Lydia Ko calls this the most consistent golf of her career, which is saying something for the former World No. 1. Last week at the BMW Ladies Championship, Ko claimed her second title of the season. She has a whopping 11 top-5 finishes in 20 starts and leads the tour in top-10 percentages at 65 percent. She has 13 top-10 finishes.
Ko often speaks about how the depth of the tour has increased during her time on tour. Her 18th LPGA title came 10 years after she broke through to win for the first time as a 15-year-old amateur in 2012.
“I think every season is really hard to compare because not only am I trying to improve,” said Ko, “but every single player is, like, trying to improve, and I think that’s why you can see it by the score.
“At all of these championships, the score for the cut is getting lower, the score to win is getting lower, and that’s why I said earlier if you have one OK round, that puts you so much further back compared to maybe before where that could have been OK, and you could have still won.
“I think just the level of play and the level of women’s golf right now is so high that it’s just really, really difficult to win.”
Ko leads the Vare Trophy race for lowest scoring average, an award she also won last year. How much tougher is it out there? Here’s a closer look at how scoring on the LPGA has evolved over the past decade.
Sub-70 and sub-par rounds
Lydia Ko currently paces the Vare Trophy race with a 69.051 scoring average. There are 14 players with a sub-70 average with three events remaining. Consider that when Ko first won on the LPGA 10 years ago, zero players averaged below 70 for that season. In 2002, there were two players.
There are currently 102 players averaging below par on the LPGA; 10 years ago there were 34.
Player No. 100
The top 100 players on the CME points list each year keep their cards for the following season.
How much better is the top 100 in terms of quality of play?
Consider that in 2012, the 100th player on the scoring list averaged 73.7. This year, the 100th player, Elizabeth Szokol, averages 71.9, nearly a two-stroke difference.
Average cut number
The average cut number on the LPGA in 2012 was 3.6. So far this season, the average is 1.47. That’s more than a two-stroke difference.
While the average cut number hasn’t changed too much in recent years, there is a noted difference going back a decade. (In 2017 and 2019, the average cut was even par. In 2018 and 2016, it was 1 over.)
Winning score
The average winning score hasn’t changed much in the past five years. It currently stands at 16. In 2017, it was 16.59.
A decade ago, however, the average winning score was 13.3, a difference of three strokes. (Ko won the 2012 CN Canadian Women’s Open at 13 under.)
