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LPGA Power Rankings: Jin Young Ko holds strong amid top 10 shake-ups

Jin Young Ko reacts after a putt during the first round of the Palos Verdes Championship. (Harry How/Getty Images)

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.

USWNT to face Costa Rica in final Olympic send-off

uswnt sophia smith and tierna davidson celebrate at shebeilves cup 2024
The USWNT will play their final pre-Olympic friendly against Costa Rica on July 16th. (Photo by Greg Bartram/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)

U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that the USWNT will play their last home game on July 16th in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Send-Off Match against Costa Rica will take place at Washington, DC’s Audi Field — home to both the Washington Spirit and DC United — at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 16th. The friendly rounds out a four-game Olympic run-up campaign under incoming head coach Emma Hayes’ side, with the last two set to feature the finalized 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team roster.

Hayes will appear on the USWNT sideline for the first time this June, helming the team as they embark on a two-game series against Korea Republic hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on June 1st followed by Allianz Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 4th. 

The team is then scheduled to meet a talented Mexico squad on July 13th at Gotham FC’s Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, where the Olympic-bound lineup will attempt to rewrite February’s shocking 2-0 loss to El Tri Femenil in the group stages of this year’s Concacaf W Gold Cup. And while clear roster favorites have emerged from both of this year’s Gold Cup and SheBelives Cup rosters, a spate of recent and recurring injuries means making it to the Olympics is still largely anyone’s game.

Broadcast and streaming channels for the USWNT's final July 16th friendly at Audi Field include TNT, truTV, Universo, Max, and Peacock.

Caitlin Clark’s WNBA start to serve as 2024 Olympic tryout

Clark of the Indiana Fever poses for a photo with Lin Dunn and Christie Sides during her introductory press conference on April 17, 2024
The talented Fever rookie is still in the running for a ticket to this summer's Paris Olympics. (Photo by Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images)

The USA Basketball Women's National Team is still considering Caitlin Clark for a spot on the Paris Olympics squad, says selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti. 

On Monday, Rizzotti told the AP that the committee will be evaluating the college phenom’s Olympic prospects by keeping a close eye on her first few weeks of WNBA play with Indiana.

The move is somewhat unconventional. While Clark was invited to participate in the 14-player national team training camp held earlier this month — the last camp before Team USA’s roster drops — she was unable to attend due to it coinciding with Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

Judging by the immense talent spread throughout the league in what might be their most hyped season to date, competition for a piece of the Olympic pie could be fiercer than ever before.

"You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it's for now or the future," said Rizzotti. "We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It's got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It's still not going to be fair to some people."

Of course, Clark isn’t the first rookie the committee has made exceptions for. Coming off an exceptional college season that saw her averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 4 assists per game for UConn, Breanna Stewart was tapped to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil less than two weeks after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm. Eight years prior, fellow No. 1 pick Candace Parker punched her ticket to the 2008 Games in Beijing just two weeks after making her first appearance for the L.A. Sparks.

In the lead-up to Paris’ Opening Ceremony on July 26th, USA Basketball Women’s National Team is scheduled to play a pair of exhibition games. They'll first go up against the WNBA's finest at the July 20th WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix before facing Germany in London on July 23rd.

While an official roster announcement date hasn’t yet been issued, players won’t find out if they’ve made this year’s Olympic cut until at least June 1st.

WNBA teams make history with 2024 season ticket sell-outs

Arike Ogunbowale on the wnba court for the dallas wings
The Dallas Wings are now the third team to sell out their entire season ticket allotment in WNBA history. (Michael Gonzales/NBAE via Getty Images)

For the first time in history, three different WNBA teams have completely sold out of season ticket plans well before the league's May 14th kick-off.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect, attribute it to this year’s tenacious rookie class, or look to the skyrocketing visibility of veteran players across the board. But no matter the cause, facts are facts: Tickets to the 2024 WNBA season are selling like never before. 

On Monday, the Dallas Wings became the third team to sell out of season ticket memberships in the league’s 27-year history. The announcement from Arlington came shortly after the Atlanta Dream issued their own season ticket sell-out statement, also on Monday, and almost seven weeks after the back-to-back WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces made headlines by becoming the first-ever WNBA team to sell out their season ticket allotment.   

According to the Wings, season ticket memberships will fill nearly 40% of the 6,251 seats inside their home arena, College Park Center. The club also said that their overall ticket revenue has ballooned to the tune of 220% this year, spanning not just season tickets but also a 1,200% increase in single ticket sales. There’s currently a waitlist to become a Dallas season ticket holder, a status that comes with extra incentives like playoff presale access and discounts on additional single-game tickets. 

In Atlanta, season tickets aren't the only thing flying off the shelves. The Dream also announced that they broke their own record for single-game ticket sales during a recent limited presale campaign. Sunday was reportedly their most lucrative day, with five different games totally selling out Gateway Center Arena. Individual tickets for all upcoming matchups will hit the market this Thursday at 8 a.m., while a waitlist for season ticket memberships will open up next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

"Excitement around women's sports, particularly basketball, is at an all-time high and nowhere is that felt more than here in Atlanta," Dream president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in the team’s statement. "We’ve continued a record-setting growth trajectory over the past three years under new ownership — both on and off the court — and 2024 is shaping up to be our best season yet."

As of Tuesday, season ticket sales revenue for Caitlin Clark’s hotly anticipated Indiana Fever debut haven’t yet been announced by the club. But if these numbers are any indication — not to mention the explosive demand for Fever away games felt by teams around the country — it won’t be long before we see some scale-tipping figures coming out of Indianapolis.

Nelly Korda ties LPGA record with fifth-straight tournament win

Nelly Korda of the United States celebrates with the trophy after winning The Chevron Championship
Nelly Korda poses with her trophy after acing her fifth-straight tour title at The Chevron Championship on Sunday. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.

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