Inbee Park, Lydia Ko prepare for season-ending LPGA showdown

Sure, it’s football season and golf is not exactly top of mind in November. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t still teeing it up across the globe last week. A review of the weekend that was in golf.

Inbee Park chases Lydia Ko for year-end honors

Inbee Park earned her fifth victory of 2015 on Sunday when she topped Carlota Ciganda by three shots at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational. She’ll enter this week’s LPGA season-ending CME Group Tour Championship with a slight edge over Lydia Ko for low-scoring average but looking up at No. 1 for the top ranking, Player of the Year and another key year-long category.

Ko, who missed the Mexico event to rest for the tour’s finale, would have clinched the PoY award had Park finished lower than eighth. Instead, the power duo will travel to Naples, Fla., tied with five wins each and with PoY, the money list title, Vare Trophy and Race to the CME Globe still up for grabs. While Park can go back-to-back to finish out the year, Ko hopes to defend her Tour Championship and CME Globe titles when the women take the field at Tiburón GC starting on Thursday.

Park also inched closer to LPGA Hall of Fame qualification with her victory and could secure her place in history with a W in Naples by capturing PoY or maintaining her Vare Trophy advantage.

Her 18-under win earned the 27-year-old from South Korea her 26th of 27 points required for induction, though the nine-year LPGA member needs one more season to be eligible.

Tiger Woods won’t be returning to the PGA Tour any time soon, but it was good to see the former world No. 1 ambulatory over the weekend at a kids soccer game.

The last we had heard from Woods, he was bed-ridden after undergoing back surgery last month, his third such procedure since March 2014.

Kristoffer Broberg took an unusual route to his first European Tour victory on Sunday when he detoured to his instructor’s wife’s golf bag on his way to the BMW Masters winner’s circle.

Last week after an unsatisfactory putting practice in his coach’s studio, the 29-year-old Swede swapped out his own flat stick for a center-shafted Odyssey 2-ball that was just gathering dust.

“I just look in my coach wife’s bag -- she stopped playing now. I tried it, sampled it, and the stroke went much, much better with the technique,” Broberg told reporters after beating Patrick Reed with a clutch birdie putt on the first hole of a playoff. “So I just -- yeah, I keep it. It was pretty good.”

Broberg needed that ball to drop, what with Reed’s momentum carrying him into overtime after each player posted a 17-under for 72 holes. The brash American made it a game when his eagle from a bunker on the par-5 15th gave him a share of the lead.

Reed, who got to Shanghai after two top-10 finishes to start his 2015-2016 PGA Tour season, picked up his fourth of four PGA Tour victories in January at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions and emerged undeterred from Sunday’s squeaker.

“Had a putt for birdie on 18 and unfortunately this time didn’t make it ... But can’t be too disappointed with a second place finish,” said Reed. “We’re doing the right things. Just need to keep on plugging along and hopefully close one out here shortly.”

Graeme McDowell and Russell Knox were scheduled to finish their final round of the rain-delayed OHL Classic at Mayakoba on Monday with both men atop the leader board. McDowell, who recently announced he would follow the money on the PGA Tour even if it meant not qualifying for the Ryder Cup, had more missed cuts (six) than top-10 finishes (one) in 2015.

“My playing privileges on this side of the Atlantic are more important to me than my playing privileges on the European Tour, simply because when you boil it all down and look at it from a purely monetary point of view, I want to be employed in the best possible job I can,” the 36-year-old from Northern Ireland said from the OHL, according to multiple reports. “The European Tour means a lot to me. I’m very proud of it, I’m very loyal to it. The Ryder Cup is really important to me. But making a living is what it’s all about.”

Knox, for his part, looked to chalk two straight victories after prevailing at last week’s WGC-HSBC Champions in China.

Each player entered the second Monday finale in a row at 19-under for the week, with McDowell on the 14th hole and Knox chasing him on the 13th.