Jutanugarn on top as LPGA heads back to Michigan (Jun 14, 2017)
Ariya Jutanugarn's ascent to the top of the professional women's golf world was finally completed last week.
Her attempt to stay there will be one of the top storylines when the LPGA Tour returns to the Great Lakes State beginning Thursday for the fourth edition of the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give.
Jutanugarn, who became the first player, male or female, from Thailand to hold the No. 1 ranking in golf, will be among the stellar field that challenges venerable Blythefield Country Club in Belmont, Mich.
She will be joined by seven more of the top 10 players in the Rolex Rankings, including New Zealand's Lydia Ko, whom Jutanugarn supplanted to rise to the top spot after her playoff win at the Manulife LPGA Classic in Ontario on Sunday.
In all, 144 players will tee it up this week, including 10 of the tournament winners from 2017 official LPGA tournaments and 80 of the top 100 on the 2017 LPGA Tour money list.
They are all in pursuit of the total purse of $2 million, of which $300,000 goes to the winner after 72 holes of golf on the par-71, 6,451-yard course.
At 21 years, 6 months, 20 days old, Jutanugarn is the second-youngest player in LPGA history (after Ko) and the third-youngest player, male or female, to reach No. 1 in the history of professional golf. Ko had held the No. 1 spot for the past 85 weeks.
"It means the world to me," Jutanugarn said of her top ranking. "It's been a long road getting to this spot, but it will be even more challenging from this point on. The ranking can change after any week, and I will just keep working very hard every single day. I don't see this as a mission complete, but it's just the beginning."
The top-ranked player in women's golf has nine top 10 finishes in 13 starts this season, including three runner-ups and her win last week in Canada. She now ranks first on the 2017 Official Money List with $954,279 and she has $3,987,753 in career earnings.
Sei Young Kim of South Korea is also in the field and is this event's defending champion. She made a three-foot birdie putt on the only hole of a playoff last year pushed her past Carlota Ciganda of Spain.
Kim, who is the No. 9 ranked player in the world, has played in 11 of the 14 events on Tour this season. She has made nine cuts with a win at the Lorena Ochoa Match Play and two additional top-10 finishes.
"I played really good here the past two years -- and I'm very happy with the win last year," Kim said. "Also same as the last year, the weather is hard and the driver distance is a little more than last year. So it's going to be fun."
Kim and Jutanugarn are among the14 different winners on the LPGA Tour in 2017, but Ko is not. Ko has had six top 10s this season but has not been in contention on Sunday to win; she returns to action in the Meijer LPGA Classic after taking a three-week break to recharge ahead of a run of majors.
All three former champions of this event -- Mirim Lee of South Korea, Lexi Thompson and Kim -- are in the field as well as Morgan Pressel, Paula Creamer, Cristie Kerr, Gerina Piller, Brittany Lincicome, Brooke Henderson of Canada, Michelle Wie and Stacy Lewis.
