Capelle On Golf

It is all but official. With the completion of a sweep of the ladies’ majors by foreign players, the LPGA (the A being for America) was put to rest Sunday afternoon at the Women’s British Open. From here on it is to be known as the Ladies Professional Golfers of the World (LPGW). Okay, the marketing mavens and top brass at LPGA haven’t made this bold step yet, but they should when you consider their tour is being dominated by foreigners.

Annika Sorenstam, the former number one from Sweden, just played her last major. Number one ranked Lorena Ochoa, who won the 2008, Kraft-Nabisco, is from Mexico. Yani Tseng from Taiwan won the 2008 LPGA followed by South Korea’s In-Bee Park at the US Open. And now we have South Korean Ji-Yai Shin, the winner of the 2008 British Open.

The top of the leaderboard at the Open looks like something you might expect to see at the Japan Open, not the British Open. Lest you think this was a fluke, consider that these Amazin’ Asians are only 21 years old on average. And then we have Park, who is 20. And there are tons more just like them as shown by the 13 Asians in the top 20.

Women’s British Open Leaderboard
1 Ji-Yai Shin (20) South Korea
2 Yani Tseng (19) Taiwan
3 Yuri Fudoh (21) Japan
3 Eun-Hee Ji (22) South Korea
5 Ai Miyazato (23) Japan

If it were not for the highly marketable trio of Christie Kerr (6th), Paul Creamer (9t), and Natalie Gulbis (9t), commissioner Carolyn Givens and company would already be packing up LPGW headquarters and be heading for Seoul. And don’t think they would be alone. The European Tour, recognizing the game’s gone global, has already announced they will soon be relocating their offices to Dubai!