Advertisement

Lydia Ko's rise, the end of major desert event top LPGA story lines in 2022

larry bohannan, palm springs desert sun
·4 min read
5
Lydia Ko tees off on the 8th hole during the Chevron Championship pro-am practice round at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif., March 30, 2022.
Lydia Ko tees off on the 8th hole during the Chevron Championship pro-am practice round at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif., March 30, 2022.

Even with the LPGA season finished two weeks ago, women’s professional golf managed to find a way to make some news this week. Despite not playing, Lydia Ko moved up to No. 1 in the world rankings past Nelly Korda, the first time that Ko has been No. 1 since 2017.

But Ko’s rise to the top again on the women’s tour was just part of a tumultuous 2022 with lots of news for the LPGA, news that will shape the 2023 season as well.

For instance:

The return of Lydia Ko

The New Zealand star has been the player of the year on the LPGA before, but that was back in 2015, when she was still a child prodigy who turned 18 that year. By the end of 2015 she had 10 career LPGA wins, and she added four more including a major at the Chevron Championship in 2016. Then she settled down to being merely mortal, winning just two more tournaments before the start of the 2022 season. But in what she herself calls the best season of her career, or at least the best extended play of her career, Ko, now 25, won three times in 2022, including the CME Group Tour Championship. She won the tour’s money title, scoring title and was the player of the year in the points-based system. Ko might be the player who could break out and be a global star beyond her sport in the coming years. The LPGA should be happy she’s back in top form.

More:New tournament director eager to build success from scratch at desert's PGA Tour Champions event

Health issues

The year started with Nelly Korda, the top-ranked American, missin extended time including skipping the Chevron Championships because of a blood clot in her arm. Then Danielle Kang, another top-10 player, missed time with a tumor on her spine. Finally, world No. 1 Jin Young Ko lost that top ranking when she injured her wrist and missed tournaments and didn’t play well when she came back to the tour. Korda regained the No. 1 player in the world rankings for a moment over Ko, but the year saw injuries and health take their toll on the top players.

Tournament issues

We already know that the LPGA couldn’t find a way to keep the major championship in the desert despite it having been played for 51 years in the Coachella Valley. The tournament was played for the last time in April at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, having already announced it was moving to Houston for 2023. Then came a dust-up at the CME Group Tour Championship, another big event on the tour. At a dinner hosted by CME, none of the players from the LPGA showed up. That caused the head of CME to say he was disappointed in LPGA leadership and to add that this was the kind of thing that causes sponsors to leave. At least one notable player said the story shouldn’t have been a story at all, but at two big events in the year, the LPGA didn’t look great.

Top rookies

Rookies are supposed to just be getting their feet wet, learning how to make a living in professional golf. Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand not only learned how to win, she won three times on the LPGA in 2022 and actually reached the No. 1 status in the Rolex World Rankings in September. That easily won her the Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year award on the LPGA for the year, beating out Hye-Jin Choi of South Korea. With players at the top having their own drama with injuries and the like, these rookies will likely become more prominent in 2023.

Atthaya Thitikul tees off on the 17th hole during the Chevron Championship pro-am practice round at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif., March 30, 2022.
Atthaya Thitikul tees off on the 17th hole during the Chevron Championship pro-am practice round at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif., March 30, 2022.

The LIV threat

For much of 2022 the story in golf was the LIV Golf Tour and its challenge to the PGA Tour. But there were rumors throughout the year that the LIV backers will eventually launch a women’s tour, and that could be a bigger threat to the very existence of the LPGA than it is to the PGA Tour. The LPGA has vastly improved its prize money for majors and other big events, but LIV money would surpass most regular-season LPGA tournaments.  LIV already has a relationship with the Ladies European Tour, so the next step would be to work a deal with the LPGA. It hasn’t happened yet, but it might in the next year.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: LPGA: The end of the desert's major tournament, return of Lydia Ko top 2022 stories