nine holes.
- Inspiring story of the year: When Kris Tamulis won the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic on Aug. 30, it was not only the first career LPGA victory for the 34-year-old, but it also raised awareness that her caddie Thomas “Motion” Frank had lost his Houston home in a house fire earlier in the season. A Go Fund Me campaign has raised $28,230 to date.
- Stroke average: Lydia Ko needed to finish two strokes better than Inbee Park to capture the Vare Trophy at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship last week. She was two strokes ahead entering the final round, but Inbee Park finished with a 69 that included birdies on the second and seventh holes and then cemented the Vare Trophy with birdies coming home on the 13th and 14th holes to finish sixth alone. Ko shot an even-par 72 that included two birdies and two bogeys and finished T7, three strokes away from the stroke average crown. Three players finished with stroke averages below 70 (Park, Ko and Stacy Lewis at 69.788) – and the fourth, Lexi Thompson, finished at 70.011, two strokes from a sub-70 average. The record for four sub-70 averages was established last year by Lewis, Park, Michelle Wie and So Yeon Ryu.
- Hall of Fame: With the Vare Trophy, Park received the 27th point necessary for induction in the LPGA Hall of Fame. At age 27, she is the youngest to receive the honor, which she is eligible to receive at the end of 2016 after completing her 10th season as an LPGA member. The minimum age for induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame is 40, so Park will have to wait until 2028 for that. She also completed the Career Grand Slam with a victory at the Ricoh Women’s British Open.
- Straightest Driver: Mo Martin finished one of the most remarkable season-long driving feats in golf history, hitting 89.9 percent of the fairways, a new LPGA mark. She completed the season by hitting 55 of 56 fairways at the CME Group Tour Championship (she missed one fairway in the final round). Martin missed just 138 fairways all year in 28 tournaments and 98 rounds. She had three tournaments during the year where she missed only one fairway during the week and 26 rounds where she hit them all.
- Longest Driver: France’s Joanna Klatten became the first non-American to hit the ball the farthest in a season since Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa in 2008. Klatten, 30, who played collegiate golf at Georgia State and the College of Charleston, averaged 274.4 yards, 5 yards better than Brittany Lincicome.
- Greens in Regulation: With her length, you would have expected Lexi Thompson to capture the Long Drive title before a Greens in Regulation first place. Thompson, 20, averaged hitting 77.2 percent of the greens, including 60 of 72 last week in Naples, edging Lydia Ko (77 percent). It was the first time Thompson finished first in the category.
- 7: The number of countries that had winners in 2015, including South Korea, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Norway and Canada. South Korea had the most with 15 and the U.S. was second with seven.
- 8: The number of teen-aged winners, led by 17- and 18-year-old Lydia Ko with five. Others were Hyo-Joo Kim (19), Minjee Lee (18) and Brooke Henderson (17). Henderson was the youngest winner.
- 38: The age of Cristie Kerr, last week’s winner at the CME Group Tour Championship. She was the oldest winner of 2015 and won twice, including a victory at age 37 in March. Kerr is also third in career LPGA earnings, approximately $2.3 million behind No. 2 Karrie Webb. Annika Sorenstam is No. 1.
- 78,012: The approximate amount of miles traveled by Chella Choi from her home in Jacksonville, Fla., to every LPGA event and back home this season. She was the only player to start all 31 events and has played in 138 of the last 139 LPGA events, dating back to early 2011. She didn’t do it for naught this season, as she captured her first LPGA title at the Marathon Classic in Sylvania, Ohio, approximately halfway through her high-mileage season.
- 9 weeks: The length of the offseason before the 2016 LPGA season begins, Jan. 28-31 at the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic. The 2016 majors schedule includes all three U.S. events on the West Coast (ANA Inspiration in Rancho Mirage, Calif.; KPMG Women’s PGA in Sammamish, Wash.; and the U.S. Women’s Open in CordeValle, Calif.) and global competition at the International Crown in Chicago July 21-24 and the Olympics in Brazil Aug. 15-21.
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