This year’s neck-and-neck battle for Rolex Player of the Year between Lydia Ko and Inbee Park should come as no surprise to those who know the LPGA Tour well.
Who can forget last year’s nail-biting affair between Stacy Lewis and Park, a back-and-forth tussle ultimately decided in Lewis’ favor by five points? That razor-thin margin will be strikingly similar to this year’s outcome on Sunday, as Ko entered this week with a meager 276-273 advantage.
Park topped Suzann Pettersen for the honor by 45 points in 2013, and Lewis finished 53 points ahead of Park in 2012. While those differentials are more than the 30 points awarded for a tournament victory, they seem much smaller considering how long the season is and how many points are available throughout the year.
The only anomaly to this trend in the last five years was 2011, when Yani Tseng dominated the Tour and ran away with the award. It was her second consecutive Rolex Player of the Year honor and could not have been more different than her triumph in 2010.
That year, Tseng edged Cristie Kerr by six points, 188-182, and there were three other players within 20 points of Tseng’s final total. Na Yeon Choi finished third with 180, Ai Miyazato was fourth with 179 and Jiyai Shin rounded out the top five with 170.
The amazingly tight battles of recent years are reflective of many things, including the fact that the overall level of play on Tour has been at an extremely high level. There is no such thing as an “easy win” in the LPGA, and the players know it.
The trend also shows how important every stroke in every round truly is, a reality that amps up the pressure to perform to staggering heights and keeps players focused and intense from January through November. Players know that, if they take it easy and let any part of their games lapse, it could cost them in a big way when it’s time for season-ending awards to go out.
Only three rounds remain in the 2015 season, and all eyes are on Ko and Park as they head into the final weekend with one eye on their task at hand inside the ropes and the other on the leaderboard. LPGA fans are in store for an epic finish, something that has become the norm on Tour, and it is a level of drama they certainly deserve to see played out.
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