1. World's best gather for inaugural LPGA Tour Championship Presented by Rolex
2. Wie becomes Rolex First-Time Winner at Lorena Ochoa Invitational
3. Rolex Player of the Year race heads to Houston
4. Rolex Rankings move of the week: Wie moves up three spots with win
5. Sponsor exemption Uribe ties for eighth
6. Ochoa celebrated 28th birthday during final round
7. Duramed FUTURES Tour to play in Mexico
8. Handa Cup field set for 2009 competition
9. This week: LPGA Tour Championship Presented by Rolex, The Houstonian Golf & Country Club, Richmond, Texas, $1,500,000, November 19-22, 2009
1. World's best gather for inaugural LPGA Tour Championship Presented by Rolex
HOUSTON, Texas - The final week of the 2009 LPGA Tour season is here and 120 of the world's best players are set for the inaugural LPGA Tour Championship Presented by Rolex. This week's season-ending event will take place at The Houstonian Golf and Country Club in Houston, Texas.
The world's top-ranked player, Lorena Ochoa, and 2009 Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year Jiyai Shin lead all others with three victories each this season, as the field plays for a share of the $1.5 million purse. Ochoa won the Honda LPGA Thailand, Corona Championship and Navistar LPGA Classic Presented by Monaco R.V, while Shin was victorious at the HSBC Women's Champions, Wegmans LPGA and P&G Beauty NW Arkansas Championship Presented by John Q. Hammons.
In addition to looking for the fourth victory of 2009, Ochoa and Shin are also playing for the prestigious Rolex Player of the Year honor. Should Ochoa surpass Shin in the year-end award standings, she would be named Rolex Player of the Year for the fourth-consecutive year. If Shin can clinch the award, she would become the first player to win both the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year and Rolex Player of the Year in the same season since LPGA Tour and World Golf Halls of Famer Nancy Lopez in 1978.
Joining the top-2 players in the current Rolex Rankings, Ochoa and Shin, are 25 of the 26 official tournament winners of 2009. Second-year player out of South Korea, Na Yeon Choi, became a Rolex First-Time Winner at the Samsung World Championship, and picked up her second title at the Hana Bank • KOLON Championship in her homeland. Choi, Ochoa and Shin are the only players to have multiple victories this year.
The four major champions of 2009 will also travel to The Houstonian Golf and Country Club to close out the 2009 LPGA Tour season. Florida's Brittany Lincicome (Kraft Nabisco Championship), Anna Nordqvist of Sweden (McDonald's LPGA Championship Presented by Coca-Cola), Scotland's Catriona Matthew (RICOH Women's British Open) and Eun-Hee Ji of South Korea (U.S. Women's Open) each earned their first major championship of their respective careers.
Juli Inkster, Se Ri Pak and Karrie Webb represent the LPGA Tour and World Golf Halls of Fame members in the field, and bring a combined 91 wins (Inkster, 31; Pak, 24; Webb, 36) among them. Ten talented rookies will play for their share of the $1.5 million purse, with six of them looking to become Rolex First-Time Winners. M.J. Hur, Nordqvist, Shin and Michelle Wie have already registered wins in their young professional careers.
2. Wie becomes Rolex First-Time Winner at Lorena Ochoa Invitational
GUADALAJARA, Jalisco, Mexico - The wait is over for Michelle Wie who recorded her first professional victory on Sunday at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented by Banamex. In her 66th LPGA tournament - 18th as a member this season - the 20-year-old clinched the win with a 30-yard sand shot to one foot on the 72nd hole for birdie. Wie joins six other Rolex First-Time Winners this season and is the fifth American winner on Tour this season.
"It sounds cliché, but it feels awesome," Wie said. "Fantastic actually. For sure, it's definitely (a monkey) off my back. I think that hopefully life will be a lot better, but I still have a lot of work to do."
Wie's day started strong with birdies on holes one and three. She recovered from a three-putt bogey on five with a 15-foot birdie on the seventh hole to turn at 2-under for the day. Another birdie at 11 gave her the outright lead, but things got interesting at the 12th hole. The Hawaiian knocked her drive on the cart path and was given relief, but her second shot caromed off a tree 50 yards backwards. She scrambled for bogey and got a boost from Creamer, who bogied 14 and 17 and Cristie Kerr, a co-leader leader early in the back nine, who made bogey at 15 and 16 to drop out of the hunt. Wie sealed the victory when she put her 5-wood into the front left bunker at 18 and blasted out to tap-in range for birdie.
"It's just so awesome," Wie said after accepting the $220,000 first-place check. "The fans here, it was deafening, the cheers and everything, it just felt so good. It was a great crowd to do it in front of. It was great."
3. Rolex Player of the Year race heads to Houston
With one event remaining in the 2009 LPGA Tour season, the Rolex Player of the Year award is still up for grabs among three players - 2009 Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year Jiyai Shin, top-ranked Lorena Ochoa, and 12-time Tour winner Cristie Kerr. Shin remains the leader in the points race with 156 total points, however Ochoa (148) is only eight points back and Kerr (127) is 29 points from Shin. This week's season-ending LPGA Tour Championship Presented by Rolex will be the final deciding factor of this prestigious honor.
With Shin's tie for third finish at last week's Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented by Banamex and Corona Light, the South Korean rookie remains the favorite to win the Rolex Player of the Year award. Should the 21-year-old hold off Ochoa and Kerr, then Shin would become the first player since Nancy Lopez in 1978 to win the Rolex Player of the Year and Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year awards in the same season.
Heading into the LPGA Tour Championship Presented by Rolex at The Houstonian Golf and Country Club, Shin is hoping to make history, but has some competition. For Ochoa to become a four-time Rolex Player of the Year, she would need to win this week or register at least a third-place finish and have Shin earn zero points. For Kerr to become the first American player to win the award since 1994 when Beth Daniel was named Rolex Player of the Year, she would need to win the season-ending event, have Shin earn no points and have Ochoa finish no better than fourth. The 1994 season is also the last time it came down to the season-ending event to decide the year-end award.
"We are ready for what should be a very exciting finish to the 2009 LPGA Tour season, especially with the Rolex Player of the Year showdown," said LPGA Acting Commissioner Marty Evans. "The anticipation to see if Jiyai Shin can match history or if three-time Player of the Year Lorena Ochoa can make it four will make this week in Houston a memorable one."
The chart below provides scenarios for the three players to win the Rolex Player of the Year, assuming Jiyai Shin does not score a point in this week's final event of the year.
| Pos. | Player | Current points | To overtake Shin's 156 points |
| 1 | Jiyai Shin | 156 | |
| 2 | Lorena Ochoa | 148 | needs a 3rd place finish |
| 3 | Cristie Kerr | 127 | needs a win |
Rolex Player of the Year points breakdown
| 1. | 30 |
| 2. | 12 |
| 3. | 9 |
| 4. | 7 |
| 5. | 6 |
| 6. | 5 |
| 7. | 4 |
| 8. | 3 |
| 9. | 2 |
| 10. | 1 |
4. Rolex Rankings move of the week: Wie moves up three spots with win
Michelle Wie became a Rolex First-Time Winner and moved up three spots in the Rolex Rankings with her victory at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational by Banamex and Corona Light in Guadalajara, Mexico this past weekend. Wie is now ranked 12th in the world.
The Rolex Rankings (www.rolexrankings.com) are sanctioned by the five major women's professional golf tours: the LPGA; Ladies European Tour (LET); Ladies Professional Golfers' Association of Japan (LPGA of Japan); Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA); Australian Ladies Professional Golf (ALPG); as well as the Ladies Golf Union (LGU), which administers the RICOH Women's British Open.
The Rolex Ranking Board and Technical committee recently agreed on several modifications to the Strength of Field calculations which include: an increase in the World Points factor from 200 to 400; a minimum value of 100 for Strength of Field for all Tours, except the Duramed FUTURES Tour; and the implementation of a true Strength of Field calculation for Duramed FUTURES Tour events, rather than the fixed points ratio of the past.
The Rolex Rankings are the only women's world rankings that incorporate player performances from the five major tours and the Duramed FUTURES Tour, the official developmental tour of the LPGA.
5. Sponsor exemption Uribe ties for eighth
Colombian sponsor exemption Mariajo Uribe tied for eighth at this week's Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented by Banamex. The Duramed FUTURES Tour member finished the week at 5-under-par 283 in a tie with RICOH Women's British Open champ Catriona Matthew, M.J. Hur, Brittany Lang, I.K. Kim and Yani Tseng. Uribe will play in the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament the week after Thanksgiving in hopes of earning status on the 2010 LPGA Tour.
6. Ochoa celebrated 28th birthday during final round
Though she didn't finish atop the leaderboard, the week was deemed a success for birthday-girl Lorena Ochoa who hosted her second-annual Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented by Banamex and Corona Light last week. Thousands of fans flocked to Guadalajara Country Club to see native Guadalajaran Ochoa host her $1.1 million LPGA event. The 28-year-old finished the week at 7-under-par 281 (71-69-72-69) in a tie for sixth with first-round leader Song-Hee Kim. Ochoa will go for her fourth victory of the season at this week's LPGA Tour Championship Presented by Rolex.
7. Duramed FUTURES Tour to play in Mexico
On Wednesday, the Duramed FUTURES Tour announced their first-ever international tournament to take place in March 2010 at El Tigre Golf and Country Club in Riviera Nayarit, Mexico. The Mexico Classic, a 54-hole, $150,000 event, marks the first international full-field event in the Tour's 30-year history. Mexican Sophia Sheridan and Colombian Mariajo Uribe, both current members of the Duramed FUTURES Tour, were in last week's 36-player field at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented by Banamex and Corona Light. Ochoa was the Tour's 2002 Player of the Year.
8. Handa Cup field set for 2009 competition
The field for the Legends Tour's season-ending event, the Handa Cup, is final and will take place on the Slammer & Squire Course at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla., Dec. 5-7. This year's field is comprised of seven LPGA and World Golf Halls of Fame members, including U.S. Team Captain Kathy Whitworth, the all-time LPGA wins leader (88). Whitworth's squad will go for the ‘four-peat' over the World Team, captained by Scotland's Cathy Panton-Lewis. U.S.-born LPGA Legends professionals will tee it up against a team of World Legends professionals in an international match-play competition.
U.S. Team: Amy Alcott (WGHOF), Pat Bradley (WGHOF), JoAnne Carner (WGHOF), Elaine Crosby, Beth Daniel (WGHOF), Sandra Haynie (WGHOF), Christa Johnson, Rosie Jones, Cindy Rarick, Nancy Scranton, Patty Sheehan (WGHOF) and Sherri Turner.
Captain: Kathy Whitworth (WGHOF), Assistant Captain: Lori West.
World Team: Dawn Coe-Jones, Alicia Dibos, Gail Graham, Nancy Harvey, Jenny Lidback, Sally Little, Alison Nicholas, Mieko Nomura, Michiko Okada, Anne Marie Palli, Jan Stephenson, Aiko Takasu.
Captain: Catherine Panton-Lewis.
9. This week: LPGA Tour Championship Presented by Rolex, The Houstonian Golf & Country Club, Richmond, Texas, $1,500,000, November 19-22, 2009
Par: 36-36, 72
Yardage: 6,650
Format: 72-hole stroke play
Winner: $225,000
Runner-up: $139,572
Field: 120 players
Defending champion: Inaugural event
Media center: 832-532-4848
LPGA media contacts: Mike Scanlan and Kim Berard
● TV Times
Golf Channel
Nov. 19-21 4-6 p.m.
Nov. 22 3-5 p.m.
All times Eastern
● GCSAA Course Information
Golf Course Superintendents Association of America
The Houstonian Golf & Country Club
Richmond, Texas
GCSAA Class A Golf Course Superintendent, contact: Thomas S. Werner, CGCS, 281-340-7225
Course architect, date: Rees Jones, 1999
Golf course builder, date: Wadsworth Golf Construction, 1998-99
Course grasses
Tees - Bermudagrass
Fairways - Bermudagrass
Greens - Bermudagrass
Rough - Bermudagrass
For more information, access GCSAA Fact Sheets at GCSAA.org