SEOUL, Nov 23 (Yonhap) – LPGA Player of the Year 2021 Ko Jin-young is still number 2 in the world women’s rankings despite closing the gap with her top ranked rival.
Based on the latest rankings released on Monday (US time), Ko fell behind US Nelly Korda for the third straight week. The American is 0.13 points ahead of the South Korean, 10.07 to 9.94 points on average.
Korda led Ko 9.98-9.03 until last week before Ko won the season-end CME Group Tour Championship in Florida on Sunday.
The win also helped Ko take her second career as Player of the Year and her third straight title.
Ko spent the entire 2020 season in first place, but Korda toppled Ko in June of that year. The South Korean regained the top spot with two wins in a row on October 25th. But Korda ended that reign two weeks later during the LPGA hiatus – players are rated over a rolling two year period, with emphasis on the results of the past 13 weeks – and then built their lead with an LPGA win on May 11th .
Ko responded with a win of her own the following week, but that wasn’t enough to overtake Korda.
Three other South Koreans were among the top 10: Park In-bee (3rd place), Kim Sei-young (4th place) and Kim Hyo-joo (9th place).