LPGA: Top-10 Race to the CME Globe Contenders

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Going into the CME Group Tour Championship, who among the Tour’s top performers could leverage the points reset, hoist the Globe, and pocket a million dollars this year?

We’re coming down the home stretch in the LPGA’s year-long Race to the CME Globe.  It’s going to get decided in Naples at the CME Group Tour Championship by the best field in women’s golf, and there’s a million dollars on the line.

Who’s going to be eligible to tee it up in Naples? The top 72 players on the Tour (including ties), Tour members not otherwise qualified who have won an LPGA-sanctioned event during the 2015 season and non-Tour members who have won a Tour event this year.

The latter category includes In Gee Chun, who won the US Women’s Open, Brooke Henderson, who won the Cambia Portland Classic before she accepted Tour membership and is playing as a rookie for the remainder of the 2015 season, and Sun-Ju Ahn, who won the TOTO Japan Classic last week.

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Going into the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, with only 500 more points remaining on the table, Lydia Ko was leading in the Race to the CME Globe and her closest challenger, Inbee Park, trailed Ko by slightly less than 1,000 points.  Nobody can catch Ko now, but that lead guarantees nothing more than an advantage in the year-long, million-dollar Race.

After the reset, the players in the top-3 positions on the Race to the CME Globe Points Standings — currently Lydia Ko, Inbee Park and Stacy Lewis — will be able to win the Race to the CME Globe with a win at the Tour Championship; and the players in the top-9 positions will have a mathematical chance to win the race (based on various scenarios that combine a win with a very low finish for the current leaders).

Let’s take a look at the top 10 Tour performers as determined by their season-long accumulation of Race to the CME Globe, working our way from the bottom to the top of the rankings. Some of them are more likely than other to complete the double lift this year.

Next: #10 - Hyo Joo Kim