Michelle Wie & Q-School

[Awsi Dooger]

Apparently I wasn't the only one confused by the necessity of that 4-way playoff. A guy who calls himself Hound Dog is perhaps the premier blogging LPGA analyst and I noticed he signed off yesterday saying a playoff was unnecessary:

http://www.hounddoglpga.com/2008/12/...l-rou#comments

"No playoff holes were needed to settle things as only two players tied for 19th place."

***

Then there's discussion among the comments:

"did you see?

…that Chella Choi and Leah Wigger won the playoff for the last 2 cards? Apparently because a pair had other priority status already, the LPGA could offer 2 more. Sounds weird to me,but it’s confirmed on LPGA.com (if not explained well). Personally, I don’t see how having worse status in a different category affects the fact that you won better status this week."

by The Constructivist on Dec 8, 2008 2:25 AM PST

"thanks for pointing that out

Another example of LPGA “rules” that don’t get explained properly. Is it any wonder people (besides me and TC) give up trying to understand the qualification procedure?"

by hound dog on Dec 8, 2008 4:52 AM PST

[Q.Q.Quillume]

Apparently I wasn't the only one confused by the necessity of that 4-way playoff. A guy who calls himself Hound Dog is perhaps the premier blogging LPGA analyst and I noticed he signed off yesterday saying a playoff was unnecessary:

I too was perplexed, puzzled, nonplussed, bewildered and otherwise confused. And still am!

Is Hound Dog saying two players who finished in the Top 20 already had Category 11 or better status? If so, what in the dickens were they doing playing in the Q-School Tournament?

[SubPar]

Yay for Michelle. Whether she rocks the LPGA with awesome play next year or not. I am happy to see she's officially in there. I'll be watching with high hopes.

Wie getting her card and Tiger returning to the PGA Tour... this is all good news for golf across the board. More viewers, bigger crowds, more ad revenues and more press coverage! SubPar

[PEZGolf]

Usually, this time of the year is boring as far as the Tours are concerned. There is the "silly season" with a Skins Game that is now boring, the Three Tour event, the Father-son tourney, etc. The LPGA Q School provided some real excitement with a close competition for first place until Stacy Lewis pulled away from the field to win by 3, the good play of Michelle, and the battle for the last few places. I guess I understand the need for a playoff now, with two additional spots being "up for grabs". It is too bad that it was not televised.

[Awsi Dooger]

I too was perplexed, puzzled, nonplussed, bewildered and otherwise confused. And still am!

Hound Dog had a separate entry today on the playoff mess:

http://www.hounddoglpga.com/2008/12/...nable#comments "Let me start this post by congratulating Leah Wigger and Chella Choi for earning one of the Category 11 spots yesterday in a playoff against Allison Hanna-Williams and Na Ri Kim. Secondly, I would like to apologize for the inaccuracies in my Q-School Final Round post yesterday afternoon and those contained in previous posts and responses to questions in various comment sections. Thirdly and most importantly, I would like to take the LPGA brass to task for not only providing incomplete information on the qualifying procedure to the general public but to the contestants themselves. Nowhere in the advance releases for Q-School was any mention that players finishing in the Top 20 who don't improve their previous status would have their results tossed out and open up a spot for Player #21 to attain Category 11 status. On the contrary - the released information specifically stated that any players tied for 20th place would play extra holes to break the ties, with no mention of any other possibilities. Even now - 24 hours after the fact - LPGA.com has no explanation for why four players who finished tied for 21st place were playing off for two Cat-11 spots. We still don't know who the two players were who had their Top 20 results tossed out." "Now I want to tell you a story. Yesterday afternoon, a friend of one of the Q-School players e-mailed me to ask for a copy of the memo which the LPGA posted on their site spelling out the various categories. The link to that memo which I posted at the end of August broke down a couple of weeks later and I unfortunately did not save the .PDF file for myself beforehand. This friend was trying to help the player understand better the priority procedure and was writing me because the LPGA had not given the player any information whatsoever. She also told me that no one at the media tent had any information for the player and that someone there said the LPGA officials were "trying to figure out what was what" during the final round. Think about that for a minute. Via one of her friends, a player at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament was trying to get qualifying information from some guy in Douglasville, Georgia because the LPGA wasn't making it available to her, even on the last day that the player had an opportunity to improve her status. I can't overstate how ridiculous this is. Granted, the priority status process is being used for the first time. But the Tour has had over three months since it was announced to work out all of the specifics for how the process is supposed to work. To get to the final round of the Q-School Finals and still not have all of the details in hand (or better, be well-known by all of the participants) is inexcusable on the part of the LPGA. The officials in Commissioner Bivens' administration need to develop and deliver these procedures in a timely and serious manner if they expect the players to treat the administration or the procedures with any respect."

[PEZGolf]

Hound Dog had a separate entry today on the playoff mess:

Good post. You know, this may be another reflection on the mistakes that Carolyn Bivens and her people have made since she became Commissioner. The entire fiasco about foreign players learning English was poorly handled. Frankly, I do not know how she keeps her job. Any time an administration makes mistake after mistake, the top person has to be fired, and a new administration take over. When will the LPGA Board wake up?

[Q.Q.Quillume]

Good post. You know, this may be another reflection on the mistakes that Carolyn Bivens and her people have made since she became Commissioner. The entire fiasco about foreign players learning English was poorly handled. Frankly, I do not know how she keeps her job. Any time an administration makes mistake after mistake, the top person has to be fired, and a new administration take over. When will the LPGA Board wake up?

Not only that & what Hound Dog & Awsi Dooger said, it seems to me that Bivens has one of those personalaties which grates on people (well, me anyway) rather than making them comfortable. Maybe it's just me . . .

[PEZGolf]

Not only that & what Hound Dog & Awsi Dooger said, it seems to me that Bivens has one of those personalaties which grates on people (well, me anyway) rather than making them comfortable. Maybe it's just me . . .

It is not just you. When she "cleaned house' upon her appointment, many top LPGA Tour players expressed opposition. The fiasco about mandating English for foreign players and the way that was handled upset Se Ri Pak and many American players as well. She has no knack for Public Relations. It is too bad. With Lorena, Paula, Natalie, Cristie, Annika, the "old guard"---Juli and Helen Alfredsson having great years, and being very "fan friendly", this is the ideal time for the LPGA Tour to be more popular than ever before, but this golden opportunity is being missed.

[Awsi Dooger]

Here's an early look at the 2009 LPGA rookie class. First, the 21 players who will be classified as 2009 rookies, according to the LPGA, with a picture of each:

http://www.lpga.com/content_1.aspx?pid=18433∣=2

Now an early slotting courtesy of a prominent LPGA blogger, The Constructivist:

http://mlyhlss.blogspot.com/2008/12/...s-of-2009.html

"So the Class of 2009 is not going to be nearly as deep as I had hoped. But in terms of players who can make an immediate impact at the highest levels on tour, I think it has to be considered one of the best ever. Just look at this list (mostly culled from the official results page from Final Qualifying School), ranked in order of how I expect to see them finish in the Rookie of the Year race next year:

Simply the Best
Ji-Yai Shin
Shiho Oyama
Stacy Lewis
Michelle Wie
Vicky Hurst
Mika Miyazato

The Contenders
[high priority status]
Mindy Kim
M.J. Hur
Chella Choi

On the Bottom Looking Up
[high priority status but...]
Jeehae Lee

On the Outside Looking In
[low priority status]
Anna Nordqvist
Tania Elosegui
Song Yi Choi
Haeji Kang
Pornanong Phatlum
Jessica Shepley
Nontaya Srisawang
Sunny Oh
Angela Oh
Kim Welch
Samantha Richdale

While the ROY race will be wide open, I also think it'll be interesting to see how many LPGA events those in the last category get into next season, as several players on it have more immediate upside than those with higher priority status in '09. We'll probably be seeing many of them on the Futures Tour--they would certainly be in the running for that battlefield promotion that comes with their 3rd win there--although the 1st 2 on the list might decide it's in their best interest to focus on the LET in '09."

***

Regarding The Constructivist's final paragraph, Hound Dog estimated in late August (comment section) that about 30 players would have to skip an event for the Duramed 6-10 (Category 17) to make it into the field. Otherwise they will have to Monday qualify: http://hdlpga.blogspot.com/2008/08/n...-priority.html

So it's even more than 30 for players who earned Category 20 via 31-40 placement in Q School.

That type of splintered status makes every event individually more crucial. Players most likely will bounce back and forth between LPGA and Duramed depending on the calendar and the apparent potential to make the LPGA field. But the Duramed tour is not going to give you credit toward their final Top 5 for money won in an LPGA event, and the opposite is true. Many players with partial LPGA status decide later in the season to stick to Duramed as a more realistic opportunity to advance status for the following year.

Most likely it will be a major mess in 2009, with the categories implemented for the first time. I would predict they already will be adjusted at this time next year, similar to the college football BCS nonsense, annually tweaked to prevent backfitted realities from reoccurring.

Also, notice the Duramed tour now has the 3-win battlefield promotion similar to Nationwide. That potentially could have altered 2008 results since Vicky Hurst and Mindy Kim would have been long gone to the LPGA. Both of them picked up their 3rd victory by early August.

[Q.Q.Quillume]

I too was perplexed, puzzled, nonplussed, bewildered and otherwise confused. And still am!

Clearly the LPGA still hasn't answered the question/s about why there was a playoff for two more Category 11 cards!

It's now December 11 and here is a snippet from Hound Dog's LPGA 12/11 blog entry - the blog can be accessed by clicking here . "So if no one vacated any of the Top 20 spots, why was there a playoff among the four tied for 21st? If you want my opinion, somebody on-site at Q-School f---ed up royally."

[Awsi Dooger]

After failing to improve low 2009 LPGA status at Q School, Kim Welch seems accepting that she'll still be on the Duramed Futures Tour for the vast majority of next season, using the Big Break prize of paid entry fees:

http://www.sacbee.com/golf/story/1462113.html

"I had the opportunity, so I had to take it," Welch said Monday after going through LPGA orientation in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Welch has been told she can expect to get into maybe five tournaments in 2009 barring exceptional play that elevates her position.

"That's not that many when you consider there are 31 tournaments," she said.

She plans to play the Futures Tour instead of chasing LPGA Monday qualifiers. The Golf Channel will pay her Futures entry fees ($500 an event this year) as part of her prize for winning the "Big Break: Ka'anapali" reality series.

"That's $10,000 I don't have to worry about, which is huge when you're only making $30,000," she said.

[Q.Q.Quillume]

Clearly the LPGA still hasn't answered the question/s about why there was a playoff for two more Category 11 cards!

According to the December 6-13, 2008 issue of Golfweek (which arrived in my mailbox 12.17.08), Mollie Frankhauser and Charlotte Mayorkas "improved their status, which opened two cards won by Choi, Wigger."

I must be pretty dense because I don't see why Mollie & Charlotte "improving their status" would open up two cards. I would understand if Mollie & Charlotte improved their status to Category 11 (which appears to be the case) it might open up two cards for Category 16 or Category 17, but why would Mollie & Charlotte improving their status to Category 11 open up two more Category 11 cards? Didn't everybody who finished in the Top 20 "improve their status"?

[ganjagolfer]

Michelle Wie - hits 596 yard par 5 in 2 shots

[PEZGolf]

I knew it would happen. I just received the December 19th issue of "Golf World", and pages 15-17 are about the LPGA Q School. Guess who gets the big picture and the headline? No, not the medalist, Stacy Lewis. You know whom. And in the final pairing, Stacy beat Michelle by 5 shots!! So, Stacy gets a box on page 17, and with a small photo. Thankfully, the first paragraph does state the following: "If Wie wants to be rookie of the year in 2009, she will have to get past Lewis first".

The main article, written by Ron Sirak states the following: "But that global marketing strategy (of the LPGA), is an easier sell for the LPGA if an American emerges who can challenge Ochoa and a repidly improving crop of Asian players as best in the world."

He is, of course, referring to Michelle. Here is my question: Is not Paula Creamer already that "great American hope", and is she not the #1 American on Tour? Has she not earned that status, and once she wins her first Major, she will put an exclamation point on her resume and the title of "#1 American female golfer".

[iacas]

I just received the December 19th issue of "Golf World", and pages 15-17 are about the LPGA Q School. Guess who gets the big picture and the headline? No, not the medalist, Stacy Lewis.

So? Michelle's done more in and for the women's game to this point. In 10 years the tables may have turned, but as of right now, Michelle's a bigger story.

The main article, written by Ron Sirak states the following: "But that global marketing strategy (of the LPGA), is an easier sell for the LPGA if an American emerges who can challenge Ochoa and a repidly improving crop of Asian players as best in the world."

Unlikely. He could "of course" be referring to Stacy, Paula, Natalie (yeah right), Michelle, or someone unknown at this point.

Here is my question: Is not Paula Creamer already that "great American hope", and is she not the #1 American on Tour? Has she not earned that status, and once she wins her first Major, she will put an exclamation point on her resume and the title of "#1 American female golfer".

At this point doesn't even Stacy Lewis have nearly as many top-10 finishes in women's majors as Paula? I'm fairly certain Michelle has more. Paula and majors haven't gone too well together to this point.

At any rate, Michelle's been out of Q-School for awhile now. Debate these other topics in new threads, please.