Welcome to the third edition of the Just Women’s Sports LPGA power rankings, just in time for major season on tour. The LPGA will host two of its five major championships over the next four weeks, with the U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles teeing off this Thursday and the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship beginning June 23 at Congressional Golf Club.

Three new players have entered the top 10 since the last time we released our power rankings, with a new face taking over the No. 2 slot to challenge No. 1. Let’s run down the list.

1. Jin Young Ko

A second-place finish at Rancho Palos Verdes secured Ko’s spot atop the JWS power rankings, which she’s held all season long. After a strong start to the year, Ko is entering arguably the most important month of the year for her long-term goal of securing the career grand slam, which involves winning every single major at least once. Ko knocked two of the five off her list in 2019, with victories at the ANA Inspiration (now Chevron Championship) and Evian Championship.

For Ko to find the winner’s circle at one of the upcoming majors, she needs to get back to hitting greens more regularly. The 13-time LPGA winner has found 73.6 percent of greens in regulation in 2022, 3.8 percent less than her career average of 77.4. Last year, the 26-year-old hit 78.8 percent of greens in regulation during her five-win season.

Starts: 6
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Win at HSBC Women’s Championship, Runner-Up Palos Verdes Championship, T-4 JTBC Classic
Last Month: 1st

2. Minjee Lee

The Australian went from trending to winning. The LPGA’s leader in strokes gained from tee to green took home the Cognizant Founders Cup and acknowledged how well she’s been striking the golf ball this season.

“I just feel like I’ve kind of been trending,” Lee said after her victory in New Jersey. “I’ve been hitting it really, really well this whole season, and I just felt like it was kind of around the corner. I kept knocking on the door, and here I am now. I finished with a win this week.”

The LPGA began measuring strokes gained in 2021, seven years after the PGA Tour first started using it. It measures how well a player executes each shot they hit relative to the field’s average outcome from a given distance. For example, if on average the field takes three strokes to get to the hole from 160 yards, and a player gets there in two, they gained a stroke on the field from that distance.

Lee has gained 96.9 total strokes from tee to green this year in 28 rounds, ahead of In Gee Chun with 69.4 in 33 rounds. As a result, the seven-time tour winner leads the LPGA in scoring average (68.89), just ahead of Lexi Thompson at 69.26. If Lee can win two of the last four majors, she would be the first to do so since Ko in 2019.

Starts: 8
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Win at Founders Cup, T-2 HSBC Women’s Championship, T-3 DIO Implant Open
Last Month: 10th

3. Lydia Ko

Consistency remains the theme for Ko in 2022. She still hasn’t finished outside of the top 25, adding a top-3 finish at Palos Verdes, and her putter has been one of the biggest reasons why.

Ko is averaging the lowest putts per round (28.25) of her nine-year career, 0.06 better than her 2016 campaign when she was world No. 1 and won four times, including a major at the ANA Inspiration. This season, she’s tied for her second-best putts per green in regulation average (1.72), trailing only her 2016 performance (1.71).

The 17-time tour champion will look to win her first major title since her 2016 ANA Inspiration victory over the next month and solidify her return as one of the game’s greats. Only 28 other players have won three or more majors in the tour’s history, putting Ko firmly on the path to the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Starts: 8
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Win at Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio, T-3 Palos Verdes Championship
Last Month: 2nd

4. Atthaya Thitikul

The rookie notched another top-10 finish at the Cognizant Founders Cup, helping her maintain a 50 percent top-10 rate over 10 starts. Thitikul is tied for the most top-10s on tour with five alongside Celine Boutier. She also leads the LPGA with 172 birdies; Boutier is second with 162.

The Thai star holds a 160-point advantage in the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year race, with her 568 points leading Hye-Jin Choi’s 408. The 19-year-old has an opportunity to separate herself even further and prove she’s poised enough to handle the high-pressure major tournaments. She finished fifth at the Amundi Evian Championship last season and posted a T-17 at the Chevron Championship this year. This week, she’ll make her first career start at the U.S. Women’s Open.

Starts: 10
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 5
Best Finish: Win at JTBC Classic, T-4 HSBC Women’s World Championship, T-6 Lotte Championship
Last Month: 4th

5. Lexi Thompson

Thompson has surged to fifth after not being ranked in our last edition, largely because she’s been making more starts. She’d teed it up only four times through the Lotte Championship ahead of our last rankings. Two starts later, she’s added a T-13 finish and her second runner-up finish of the season at the Cognizant Founders Cup. She leads the LPGA in strokes gained per round and greens in regulation (76.8 percent).

“I think as athletes we just want to see our hard work pay off,” Thompson said at the end of the Cognizant Founders Cup. “And when I’m home, I’m doing two workouts a day. I’m putting five to six hours out on the golf course, and just to see it pay off means the world to me. I’m going to continue to work my butt off and hopefully see the results.”

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All eyes will be on Lexi Thompson at the U.S. Open last week after last year's collapse. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

Thompson will look to ride the momentum and avenge her collapse at last year’s U.S. Open, when she lost a five-shot lead on the back nine. The 27-year-old, in her 15th start at the major, shot a 75 in the final round at Olympic Club, including a five-over par 41 on the back nine. Now, she returns to Pine Needles, where she made her U.S. Open debut at the age of 12. Her next win will be her first since the 2019 Shoprite LPGA Classic.

Starts: 6
Wins: 0
Top-10s: 4
Notable Finishes: Runner Up at Cognizant Founder’s Cup, Runner Up at LPGA Drive On Crown Colony, T-4 Chevron Championship
Last Month: Not Ranked

6. Hyo Joo Kim

Kim’s case for the power rankings is a complicated one, as she hasn’t made a start on the LPGA Tour since her win in Hawaii. That victory launched her to third in the power rankings. The South Korean did finish fourth in the KLPGA’s CreaS F&C The 44TH KLPGA Championship, has no bearing on her spot in these rankings.

Like Thompson, if Kim plays a few more events at the same level, she can quickly reclaim her previous spot.

Starts: 5
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Victory at the Lotte Championship, T-6 Honda LPGA Thailand, T-8 Chevron Championship
Last Month: 3rd

7. Nasa Hataoka

The Japanese star’s best two finishes this season have been in her last two starts, with her victory at Wilshire Country Club followed by a T-6 finish in New Jersey. Hataoka rolls into the U.S. Open with momentum after she lost to Yuka Saso in a playoff at Olympic Club last year, the second major playoff loss of her career. The first came when Sung Hyun Park defeated her and So Yeon Ryu at Kemper Lakes Golf Club in the 2018 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

Hataoka is tied with Jessica Korda for a label no player wants to hold onto for long: most victories on tour without a major. Perhaps a good sign for the two of them, two others have gotten over the hump in recent years. First, Sei Young Kim won the 2020 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, and then Minjee Lee added a major to her resume at the Amundi Evian Championship last year.

Starts: 10
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 2
Best Finish: Win at DIO Implant LA Open, T-6 Cognizant Founder’s Cup
Last Month: 6th

8. Marina Alex

The 31-year-old acknowledged after her victory at Rancho Palos Verdes — the second of her 10-year LPGA career — that she had been close to walking away from the game.

“If you had talked to me last year or the beginning of even this year, I didn’t think it was even a remote possibility that I was going to win ever again,” she said. “I didn’t know how much longer I really wanted to be golfing ever again.”

Instead, Alex overcame the No. 1 and No. 3 player in these power rankings for her first win in four years. She started working with a new swing coach last May in Claude Harmon, and the results have paid off this season. Her three top-10 finishes this year match her total from the 2020 and 2021 seasons combined.

Starts: 9
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Win at Palos Verdes Championship, T-6 Honda LPGA Thailand
Last Month: Not Ranked

9. Jennifer Kupcho

Kupcho’s leap into Poppie’s Pond has kept her in the lead in the races for Rolex Player of the Year and the Rolex Annika Major Award. The 2021 Solheim Cup breakout star sits in third place in the 2023 US Solheim Cup points leaderboard, behind Lexi Thompson and Danielle Kang. Kupcho has posted three top-20 finishes since her victory at the Chevron Championship.

The lone major champion of 2022 aims to become the first player on the LPGA Tour to win back-to-back majors since Inbee Park won three in a row to start the 2013 season.

Starts: 10
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 2
Notable Finishes: Win at Chevron Championship, T-6 Honda LPGA Thailand
Last Month: 7th

10. Madelene Sagstrom

The Swede has racked up four consecutive top-10 finishes following a T-13 at the Chevron Championship. Three of the four have been top-5 finishes. She’s credited her run, in part, to “The Chimp Paradox,” a book by Steve Peters that’s helped her tune out the voice in the back of her head telling her she’s doing something wrong.

Sagstrom is 26th in the latest Rolex World Rankings, the best rank of her career after starting the 2022 season at 43rd. For the first time in Sagstrom’s six-year LPGA career, she has strung together consecutive top-10s finishes, let alone four in a row.

Starts: 11
Wins: 0
Top-10s: 4
Notable Finishes: T-3 DIO Implant LA Open, T-3 Cognizant Founders Cup, T-5 Bank of Hope LPGA Match Play
Last Month: Not Ranked

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

Welcome to the second edition of the Just Women’s Sports LPGA power rankings. The tour has had three tournaments since we released our inaugural power rankings, and the results have shaken up the top 10.

Jennifer Kupcho made the winning leap into Poppie’s Pond at the 51st and final Chevron Championship. Hyo Joo Kim hula-danced along the Hawaiian shores to celebrate her Lotte Championship victory. Nasa Hataoka broke away from the field to claim the LA Open trophy last weekend by five strokes.

With the LPGA’s second of back-to-back tournaments in Los Angeles at Palos Verdes Golf Club underway this weekend, we run down the top 10 players on tour right now.

1. Jin Young Ko

After seven wins in her last 13 tournaments, Ko was close to extending her lead in these rankings during the third round of the DIO Implant Open. Instead, the World No. 1 found herself in the barranca in front of the 17th green. Rather than taking a penalty out of the hazard, Ko tried twice to get out before electing to drop. She ended up posting the first quadruple bogey of her five-year LPGA career, falling to five strokes behind eventual winner Nasa Hataoka. She played the final 20 holes at six-over par to finish T-21.

“I played not bad,” Ko said after her third round. “Just 17 was big mistake.”

Ko has had too much recent success otherwise to be knocked from the top perch. She posted 34 consecutive rounds under par following the first round of the Chevron Championship, where she shot a 74. The 13-time winner also posted 16 straight rounds in the 60s, another LPGA record.

The door could open for a new No. 1 if her blistering win streak remains on hold. Likewise, Ko’s grip on the Rolex No. 1 World Ranking is slipping. The 1.3-average ranking point cushion she built over Nelly Korda following her fourth-place finish at the JTBC Classic slowly trickled to 0.89 this week, as Korda remains sidelined while recovering from a blood clot. The World No. 2 last teed it up at the LPGA Drive On Championship in early February.

Starts: 4
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 2
Best Finish: Win at HSBC Women’s Championship
Last Month: 1st

2. Lydia Ko

Ko was not able to successfully defend her 2021 Lotte Championship, but the freshly-turned 25-year-old extended her consecutive top-30 finishes to 15 in a row dating back to July of last year at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational. It’s her longest such streak since she won 22 in a row from 2015-16, a run that also included seven titles.

The two-time major champion finished T-25 at the Chevron Championship and T-18 at the Lotte Championship. After celebrating her birthday during the DIO Implant LA Open, Ko is back in action at Palos Verdes Golf Club this weekend.

In 2022, the former World No. 1 hasn’t finished outside of the top 25.

Starts: 6
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 2
Best Finish: Win at Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio
Last Month: 3rd

3. Hyo Joo Kim

In a nearly identical 2022 resume to Lydia Ko, Kim hasn’t finished outside of the top 26 in 2022. She won the Lotte Championship and finished T-8 at the Chevron Championship since the last iteration of these rankings. The 2014 Evian Championship winner sits in second place in scoring average at 69.3, trailing only Nanna Koerstz Madsen.

Her consistent results are due in part to her ability to recover around the green. The 2020 Olympian leads the LPGA in scrambling percentage, making par or better 77.9 percent of the time over 95 missed greens in regulation this season.

Starts: 5
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 3
Best Finish: Victory at the Lotte Championship
Last Month: Not Ranked

4. Atthaya Thitikul

Thitikul notched another top 10 since her maiden victory at the JTBC Classic at the end of March, with a T-6 at the LPGA Lotte Championship. The Thai star is putting together an impressive debut season so far, remaining well above her peers in the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year Race with 468 points. That’s good for a 135-point advantage over Hye-Jin Choi (323) in second place and a 177-point edge over Hinako Shibuno (291) in third. Na Rin An (176) sits in fourth, rounding out the group with over 150 points.

Rookie of the Year is the only major award Thitikul is in contention for. The 19-year-old is fourth in the Rolex Player of the Year race with 45 points, trailing leader Jennifer Kupcho by 20.

Starts: 8
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 4
Best Finish: Win at JTBC Classic
Last Month: 4th

5. Nanna Koerstz Madsen

The Dane is third in scoring average on the LPGA Tour. She followed up her playoff loss at the JTBC Classic with a T-8 at the Chevron Championship to make it three top 10s in a row, along with her victory in Thailand.

Koerstz Madsen is currently second in strokes gained while putting, with her flat stick averaging 29 putts per round, just over a stroke better than her 2021 average. She’s also crushing her driver, averaging just over 280 off the tee. That makes her the second-longest hitter off the tee this season, trailing fellow Dane Emily Kristine Pedersen by two yards.

Koertz Madsen’s T-48 at the DIO Implant ended her top-10 streak, but she and Danielle Kang are the only two golfers with a win and a runner-up finish in 2022.

Starts: 7
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 3
Best Finish: Win at Honda LPGA Thailand
Last Month: 6th

6. Nasa Hataoka

After the 23-year-old missed the cut at the Lotte Championship, Hataoka had a 90-minute lesson with a new coach who helped launch her to victory in Hawaii. Hataoka felt more open to making changes to her swing after not playing the weekend, and she worked on moving the ball further up in her stance and closer to her body.

The change resulted in Hataoka winning the DIO Implant Open by five shots, the biggest margin of victory on tour this season. The win, her sixth during her six-year career on tour, tied her with Jessica Korda for the most wins without a major title among active LPGA players. Her lone top-10 finish is deceiving based on her performances. In four starts before she missed the cut in Hawaii, she finished T-11, T-12, T-16 and T-17.

This week, six is a theme for Hataoka, with her victory moving her to sixth in the Rolex World Rankings, three spots off of her career-best.

Starts: 9
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 1
Best Finish: Win at DIO Implant LA Open
Last Month: Not Ranked

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Kupcho won her first LPGA title, and major championship, at Chevron in early April. (Harry How/Getty Images)

7. Jennifer Kupcho

Kupcho broke through for her first LPGA victory on the major stage at the Rancho Mirage Dinah Shore course, leaping into Poppie’s Pond to punctuate her major championship. In 67 career LPGA starts, Kupcho had been within three shots of the lead six other times but had not won until Chevron.

“Once I started putting myself in contention and not succeeding, I really worked with my swing coach,” she said. “He’s also really good with the mental game. So just talking to him a lot about what’s going through my mind all the time and trying to figure out how to process my way through that.”

The 24-year-old shared after her win that it was challenging to hear fans call out Nelly Korda’s or Lexi Thompson’s names instead of her own on the course in the past. She’s now in their category with a major title, three years after winning the 2019 Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

Two missed cuts and a T-64 at the DIO Implant LA Open keep Kupcho further down the list, but the American’s star has been rising since the Solheim Cup. She holds an early lead on the Rolex Player of the Year race with 65 points, leading Koerstz Madsen by 17.

Starts: 8
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 2
Best Finish: Win at Chevron Championship
Last Month: Not Ranked

8. Celine Boutier

Boutier’s consistent run of play extends through the opening salvo of the season, with the French golfer leading the tour with five top-10 finishes. The Frenchwoman finished T-4 at the Chevron Championship, T-10 at the Lotte Championship and T-14 at the DIO Implant Open, finishing a stroke off of her third top-10 in a row at Wilshire Country Club.

At her press conference ahead of the Palos Verdes Championship, Boutier cited putting improvements as the difference-maker in her play. She’s T-17 on tour this year with 29 putts per round, a one-stroke improvement from 2021, when she averaged 30.1 putts per round (T-57).

Starts: 8
Wins: 0
Top 10s: 5
Best Finish: 3rd at Honda LPGA Thailand
Last Month: 8th

9. Danielle Kang

Kang and Koertz Madsen are the only two players with a victory and runner-up finish in 2022. Kang’s electric start nearly put her at the top of the original version of the power rankings, but she has cooled off since.

She finished T-17 at the Chevron Championship, then withdrew from the Lotte Championship with an injury. Kang failed to break 70 in four rounds at the DIO Implant LA Open for a T-35 finish, after posting in the 60s in 13 of 16 rounds over her first four events of the year.

She’s holding in the top 10 of the rankings because of her success at the start of the season, but she’ll need a dramatic turnaround to move back into second place.

Starts: 5
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 4
Best Finish: Win at Hilton Resorts Tournament of Champions
Last Month: 2nd

10. Minjee Lee

In March, the Australian passed on the opening Florida swing to remain in the Eastern Hemisphere for her debut at the HSBC World Championship in Sinagpore. Lee blitzed the final round with 11 birdies for a 63 and T-2 finish. It set the tone for a stellar start to the year, as Lee hasn’t finished outside of the top 25 across her five starts in 2022. She finished in 12th place at the Chevron Championship and had a T-3 at the DIO Implant Open since the last rankings.

The 2021 Amundi Evian Championship winner leads the tour in scoring average by a quarter of a stroke. Her low scoring is also why she sits in the lead in the Aon Risk Reward Challenge, a million-dollar competition that Aon sponsors on the LPGA and PGA Tour, rewarding the golfer with the lowest average score on a specific hole at each tournament. Lee’s averaging -1.1 over two combined scores, 0.1 ahead of 2017 KPMG Women’s PGA champion So Yeon Ryu.

Starts: 5
Wins: 0
Top 10s: 2
Best Finish: T-2 at the HSBC Women’s World Championship
Last Month: Not Ranked

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Jennifer Kupcho, for her first LPGA victory, won the 51st and final Chevron Championship by two strokes at the Dinah Shore Course on Sunday.

Here are five takeaways from the historic moment in women’s golf.

1. A mixed farewell to the Dinah Shore Course

Golf Channel commentator Jerry Foltz welcomed a Chevron executive to the stand during the trophy presentation Sunday. The fans around Poppie’s Pond, in their final act of rebellion, booed the tournament host’s representative in frustration that so much history is being left behind in Rancho Mirage.

No longer will passionate volunteers like 80-year-old Judi Callaway, who makes 1,000 roses a year sitting alongside the 18th fairway, be a constant reminder of the stories of the tournament. Nor will players walk alongside the names of all the past champions of the event, on a path culminating in a statue of Dinah Shore, the tournament’s patron saint.

First tee announcer Ron Gilgallion, who’s called players’ names for the last 24 years, summoned three-time Chevron champion Amy Alcott on Sunday. Alcott started the tradition of the winner leaping into Poppie’s Pond in 1988, and she was on hand to call out the last name ever announced on the first tee, that of last year’s champion, Patty Tavatanakit.

“It’s bittersweet, but I’m glad the LPGA, I’m glad Chevron is stepping in,” Alcott said of the moment. “I’m glad they’re doing whatever they need to do to elevate the tournament for these great players. One door closes, another door opens.”

Judy Rankin, a television broadcasting pioneer, also wrapped up her final tournament working as a lead analyst for Golf Channel. Fans peppered the outskirts of the course with signs acknowledging her history at the course.

Since the event’s inception in 1972, Rankin has been an omniscient presence as both a player and a commentator. She finished tied for second in the inaugural edition of the tournament, which Jane Blalock won, and captured the title herself in 1976.

The Hall of Famer wasn’t willing to write off the LPGA returning to Mission Hills Country Club.

“I might be sticking my foot in my mouth — I believe the best golfers in the game will be back at Mission Hills in some shape or fashion,” Rankin said Sunday as Lexi Thompson walked onto the 18th green.

An hour before Kupcho’s final tap-in putt for victory, past champions Sandra Palmer (1975), Alcott (1983, 1988, 1991), Patty Sheehan (1996) and Patricia Meunier-Lebouc (2003) gathered to take a group winners’ leap into Poppie’s Pond. It served as a culmination of Chevron’s 51 years of history as title sponsor of the tournament.

“As a past champion, it is hard,” Meunier-Lebouc said, “because we have so many memories here, and I think it is an unbelievable tournament venue, people.

“We have to recognize that what the people in the community have done is tremendous. It’s not only what we lose, it’s what the community loses. I have to trust the LPGA and the Chevron people and what they’re doing. They better do a good job. If we go away from here, it has to be something big.”

2. Jennifer Kupcho’s putter delivers Chevron Championship

Kupcho walked to the first tee Sunday with a six-shot lead over Patty Tavatanakit, with her putter delivering 10 makes over 10 feet through the first three rounds.

The trend continued during the final round, with Kupcho making back-to-back birdie putts on the fourth and fifth holes to take the turn with the same six-stroke lead at 17-under par.

The 24-year-old’s momentum stalled briefly with bogeys on 10, 13 and 14. With four holes to go, Kupcho sat at 15-under par, while Jessica Korda, a group ahead of her, hit a bunker shot to two feet above the 15th hole.

After piping a drive down the 15th fairway, Kupcho arrived at her ball with a smile. She had the exact same yardage and pin location as she did when she holed out at this point two years ago.

“To be able to have that, that’s what I thought about, and I think that is what made me hit such a good shot into 15,” Kupcho said.

“Then I was able to just coast in.”

Korda missed her short par look, and Kupcho arrived at the 18th green with cheers of “Jennifer” echoing off Poppie’s Pond.

“One of the biggest things I’ve fought over the last year and a half is everyone is out here cheering for Nelly [Korda] or Lexi [Thompson] or someone else I’m playing with,” Kupcho said after her win. “I don’t ever hear, ‘Go Jennifer.’ That was really special today to have that.”

Three years after Kupcho became the first woman to win at Augusta, when she captured the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2019, she walked away Sunday as the last champion at the Dinah Shore Course. The Chevron Championship has been the LPGA’s closest equivalent to the PGA’s Masters at Augusta National, with its 51 years of history.

After Kupcho finished her press conference, she acknowledged the more than 20 girls standing outside the press room calling out, “Jennifer! Jennifer!”

After Kupcho’s performance this weekend, it’s hard to imagine those will be the last chants we hear for her.

3. Lorena Ochoa and founders earn overdue LPGA Hall of Fame induction

Last Tuesday, the LPGA announced it would remove the 10-year requirement for golfers to get into its Hall of Fame, making 27-time winner Lorena Ochoa eligible. The Mexican star is the first from her homeland to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

“It’s an honor to receive this recognition,” Ochoa said. “It was unexpected and very special to me.”

The LPGA also granted an honorary bid to the eight founders not currently in the Hall of Fame — Alice Bauer, Bettye Danoff, Helen Dettwiler, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Sally Sessions, Marilynn Smith, and Shirley Spork. Spork, 94, was the last remaining and living founder not in the Hall of Fame.

“Getting into the LPGA Hall of Fame is the highest honor ever in our profession, so I’ve climbed the whole ladder and gotten to the top,” Spork said. “I hope I can sit up on that ladder for a few more years and enjoy it.”

Stacy Lewis, the former world No. 1, said last week that she worked behind the scenes to try to make this possible.

“Since Shirley is getting older, we needed to do it before we lose all of our founders,” Lewis said. “They should be in the LPGA Hall of Fame. Without them we wouldn’t be where we are.”

Membership expanded from 25 to 34 with the update. Under the new roles, a gold medal won at the Olympics also earns a player a point, retroactively granting points to Inbee Park from 2016 and Nelly Korda from Tokyo last summer.

Still, there are questions about whether the tour went far enough with the changes. Since the turn of the millennia, only five players have passed the 27-point benchmark to earn their way in: Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak, Inbee Park and Lorena Ochoa.

4. Jin Young Ko’s historic run ends

At the end of the first round Thursday, Ko sat a stroke outside of the cut line with her first over-par card in 35 rounds, marking an LPGA-record 34 straight rounds under par. After battling back with a second-round 68 to make the cut and sit two-under par and seven behind the lead, Ko opened up about how tired she felt after the JTBC Classic.

“I think last week was a tough course, so I used lots of energy on the course, and then [it was] hilly, so my body feels a little tired,” she said Friday.

Ko, the 2021 CME Group Tour Championship winner and LPGA Player of the Year, ended up at even par for a T-53 finish at Mission Hills. The result brought her run of 10 straight top-10 finishes to an end.

Ko hasn’t broken the top 50 now in her last two major starts, with this week’s finish following a T-60 at the Amundi Evian Championship last July. The South Korean said her goal is to accomplish the career grand slam of winning all five majors, and she checked two off the list in 2019: the Chevron Championship and the Amundi Evian Championship.

The World No. 1’s next event, as of now, is the DIO Implant Open in Los Angeles starting April 21.

5. Jessica Korda knocks on the major championship door

While the No. 2 player in the world, Nelly Korda, is out indefinitely with a blood clot, her sister took up the mantle over the weekend. Jessica pushed Kupcho with a Sunday 69 to finish in second, her best result at a major championship. For a brief moment, Korda trailed Kupcho by two with four to play, but she missed a short par putt on the 15th green to fall behind.

“Second place is not bad after being 3-over through 7, so pretty proud of myself,” Korda said.

The Kordas are one of three sister pairs to win on the LPGA, joining Annika and Charlotta Sorenstam, and Ariya and Moriya Jutanugarn. The tour, however, has yet to have a pair of sisters win major titles — Annika, Nelly and Ariya are the major champions of the bunch.

Jessica Korda currently has the most victories of any active LPGA player without a major title. With her second-place finish, she’s trending in the direction of making history alongside her sister.

“I’ve always been hungry. If you’re not hungry, you’re in the wrong place,” she said.

“I’ve been close a bunch of times, and sometimes it just needs to be meant to be, and currently it hasn’t been.”

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — The 51st and final edition of the Chevron Championship at the Dinah Shore course started with a celebration of the end of the longest-running women’s major.

Jennifer Kupcho shot an eight-under 64 on Saturday, setting the 54-hole tournament scoring record to take a six-stroke lead and sit 18 holes away from her coronation as a major champion.

“Everything was working,” Kupcho said, “I mean seriously, this week I think my putting is definitely the props. I have putted really well, and you got to make putts in a major championship.”

After watching the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in the morning to keep her mind off of what was ahead of her, Kupcho scorched the Coachella Valley. She birdied the second and third holes to move into a three-way tie for the lead at 10-under par alongside Patty Tavatanakit and 36-hole leader Hinako Shibuno. From there, the rout was on.

Kupcho birdied the fourth and fifth holes to make it four birdies in a row, with her 10-foot putt on the sixth narrowly sliding by the low side of the cup and keeping her from extending the streak to five.

Kupcho posted a five-under 31 on the front nine, giving a quick wave to the fans after dropping an eight-footer on the eighth for birdie.

The 2019 August National Women’s Amateur champion continued to pour it on from there, birdieing three in a row on the back nine to pull away at 16-under and threaten the tournament-record 62 Lydia Ko set in the final round last year.

Kupcho carded a birdie, a bogey and four pars the rest of the way to sign her card. The 24-year-old’s 200 total strokes earned her the 54-hole scoring record and bested the previous record of 202 set by Tavatanakit (2021) and Pernilla Lindberg (2018).

Kupcho couldn’t quite pinpoint where this round ranks among her all-time best, but she credited her mental game and her putting for helping her make history.

“It’s all a blur,” Kupcho said, “You’re just out there grinding shot by shot. I think that’s one thing I’ve really done well this week, is taking it shot by shot and not thinking about the end result.”

Instead of sports, Kupcho plans to watch “Bridgerton” ahead of her Sunday afternoon tee time. If she polishes off the victory Sunday, she will become the first American to win the Chevron Championship since Brittany Lincicome in 2015.

Tavatanakit, the defending Chevron champion, sits in second at 10-under par, a bit of a disappointment given how she started the day. The Thai native hit two birdies on the first two holes to get to 10-under with 16 to play. She struggled to maintain her momentum from there, carding three bogeys to fall to six back of the lead.

Tavatanakit will need a near historic comeback to reenter the winner’s circle Sunday. The most strokes a player has overcome to win the Chevron Championship was seven in 2006, when Karrie Webb, the Australian Hall of Famer, holed out for eagle on the 72nd hole to force a playoff against Lorena Ochoa.

Tavatanakit said she was up for the challenge.

“I like chasing,” Tavatanakit said, “Better feeling. You play without fear, and I love doing that.”

If Tavatanakit were to pull it off, she would be the first golfer to defend her title at the Chevron Championship since Annika Sorenstam in 2001 and ’02.

Entering Sunday, Jessica Korda is the only other player within seven strokes of Kupcho. The 29-year-old’s five-under 67 came from a clean front nine, where she went bogey-free for four-under par.

A six-time LPGA winner, Korda has the most victories on tour for a player without a major championship on her resume. Despite the drought, Korda has learned from experience that there is always a chance. She need look no further than last year, when Ko cut into Tavanakit’s 54-hole lead with a final-round 62.

“I was three-over through, like, seven on the first day,” Korda said. “I’m never out of it.”

Shibuno, the leader after 36 holes, said she felt nervous at the start of her third round, especially on her drives and approach shots. The 2019 AIG Women’s Open Champion shot a five-over par 77 on Saturday and sits four-under entering the final round.

“My shots were left, right, to the left,” Shibuno said through her translator. “Tough day today.”

The day concluded with the sun setting over the looming San Jacinto Mountains, giving off purple and yellow hues one last time at the Chevron Championship.

From the LPGA’s 51-year history at the course, the players will remember the swaying palm trees, the burning desert heat and the roars of crowds. And whoever comes out on top Sunday will walk away with their name etched into the final slot of the tournament record books at Dinah Shore.

“I mean, just to be out here, I love this place,” Kupcho said. “I love stepping on this property. You just get positive vibes. It’s such a beautiful course, so I think I’m just taking it all in.”

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Hinako Shibuno has gotten used to the outpouring of attention since she won the 2019 AIG Women’s Open for Japan’s first major victory since 1977 less than a year after turning professional. As she walked off the course at Dinah Shores on Friday as the clubhouse leader at nine-under par, it became clear that the media apparatus and fans now gravitate to the bright Japanese star wherever she goes.

“It’s very familiar,” Shibuno said through a translator Friday, “that I can see the Japanese media all the way from Japan.”

After carding a six-under 66 Friday to take the outright lead at the Chevron Championship, the 23-year-old first met with Japanese media, doing an on-camera interview with Mitsuki Katahira. The former No. 1 amateur player in the world and six-year broadcaster was there with WOWOW media, a Japanese television station.

Following her on-camera interview, Shibuno walked over to meet with American media and conducted a press conference with her manager serving as her translator.

After that, the star stepped outside the press conference area and held court with the Japanese print media, conducting a 10-minute Q&A next to the practice green and answering whatever questions the reporters posed to her in the sweltering desert heat.

Regardless of how well or where she plays, the major champion always chats with the Japanese media daily. On Wednesday, Shibuno held a recorded press conference in the shade near the practice chipping area, following the precedent set by Ai Miyazato, the former Japanese World No. 1 who retired from the LPGA in 2017.

Even at the LPGA’s qualifying school, Q-Series, WOWOW broadcast Shibuno’s performances live from Mobile, Ala. last November despite the 19-hour time difference in Japan. It’s a level of coverage not seen from the Japanese media since Miyazato’s retirement.

“Everybody loves her personality and they love to come film her,” Katahira said. “I think it’s kind of difficult for her. There’s so much attention on her in Japan, even off the golf course, too. I know she doesn’t say it, but I know it’s probably pretty stressful for her. I think she handles herself very well.”

While the Japanese golf world knows Japanese LPGA Tour winners Yuka Saso and Nasa Hataoka, Shibuno is a household name largely because of her upbeat personality. The media has nicknamed her the “Smiling Cinderella.”

“She’s always smiling,” Katahira said. “Even under pressure, she was smiling and high-fiving. That makes everybody become a fan instantly, I think.”

That carries over into her media interactions. Shibuno laughed after explaining to reporters that her favorite snacks are Chicken Breast chips that she makes in the microwave. She then waved with two hands at the conclusion, saying “arigato gozaimasu” (meaning “thank you”) to the American media.

The attention follows the star wherever she goes. A fan leaped and fist-pumped in excitement after Shibuno made an uphill eight-foot birdie putt on a par 5. Another fan yelled out “yokatta!” — Japanese for “It was good!”

On the 11th tee, Shibuno acknowledged a fan who told her “nice birdie,” with a smile and a “thank you.”

It’s difficult to see the depths of her fandom from across the Pacific Ocean. If Japan hosted the Chevron Championship, Katahira believes the fans would rival the crowds swarming Augusta National during The Masters, a major on the PGA Tour. As the fervor grows, it becomes more challenging for Shibuno to live up to the demands.

“From 2019, winning British Open,” Shibuno said, “it’s more expectations from fans, so it’s getting easier.”

The fans on-site at the Chevron Championship have been treated to another of Shibuno’s strong major performances this week. Her two best finishes on the LPGA Tour have come at major — the AIG Women’s Open, during her first trip outside of Japan in 2019, and a fourth-place finish at the 2020 U.S. Women’s Open, where she held the lead through 54 holes. Shibuno credits her matured game for the strides she’s made since winning her first major championship.

Now, as she heads into the third round with Jennifer Kupcho and two other golfers just one stroke behind her, she’s embracing the gravity of the moment without getting too ahead of herself.

“It’s very sad to play the final season,” Shibuno said Thursday, “but I wanted to just play well, finish well.”

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — For the second time in just over a month, Jennifer Kupcho is partnering up.

Six weeks after getting married in mid-February, the American polished a six-under par 66 in the opening round of the Chevron Championship to sit tied for the lead with Minjee Lee entering Friday. Kupcho got there grouped alongside Solheim Cup teammate and close friend Lizette Salas, who attended her wedding in mid-February. After hugging on the 18th hole, Salas asked Kupcho to be her teammate at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, the LPGA Tour’s team event in July, writing the question on her scorecard.

Kupcho immediately accepted, and the friends walked arm-in-arm to the scorer’s tent.

“After that performance,” Salas said, “I’m not going to miss an opportunity to ask her.”

Kupcho’s work with her other partner, husband Jay Monahan, who caddies on the LPGA Tour, fueled her nine-birdie performance Thursday, including four consecutive birdies from the 11th to the 14th holes. During their training, they focused on making sure Kupcho takes her putter straight back and through, compared to when she used to cut across the ball, to attain more consistent results.

“I have been working on my putting a lot,” Kupcho explained. “I mean, as everyone in the world says, my putting is not my strong suit.”

She took advantage of the pure greens of the Dinah Shore course Thursday with 24 putts, matching her career-low from the first round at the 2021 ISPS Handa World Invitational and the second round of the 2019 Taiwan Swinging Skirts.

“I think it’s just being comfortable on this golf course,” Kupcho said, “I get here and I just feel comfortable. I love this place. Then getting to play with Lizette, who is my good friend, it was just all comfortable and really fun.”

The golfers’ camaraderie was on display for the entire round. On the 16th hole, Salas, who averages 18 yards less off the tee than Kupcho, outdrove her by a couple of yards. Salas turned to the gallery and said, “Hey, I just outdrove her,” to laughter and applause from the fans, and she remained jovial while shooting two-over par Thursday.

When they partnered together at the Solheim Cup, Salas, known for her putting ability, trusted Kupcho with reading the greens at Inverness.

On Thursday, the greens and the scenery of the Dinah Shore course also comforted Kupcho during her opening round. The layout and looming San Jacinto mountain range remind the 24-year-old of the desert golf in Colorado, where she grew up, and in Arizona, where she lives now.

“Just to see the same kind of grass and everything like that,” Kupcho said, “it’s just a comfort for me.”

Even after she missed the cut last week at the JTBC Classic, the pressure of major championships brings out Kupcho’s best. Salas, who described Kupcho at the Solheim Cup as someone with ice water in her veins, sees her fiery approach as what drives her success.

“She was a core of our team, our duo, and we complement each other very well,” Salas said. “She’s a fierce competitor. You can just tell. She hates making bogey. She just bounces back right after. That’s just how she is.”

Kupcho’s competitiveness has fueled her at some of the most significant events in women’s golf. In 2019, Kupcho outlasted 2019 individual NCAA Champion Maria Fassi at the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Then, Kupcho blitzed up the leaderboard with a closing 66 at the 2019 Evian Championship, the fourth major on the LPGA calendar, to finish tied for second in the best major performance of her career. In Kupcho’s first Solheim Cup last summer, she went 2-0-1 in team play alongside Salas.

Now, as she sits atop the leaderboard entering Day 2 at the Chevron Championship, she’s in a position to contend to become the first American to win the event since Brittany Lincicome in 2015.

“I admire her,” Salas said. “Even though I’m a ten-year veteran, she’s someone I admire. Her game is awesome. It’s on point.”

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Annie Park crunched numbers ahead of the weekend at the JTBC Classic, the final tournament before the Chevron Championship, figuring out where she needed to finish to qualify for the first major of the year.

Park’s calculations proved to be perfect after she shot a final-round 68 on Sunday, her lowest total of the year. With that result, she ended up 80th on the CME list and became the last player to make it into the Chevron Championship field.

Sunday’s round was the first Park enjoyed since the 2019 Solheim Cup. The T23 finish was her best since she took a two-month mental health break in the middle of the 2021 season to address her anxieties and doubts about her future in golf.

“I was just at a point where I was so confused about everything and a lot of stuff where I had trouble breathing,” she said. “I felt like I had so much on my plate, I didn’t know how to empty it.”

During her fifth year on the LPGA Tour in 2021, Park felt her habits beginning to catch up to her. Her body started to cry out in response to the stress accumulated from suppressing her emotions. She took medication for three months during the year, treating ulcers and acid reflux in her stomach. Park found she would sob uncontrollably with seemingly no trigger, even when she was driving. Not knowing what was causing her pain only added to the anxiety of playing.

“I don’t want to be on the golf course and bawling my eyes out of nowhere,” Park said.

After the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational in the middle of July, Park shut it down, passing on five tournaments and returning at the end of September with four events left on the LPGA calendar.

The first tournament she withdrew from was the Evian Championship, the fourth major of the season in France.

“Why should I travel across the world when I don’t want to be there and be miserable for a week? I don’t want to do that,” she said. “Give that spot to someone who actually really wants to be there and wants to have the experience of it.”

Major championships are worth more points in the CME standings, the currency the LPGA uses to determine a player’s tour status for the next season. With Park’s guaranteed status expiring at the end of the 2021 season, she had to play her way into the top 100 to maintain her card and avoid going to Q-Series, the LPGA’s qualifying school.

She planned to give it her best shot, but even if she missed the mark, Park was at peace with the outcome.

“My ranking does not justify Annie Park,” she explained, “because outside of the golf course, I’m a human being. I’m still a friend, still a daughter to someone.”

The time she spent away from the sport allowed her to explore other passions. Park worked on ceramics, discovered her love of dance, listened to music and enjoyed cycling and working out. Instead of reading up on flight deals for LPGA travel, Park dove into books and articles at her Dallas home. She read one about crying and how the release of serotonin can lead to positive health effects, which resonated with the 26-year-old after she felt she had bottled up her emotions for years.

“It’s OK to be introspective once in a while [and ask yourself], ‘What are you doing? What are you going through? Are you OK?’ That’s a question I never asked myself for the last couple of years,” she said.

When the tour returned to the United States, Park rejoined the competition at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship following the Cambia Portland Classic in late September. People asked her if she was recovering from an injury that led to the break.

“There’s a lot of eyes watching us, and sometimes people have high expectations of you, and if you don’t meet them, you get disappointed,” Park said. “I think that eventually creeps into you judging yourself, expecting too much of yourself, expecting that you need to do this, you have to succeed, you have to win this event, or if you don’t, the world is ending.”

The most important lesson she learned during the two months away was to trust her intuition rather than ignore it. With that guiding her thinking, the USC alum played just well enough in her final four events of 2021 to eke into 98th place on the CME list and maintain her tour card. She wasn’t, however, guaranteed a start at the Chevron Championship, with only the top 80 on the CME leaderboard in 2021 earning entry into this year’s first major tournament.

Park focused on improving her game through the first tournaments of the 2022 season. She worked through mechanical changes during her two LPGA starts in January and early February before taking an eight-week break ahead of the JTBC Classic last weekend. Park retooled her bag, adding a new Scotty Cameron putter. She even got a manicure with a smiley-faced design on her fingernail a couple of weeks before the JTBC Classic, symbolizing the joy she’s rediscovered in golf.

“I think I have that fire again, which I just kind of lost during COVID,” Park said. “I think that fire gives me that thrill of being out on the golf course again. I think that was huge last week, to feel that again.”

Now, ahead of her sixth career start at the Chevron Championship, she has the tools to balance her career and her personal life. And at last, she feels comfortable sharing her story.

“[I wanted to] let other people know they’re not alone,” Park said. “I think that’s the biggest thing that we always forget, is we always think we’re alone. There is a community that goes through it, goes through similar things.

“We’re here to support each other.”

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

Welcome to the first edition of the Just Women’s Sports LPGA power rankings. Every month this season, we’ll weigh factors such as wins, top-10 finishes and all-around performances while compiling the list of the top golfers on tour.

This will not be an exact replica of the Rolex World Rankings, though there will likely be some correlation. For example, you’ll notice that World No. 2 Nelly Korda does not appear on the list, as she’s out indefinitely with a blood clot.

As the LPGA gets set to tee off its first major of the year at the Chevron Championship, we run down the top 10 golfers playing right now.

1. Jin Young Ko

Six wins in her last eleven starts. Next.

In all seriousness, since Ko skipped the AIG Women’s Open last August to put in more work with her coach, Si Woo Lee, she has added even more records to her already historic ledger. Ko hit 63 consecutive greens in regulation to close out the 2021 CME Group Tour Championship, winning her second Rolex Player of the Year award. The streak ended at 66 during the first round of the HSBC Women’s World Championship.

The World No. 1 has recorded an immaculate 16 straight rounds in the 60s, a feat never seen before on the LPGA Tour. She’s also posted 34 consecutive rounds under par and nine consecutive top 10 finishes. Her per-round scoring average this season is 68.2.

Ko makes her third start of the year at the Chevron Championship while playing her best golf. Her last two finishes at the Dinah Shore Course were a victory in 2019 and a T7 finish in 2021. Should Ko secure her third major title, she’ll be in the driver’s seat to catch 27-time winner Lorena Ochoa for the most weeks atop the Rolex Rankings. Ko, at 122, currently sits 32 weeks behind Ochoa at 154.

Starts: 2
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 2
Best Finish: Win at HSBC Women’s Championship

2. Danielle Kang

If not for Ko’s laundry list of accomplishments, Kang would be worthy of the top spot. Since overhauling her team this offseason — bringing in a new physio, nutritionist and trainer — she has been tearing it up.

The American finished first and second in the two opening events of the season. Overseas, Kang posted back-to-back top 10s before a T42 finish in Carlsbad, Calif.

“I don’t know if this would be a good thing to say, but I’m using this week as practice a little bit for next week,” Kang said after the opening round of the JTBC Classic, the tournament directly ahead of the Chevron Championship. “There are still some parts of my game that I want to tune up, and I want to go in next week really confident.”

That’s some earned confidence displayed from the six-time tour winner, who’s finished in the top 15 in her last three starts at the Chevron Championship.

Starts: 5
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 4
Best Finish: Win at Hilton Resorts Tournament of Champions

3. Lydia Ko

The 2021 Vare Trophy winner (awarded to the player with the lowest scoring average in a season) is back to playing consistent golf six years removed from her time atop the rankings in 2015 and ‘16. Since last October, Ko has finished in the top 10 in five of her previous seven starts, with a T12 result last week narrowly missing the mark.

That streak culminated with her 17th-career LPGA victory at the Gainbridge LPGA, the second tournament of the tournament at Boca Rio.

Next month, Ko will look to defend her Lotte Championship title from 2021, when she finished 28-under par for her first victory in three seasons.

Starts: 4
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 2
Best Finish: Win at Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio

4. Atthaya Thitikul

Say hello to the newest LPGA star. It won’t be surprising to see her continue to ascend the JWS power rankings, just like she has in the Rolex World Rankings. In 20th place to start the season, Thitikul vaulted into fifth after shooting a final-round 64 and winning the JTBC Classic in a playoff. She’s the clear frontrunner for Rolex Rookie of the Year, currently sitting with 329 points and holding a 215-point advantage over Hye-Jin Choi in second place.

Thitikul has even contended in LPGA majors, finishing in fifth place at the Evian Championship last July. One of the only blips on her resume is a T11 finish at the LPGA Drive On Championship in her second start of the season, causing her to narrowly miss the bar for an 80 percent top-10 rate.

Starts: 5
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 3
Best Finish: Win at JTBC Classic

5. Brooke Henderson

The winningest Canadian in golf history finished as the runner-up at the Hilton Tournament of Champions to start the season and hasn’t slowed down since. She’d be five-for-five in top 10s if not for a T11 finish – like Thitikul – at the LPGA Drive On Championship.

“To come out this year so strong, I’m definitely happy and proud of that,” Henderson said after the final round of the Honda LPGA Thailand. “I feel like I’m inching my way closer every week to getting a little bit more comfortable and just enjoying those final groups as much as I have been.”

Henderson tends to win in bunches, having won two tournaments a season from 2016-19. She appears to be on the precipice of one of those runs with her consistent play of late. In late April, she’ll defend her title at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles at the DIO Implant L.A. Open.

Starts: 5
Wins: 0
Top 10s: 4
Best Finish: 2nd at Hilton Resorts Tournament of Champions

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Nanna Koerstz Madsen picked up her first LPGA win at the Honda LPGA Thailand earlier in March. (Thananuwat Srirasant/Getty Images)

6. Nanna Koerstz Madsen

It’s incredible how just one stroke can swing your fate in golf. On the 72nd hole at the JTBC Classic, Koerstz Madsen stared down a 5-footer for the win. After becoming the first Danish woman ever to win on the LPGA Tour in Thailand, the 27-year-old nearly went back-to-back and earned the No. 2 spot in these rankings.

Instead, she missed the putt and lost to Thitikul in a playoff. It was her second top-two finish this year and a dramatic reversal from missing the cut in her first start of the season.

Starts: 4
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 2
Best Finish: Win at Honda LPGA Thailand

7. Leona Maguire

Leona Maguire checked off what felt like an inevitable box for the former No. 1 amateur in the world at Crown Colony Golf & Country Club in early February. The day before her mom’s birthday, Maguire shot 18-under par at the Drive On Championship for her first victory and the first by an Irishwoman on the LPGA Tour.

“The support from home has been incredible,” Maguire said. “They’ve been rallying behind me, and that’s something that I’m truly grateful for. It’s always an honor to represent Ireland, no matter where you go.”

Maguire stayed steady in southeast Asia, with a T13 finish in Singapore and a T12 in Thailand.

Starts: 4
Wins: 1
Top 10s: 1
Best Finish: Win at LPGA Drive On Championship Crown Colony

8. Celine Boutier

The Frenchwoman has been on a tear since last June, when she shot a tournemant-record 64 at the Mediheal Championship. She’s finished in the top 10 in nine of her 19 starts since then, and she has three top-five finishes this season. And in 15 rounds on tour this year, the two-time winner has yet to shoot over par.

“I feel pretty good about my weekends, to be honest,” Boutier explained at the Drive On Championship. “It was something I was struggling a bit with last year. I feel like I had a lot of tournaments where I played well the first two days, and then it’s not always easy to be either in the lead or in contention, especially the last two rounds … And I feel like the past two weeks have kind of proved that I got better at that. I feel like I handled it better.”

After passing on the JTBC Classic, she returns at the Chevron Championship, where she finished T50 last year.

Starts: 5
Wins: 0
Top 10s: 3
Best Finish: 3rd at Honda LPGA Thailand

9. Hannah Green

The 2019 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship winner did something no other woman in golf ever has before rejoining the LPGA in Singapore this year: Green won a mixed-gender event on the PGA Tour Australasia’s TPC Murray River. Before that, she’d won the Women’s Vic Open, a former LPGA event.

“I want to be in the top 10 in the world,” Green said after her TPC Murray River victory. “I think I can achieve it. If I keep playing the golf that I am now, hopefully I can get there.”

The Australian kept the momentum going in her opening tour start in Singapore, with a T6 finish.

Starts: 3
Wins: 0
Top 10s: 1
Best Finish: T-6 HSBC Women’s Championship

10. Lexi Thompson

The Florida resident opened the LPGA calendar with two starts in her home state, finishing T6 at the Gainbridge LPGA Boca Rio and second at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Crow Colony. Thompson, who recorded victories in seven consecutive seasons from 2013-19, is looking to return to the winner’s circle. The last time she hoisted a trophy, she dropped a cross-green bomb for eagle for her 11th career victory at the 2019 Shoprite LPGA Classic.

“Just going to continue to work hard and stay in the moment and put myself in contention and hopefully a win will come,” Thompson said after the Drive On Championship.

The first major of the year gives Thompson an opportunity to surge in the power rankings. The Dinah Shore course, home of the Chevron Championship, is one where Thompson has historically excelled. In 12 career starts at Dinah Shore, she’s posted six top-10 finishes, including a victory in 2014.

Starts: 3
Wins: 0
Top 10s: 2
Best Finish: 2nd at LPGA Drive On Championship at Crown Colony

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

As the LPGA Tour heads into the Chevron Championship this weekend, the first major tournament of the 2022 season, it’s as good a time as any to start following the action.

The first few months alone have produced a host of intriguing storylines. World No. 1 Jin Young Ko has scored 16 rounds in the 60s and 34 consecutive rounds under par after setting a record of 66 straight greens hit in regulation. Leona Maguire of Ireland and Nanna Koerstz Madsen of Denmark became the first players from their countries to win on the LPGA Tour.

If you’re looking for a primer on the LPGA as the season heats up, we have you covered.

Just Women’s Sports spoke with six Golf Channel commentators who have covered the LPGA for nearly 100 years combined, giving them a platform to serve as guides for the tour. They shared their favorite moments on air and what to watch for in the LPGA this year.

(Editor’s note: The following interviews have been lightly condensed for length and clarity.)

When watching the LPGA for the first time, what should a new fan be looking out for?

Paige Mackenzie: LPGA player (2007-15), analyst (2012-present)

One of the things I think is to watch the yardages, watch what clubs they’re hitting. I think that’s one of the things that would surprise most people who have never watched the LPGA, is to see the precision with which they execute shots at the yardages they’re doing it. And it’s a relatable game. A seven iron goes 155 yards, and that means something to them. I think for somebody that’s had a little bit of golf exposure, that’s something to pay attention to.

I think the other thing is just watching players when they get into the zone. Anybody who appreciates sports can appreciate that, whether it’s watching Jin Young Ko hit 63 consecutive greens in regulation or a player get hot with a putter and start draining putts from everywhere. You can start to ride that excitement, too. At times, (golf is) slow-paced, but if you watch one particular player and you’re watching them hit a hot streak, you can feel that momentum.

Jerry Foltz: On-course reporter (1999-present), professional golfer (1985-99)

The precision with which every player out there plays the game is so much different than the men’s game. LPGA players, although they are getting longer and longer in general, they still play a very precise game tee to green, and you can learn a lot more from them than you can from the big guys playing the PGA Tour. The average person who’s tuning in to watch golf for the first time probably isn’t going to be able to, at any time in their life, pick up a six iron and hit it 220 yards. Some guys can, but for the most part, they’re not. But they can learn how to chip and putt and control their wedges and learn how to hit an eight iron 145 yards, as is commonplace on the LPGA Tour.

Secondly, I think the people, the character of the players themselves. The type of human beings that each lady on the LPGA Tour represents themselves to be, not only for themselves and for their parents as a product of their parents, but also for their sponsors, for their fans. It’s a role that they seem to take a lot more seriously. You see the grace with which they carry themselves, the way they interact with their fellow players, the way they don’t cuss a whole lot, don’t slam clubs a whole lot, and when the cameras catch them signing autographs between holes and giving little kids golf balls. Just the little things that you catch a glimpse of from time to time, they’re doing all the time.

Amy Rogers: LPGA Tour content producer (2015-20), Golf Channel on-air and writing contributor (2020-present)

I think there are two things. First, if they are into golf, it’s such a great opportunity to be able to learn from what they’re watching on the screen from the best female golfers in the world. So many times we hear that the men’s game is just on a whole different level, that people really can’t aspire to it when you see people bombing it over 350 yards. But by watching the women, you can really try to emulate and take away more of what they’re doing. They really put a premium on hitting greens and hitting fairways, and that’s something that a lot of us amateurs out here can watch and try to emulate.

I think the other thing for people who aren’t as familiar with the LPGA would be to look at those key storylines at the top of the women’s game, particularly the budding rivalry — that the media, I think, has manufactured more than perhaps really exists — between Jin Young Ko and Nelly Korda. These two have traded spots at the top of the women’s rankings over the last few years and are just dominating the women’s game. That’s definitely a storyline to keep an eye on.

What separates LPGA players as the best golfers in the world?

Grant Boone: Play-by-play broadcaster (2000-07 & 2016-present), lead LPGA host (2018-present)

There are so many great players on the men’s and women’s side who can’t even get to the highest level because the competition keeps going up each year. I think you need look no further than someone like Sophia Popov, who had dropped down to the Epson Tour in 2020 and was just happy to have some place to play after fighting through Lyme disease in recent years before finally getting a diagnosis that would help her regain her strength. And when given the opportunity to play an LPGA event, she finished in the top 10. That got her into the Women’s British Open a couple of weeks later, and then she won that event at historic Royal Troon.

You start to realize … if she’s not even in the top 300 and she’s playing at that level, there are so many great players who, if given the opportunity, can perform at exceedingly high levels. She’s gone on to back that up by making the Solheim Cup team, and we see it not just in her, but in numerous other players.

Kay Cockerill: LPGA player (1988-97), analyst/on-course reporter (1995-present)

First and foremost, impeccable mechanics and a meticulously consistent setup over every shot. Beyond physical capabilities is what’s between the ears – their mental strength, their true belief in what they’re doing. And believe me, that gets rocked several times a week, a day, because golf is hard. That ability to move on from mistakes and minimize mistakes and stay optimistic and positive throughout the entire round, throughout the entire week, throughout the entire year, the players that do that the best usually end up at the top of the list at the end of the week.

They all have very good mechanics at that level, so it’s really the mental game, combined with the best players all hitting the ball exceedingly well and hitting a high percentage of greens. They have better wedge play and they are rock solid. On short putts, three to four footers because if you’re really good on those short putts, that frees you up on longer putts to be a little more aggressive, knowing that you’ll make those come-back putts if you miss.

Tom Abbott: Play-by-Play broadcaster (2007-Present)

Golf is a really complicated sport. There are so many things that can happen in a round of golf and in a player’s career. I think the best are separated mentally. At the end of the day, there is obviously a physical level and there’s a talent level. But the best players in the world have such a strong mental game, and they’re able to get into the right frame of mind and execute when it really matters. Certain players get into a groove, and they find that groove for a long period of time.

What has been your favorite broadcast moment on the LPGA Tour?

Cockerill: A lot of my favorite moments and consistent high points come from the Solheim Cup. And a lot of the time, it seems to involve Suzanne Pettersen. She’s always one of the main ingredients of a great Solheim Cup. I was there watching her the last two or three holes she played as I moved back to her group in Gleneagles during her singles match against Marina Alex. I don’t think anything will ever surpass her making that 6-foot putt to win the Solheim Cup, her reaction and then the mic drop, basically retiring from the game, saying it doesn’t get any better than this.

Abbott: Being at St. Andrews (at the 2007 Ricoh Women’s British Open) when … the women first went there to play a professional tournament and Lorena Ochoa won in 2007 (as the first Mexican player to win a major). That was pretty special. It was important to be there, and you could say the same for Muirfield this year, but I think St. Andrews is in a different league. If the women play there, it’s very special to be part of that.

Rogers: I do a lot of post-round interviews. You typically have two to three questions with a player after a round to just try to pinpoint the biggest storylines of their day. Sometimes that can be kind of narrow. There are not a lot of times we get into the depths of what’s going on, but you never know when you might stumble into something that’s really interesting. For example, this past summer at the Meijer LPGA Classic, Nelly Korda was in contention and she had just missed the cut in her first event of the year at the U.S. Women’s Open, pretty shockingly because she’d been playing some pretty great golf. And in her post-round interview, I had asked her what changed … and she ended up opening up about some of the mental challenges that she was having and how she had looked to what she heard from Bubba Watson and Matthew Wolf on the PGA Tour as a learning opportunity – not taking it so seriously, to have more fun.

Sometimes, even in those limited two to three questions, you can hit on something like that. I always compare it to sort of this lightbulb moment when I’m doing an interview. You can kind of hear that lightbulb switch on or the bells ring in your head, because you know you’ve hit on something special that perhaps you weren’t expecting to get.

The story I was able to tell last year working with Madelene Sagstrom about the abuse that she had endured as a young child. For me to have the trust from a player to open up and to share something that’s probably one of the most — if not the most — painful experiences of her life … and to share her story with the rest of the world in a way that was delicate and appropriate. I’ve had some amazing opportunities to be able to connect with these players, and it’s been a real privilege to be able to share their stories.

Foltz: I know it’s kind of timely now because her mother just passed, but I think my favorite moment, believe it or not, was watching Angela Stanford pose for her win and for the one major (in her 76th career major start) she’s won thus far at Evian. Draped on the 18th hole in an American flag, looking at the stars and the skydivers who dropped from the sky there as part of their celebration at the end of the tournament. Looking to the stars, looking to the gods, because she had just achieved something that she probably thought she never would at that point in her career.

McKenzie: I think it’d be easy to say the Olympics in Japan. That, to me, was very surreal, as a person that grew up idolizing the Olympics, to be able to be there and call it.

But I think even on an individual level, watching when Sei Young Kim won KPMG was one of my favorite calls. She was just so extraordinary when she was playing. It was really fun for me to just watch and be in awe. It’s funny because my career is not nearly as established as these winners that I’m talking about each and every week. So it’s taken me time to kind of figure out, how do I speak from a place of expertise, but not in a way that’s like I know more? These are the best players in the world, and they’re doing extraordinary things. It was that week that I realized that my credibility can come from the fact that I’ve tried it and haven’t been able to do it. It makes me appreciate what I’m witnessing in a way that’s different from a 12 handicap. … I was hoping I could convey that to the audience in a way that makes them understand the level of talent that I’m watching.

Boone: Solheim Cup in 2019 at Gleneagles will always be tough to top, just because you had a magnificent venue which had hosted Ryder Cups and other big events throughout the years. You have the spectacle of match play, which always adds an element of intensity and excitement to it. And then you had a great competition itself.

Going down to the wire the last day, there were about six different moments where it looked like the Americans had it wrapped up and they were going to win for the third consecutive time. And then the Europeans just wouldn’t quite ever go away, and they would scratch out a half point here, a point there. It comes all the way down to the final green, and just seconds after Bronte Law gets a huge point for Europe on the 17th green to close out her match, you have Suzann Pettersen, the stalwart who had been in the middle of so many great moments (but also some controversial moments in Solheim Cup history), a major champion, here she is, with everyone knowing that there’s been speculation she’s going to retire at the end of the Solheim Cup, or sometime very soon. And she hadn’t even been playing very much. Here she comes back, and she rolls in the winning putt from seven or eight feet to close out her match and give Europe the clinching point it needed to come from behind and beat the U.S. And the European fans and team flooded the 18th green at Gleneagles.

It seems like almost every week there’s another great story that unfolds, and some of us have this front row seat to be able to see it and then a privilege and burden, in the best possible description of the term, of trying to tell the story as well as we can.

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

​​The LPGA Tour this week joined a growing list of sports leagues turning to documentaries to tell the stories of their athletes. After Formula 1 rose to even greater national prominence with the popularity of its Netflix series “Drive to Survive,” the PGA Tour announced a 2022 documentary series with Netflix earlier this month.

Instead of waiting for a partner to back a documentary of their own, LPGA Tour commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan opted to bet on the athletes herself. On Monday, the LPGA released the pilot episode of “LPGA All Access: CME Group Tour Championship,” a series offering a behind-the-scenes look at LPGA Tour action.

“We decided to fund a pilot on our own, and try to use that to develop more interest and have it be something that can be around other tournaments, or even season-long,” Brian Carroll, Senior Vice President of Global Media Distribution for the LPGA, told Just Women’s Sports.

Carroll has heard multiple pitches for an LPGA documentary over the years, but the ideas had never gotten the necessary funding to move past the initial stage. In one of his first meetings with Marcoux Samaan, who took over for 11-year commissioner Mike Whan last August, Carroll floated the possibility of filming the documentary themselves. The two started considering the options immediately.

“We feel like we have this really rich content to be able to share with the world,” Marcoux Samaan said at the CME Group Tour Championship in December. “That’s a part of our investment, too. How do we get that content out more aggressively?”

Inspired by the success of Netflix’s F1 documentary, the tour decided to work with toldright, a video production company led by former Golf Channel producer Adam Hertzog, with whom Carroll and Marcoux Samaan both had connections. After a debate over when to start filming, the group landed on the CME Group Tour Championship with full buy-in from the golfers. The series features the budding rivalry between CME champion Jin Young Ko and Nelly Korda, cooking scenes and pickleball matches with two-time LPGA winner Gaby Lopez, 2021 Rookie of the Year Patty Tavatanakit’s preparations for the red carpet and more.

“We had the glitz and glamour of the Rolex Awards, the big money of $1.5 million on the line to the winner, and so many storylines that converged there that it just felt like the right time to do it,” Carroll said. “And it really paid off.”

The LPGA hopes that a sponsor will pick up the rest of the series after Monday’s launch. Now that they’ve built the foundation, Carroll and Marcoux Samaan think the storytelling could evolve in multiple ways, whether it’s filming around the majors or zeroing in on athletes’ careers.

The home-run scenario, of course, would be a full-season series, but the tour has had only preliminary discussions about the potential for a year-long deal. The PGA Tour’s Netflix partnership, which Carroll and Marcoux Samaan were unaware of when they initially decided to film at CME, can only help their case.

“We feel like the LPGA has so many great stories that this is the time to get into the documentary series,” Carroll said.

The rest of the three-part series will run on the LPGA’s website and YouTube channels at 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Two of the players we spent a lot of time with were on the green celebrating with Jin Young Ko,” Carroll said. “So I don’t think we could’ve scripted it much better with the way it turned out.”

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.