Rookies and teenagers continue to dominate the landscape on the LPGA this season, a point emphasized last week at the Kingsmill Championship when 18-year-old Australian rookie Minjee Lee captured her first LPGA title and 20-year-old rookie Alison Lee finished third after holding the second-round lead.
Minjee Lee joined Sei Young Kim and Hyo Joo Kim as rookie winners this season. Sei Young Kim has won twice, leads the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year standings and is third in the Rolex Player of the Year standings. Additionally, a rookie has finished in the top 10 in every LPGA event this season except the Volunteers of America North Texas Shootout.
Minjee Lee is the fifth teenager to win on the LPGA since the start of 2014 and the ninth player in LPGA history to win before her 19th birthday. Lee becomes only the seventh different player in LPGA history to win before her 19th birthday, joining Lydia Ko, Lexi Thompson, Marlene Hagge, Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel and Jessica Korda.
Lee, who turns 19 on May 27, wasn’t sure she was ready to win on the LPGA, mainly because of the more harried schedule.
“I didn’t think that moment would come this year, so I'm stoked to have won,” she said. “I’ve kind of had to get used to going week in, week out and just figuring out where to go on my weeks off, because I can’t go back to Australia. It’s really far away.”
Alison Lee had a similar assessment of the rookie learning curve.
“Coming off an amateur career last year, I’ve already played the same amount of tournaments I've played in an entire year, and here it’s not even halfway through the year,” she said.
Alison’s U.S. Women’s Open effort
Learning to go with the flow as a LPGA rookie was never more evident than last week when Alison Lee got in contention and then learned that she would miss her planned U.S. Women’s Open qualifier in nearby Richmond, Va. The carryover to Monday morning for the final round prevented Lee from driving from the Kingsmill Championship in Williamsburg, Va., to Richmond at a site where she played a practice round prior to her third-place finish in Williamsburg.
Lee worked with the United States Golf Association to reschedule her qualifier to her native Southern California. She was slated to play at Goose Creek Golf Club in Mira Loma, Calif., on Tuesday, a course she hasn’t seen and with her father serving as her caddie.
Lee qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open in 2009 at age 14. Her interest in this year’s Women’s Open goes beyond just the national championship. In 2013, Lee won the AJGA Rolex Tournament of Champions event by six strokes at Lancaster, Pa., Country Club, this year’s site. She shot four rounds of 70 or below in winning that event.
Paula Creamer’s rebound
Paula Creamer had a difficult late April. She shot 82-78 to miss the cut at the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic – only her ninth career missed cut and the highest round of her career – in the midst of swing changes. The following week, she opened the Volunteers of America North Texas Shootout in Dallas with a 71 but was forced to withdraw for personal reasons.
Last week at the Kingsmill Championship, Creamer showed signs of the player who had two previous top-four finishes on The River Course at Kingsmill. She shot 67-71-66-70 for a T5 finish, her best since a victory in February 2014 at the HSBC Women’s Champions.
Henderson’s travel log
Brooke Henderson has shown terrific talent for a teenager and she is also displaying great durability. In an effort to reach the LPGA via sponsor exemptions and qualifiers while staying connected with her family, Henderson has had a whirlwind few weeks:
- After finishing third at the Swinging Skirts Classic, Henderson took a red-eye from San Francisco to Dallas to enter Monday qualifying.
- A weather delay pushed the conclusion of the qualifier to Tuesday and Henderson earned the second spot in a playoff.
- After a T13 finish in Dallas, Henderson flew to Toronto to participate in media day at the Manulife Classic on Monday and then drove home to Smiths Falls, Ontario.
- On Tuesday morning, Brooke and her father left by car bound for Greenwood, S.C., and the Epson Tour event that week. The car ride took 15 hours.
- Brooke caddied for her older sister Brittany in the Self Regional Healthcare Foundation Classic, where she missed the cut. But the two hung out in South Carolina for the weekend.
- Brooke traveled to Williamsburg, Va., for the Kingsmill Championship on the LPGA, where she received a sponsor exemption and finished T25.
- Brooke is in the field the next three weeks at the ShopRite, Manulife and KPMG Women’s PGA on sponsor exemptions.
“I was only caddying, so I was practicing not as much as I would normally, but I was on the golf course all day so I got a good feel,” Henderson said last week. “ Caddying for my sister is a really unique thing, because we play similar in a way and we play very different in a way, too.
“Every time I get up to a shot I have to visualize it first. So she asks me questions and I have to tell her exactly what I really see. I think it really helps in my own game now that it’s really clear in my mind.”
Brooke said she caddied for Brittany last summer at the first stage of the LPGA Qualifying Tournament and left the following day for the World Amateur Championship in Japan where she captured the individual title.
Etc.
Don’t be surprised if scouting trips aren’t taking place this week among LPGA players. With the LPGA going to Galloway, NJ, for the ShopRite LPGA Classic next week, it’s not far to Westchester Country Club, site of the first KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in three weeks, or Lancaster (Pa.) Country Club, site of the U.S. Women’s Open in six weeks. Both are just more than a two-hour drive from the Stockton Seaview Hotel and Golf Club. … Players of Asian heritage have won 10 of the 12 tournaments on the LPGA this season. This includes seven wins by current South Koreans, two by a South Korean-born New Zealander (Lydia Ko) and one by an Australian with South Korean parents (Minjee Lee).
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