Michelle Wie rebounded from last week’s missed cut in fine form, closing out the ShopRite LPGA Classic on Sunday in a tie for third after matching her season-best round as well as the low round of the day with a flawless 6-under 65.
Michelle Wie matches low round of season at LPGA Classic as Lydia Ko extends reign as No. 1
Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images
Wie finished at 7-under and in a four-way tie for third, four shots back of winner In-Kyung Kim. Her third top-10 result of the year had the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open winner eyeing a spot on the U.S. Solheim Cup team.
“I’m stalking the list for sure. I’m trying to get as many points as I can and trying to get up there and make the team,” Wie said after her six-birdie third and final round of the tournament.
Wie, tied with Mo Martin at 11th in points before the event at the Stockton Seaview Hotel and Golf Club’s Bay Course in Galloway, N.J., hopes to make her fifth consecutive Solheim Cup squad. She would automatically make the team if, after the Women’s British Open, she has a top-8 spot or is one of the top two U.S. players in the Rolex Rankings. American skipper Juli Inkster could also make her a captain’s pick.
Paula Creamer is another American seeking to play in the biennial matches against Europe in August at the Des Moines (Iowa) Golf and Country Club. The 2010 U.S. Women’s Open champion was 21st in Solheim Cup points heading into the ShopRite finale with a share of the lead but faltered on Sunday with a 74 to fall into a tie for seventh.
It was the first top-10 finish of the season for Creamer, who has not won an LPGA tournament since the 2014 HSBC Women’s Champions. She needs to build on her strong showing if she is to make her seventh straight Solheim Cup team.
Meanwhile, the most notable absentee from the New Jersey competition was Lydia Ko, who lost her 84-week tenure as the top woman golfer in the world to another no-show, Ariya Jutanugarn. The newly installed No. 1 overtook Ko when third-ranked So Yeon Ryu missed the cut at the ShopRite.
Ryu would have climbed atop the Rolex Rankings with at least a three-way tee for second or a sole third-place close.
Update: Ko is actually still ranked No. 1 in the world. A bug in the projection tool led the LPGA Tour to project that Jutanugarn would take over the top spot based on player finishes at last week’s tournament.
Here is Monday’s statement from the tour clarifying the situation:
“When running the projections, the tool used the date on which the projections were run, rather than the date when the rankings would be released. Thus when projections were run last week, they included the 2015 Manulife LPGA Classic in the event count for both Lydia Ko (51 events) and Ariya Jutanugarn (58 events). When the Rankings were run today, that event correctly dropped from the Rankings’ 104-week cycle and reduced the total number of events for both players by one (Ko – 50 events; Jutanugarn 57 events) which resulted in average world ranking points of 8.37 for Ko and 8.36 for Jutanugarn. So Ko maintains the No. 1 position by a .01 point margin.”
So, about Ko losing her 84-week grasp on the top ranking? Make that 85 weeks, and, um, never mind.
