The problem with the LPGA

[MFAWG]

is that some Korean you never heard of beat some other Korean you never heard of in what was really one of the great stories in golf so far this year.  Ryo comes from 2 strokes back on the fifthe day of the tournament and THEN wins the 18 hole playoff.

Now, the press is actually highly, highly complicit in this bull*feces*, because on golf.com it's not a featured story, but a sidebarr buried beneath Thursdays tee times for the Open and some crap about El Tigre's agent.

http://www.golf.com/golf/...e/0,28136,2082442,00.html

[Aske]

I just can't get into it when there's no compelling personas.
Which is sad, because their game is far closer to mine than the PGA.

[gleek]

I just can't get into it when there's no compelling personas.
Which is sad, because their game is far closer to mine than the PGA.

It's hard to know anything about the personas of LPGA players because they get so little press, and people generally don't go out of their way to find out anything about these ladies.

Besides, Ryu, the winner, isn't even an LGPA Tour player. She's a member of the KLPGA Tour, so how could you have known anything about her? Seo, the runner-up, incidentally, is an LPGA Tour rookie who earned membership by winning an LPGA Tour event last year as, you guessed it, a KLPGA player. This year, Seo hasn't really distinguished herself, and she actually had to go through a sectional qualifier to even get into the championship. If you watched the broadcast after the playoff concluded, they actually did a pretty lengthy interview of both players, which is how I got all this information.

From the interviews, I found out that there's a little history between the two. They were rivals last year on the KLPGA, and this is the second playoff that Seo has lost to Ryu.

An interesting thing that I noticed is that Ryu has a pretty good American accent.



Seo's English isn't too bad either. She clearly has a Korean accent, but it seems like she understands English better than Ryu does.

[gleek]

BTW, what's up with this? Did Paula fire her caddie?

[MFAWG]

I don't really care if they speak Engrish or not. It's much more the 'Who are these people?' factor, adding in that you'll probably never hear of them again.

There was a sort of similar problem with Swedish players a few years ago. Couldn't tell your Pedersen's from your Petterson's.

All that said: When you have a qualifier force a playoff on the back 9 of a major and win, that SHOULD be a huge story, no matter who is involved. I actually had to look twice at Golf.Com for the story.

BTW, what's up with this? Did Paula fire her caddie?

He got tired of the pink AND the crying?


It was pretty hilarious last year: She was on about the 15th hole, victory still very much up in the air and Dottie Pepper said words to the effect of: 'Win or lose there WILL be tears'.

[gleek]

...adding in that you'll probably never hear of them again.

But that's a general problem with the LPGA Tour. There are a bunch of different winners and very few repeat winners.

Consider that this is Paula Creamer's 7th season on tour. She has a total of 9 wins. That's a little over one win per season, and she's one of the most recognizable players on tour.

BTW, this shows you how important putting is (and chipping too):

Greens in regulation:
1. Paula Creamer - 58/72
3. Michelle Wie - 54/72

Putting:
68. Paula Creamer - 135
T70. (DFL) Michelle Wie - 139

Finish:
T15 Paula Creamer - +6
T55 Michelle Wie - +15

For comparison:
Ryu had 121 putts.
Seo had 115 putts.

[MFAWG]

But that's a general problem with the LPGA Tour. There are a bunch of different winners and very few repeat winners.

True, but you're coming out of a 10 or 15 year stretch when one player completely dominated the tour. First it was Carrie Webb, and then Annika who was even MORE dominant than Tiger was.

Golf is different than all the other sports in that everybody plays everybody basically every week. Maybe in golf, a dominant player makes it MORE compelling. You want to see who can knock the big dog off his/her pedestal a little bit.

I'll bet the Senior Tour had way better ratings when Hale Irwin was winning all the time.

[twoiron]

Which is sad, because their game is far closer to mine than the PGA.

Is that because you wear a skirt?   

[Aske]

Which is sad, because their game is far closer to mine than the PGA.

Is that because you wear a skirt?   

HAHAHAHA.