Tour wrap: Australians on the LPGA Tour

We’re close to the end of the worlds’ main golf tours and Aussie Golfer and The Year in Golf website have joined forces to bring you all the information on how the Aussies have fared this year.

Next week The Year in Golf will give you the low down on the year that was on the Nationwide tour. As promised though, we’re starting with the almost all English speaking US LPGA Tour.

There’s no doubt the big story for the year in terms of Australian Women’s golf has come from Katherine Hull. She’s made a mockery of her previous years on the tour earning close to a million dollars. She finished 2nd on the weekend with lipped putt on 18 denying her a playoff berth. She won the Canadian Open in August and has finished in the Top 10, 4 of the 8 times since. Her ranking of 35th in the world will be a lot higher this time next year.

Karrie Webb has dominated world golf for years and has set such a high standard you may be led to believe she’s had an off year. She won the Australian Open but didn’t win on the LPGA Tour. She only missed the one cut but looks to be coming into some form. Just in time to add a few more Australian tournaments to her exceedingly long CV.

Lindsey Wright started the year well but has been up and down for the latter half and Rachael Hetherington has done ok but perhaps would feel slightly disappointed. She hasn’t quite recaptured the form she had in the ’98 – ’04 years.

In terms of an Australian star in the making, it’s Sarah Jane Kenyon. Her fabulous season on the Futures Tour saw her finish 3rd (2 tournament victories) securing her LPGA card for 2009. This, combined with her three names will ensure she fits in on the US Tour as a fully exempt player just fine. You can read more about Sarah’s year in a nice article from The Australian a few weeks ago.

Australian positions and earnings on the 2008 LPGA Tour (as of 4/11/08)
12 Katherine Hull $991,660.00
20 Karrie Webb $751,468.00
42 Lindsey Wright $415,066.00
65 Rachel Hetherington $188,644.00
80 Wendy Doolan $137,542.00
102 Sarah Jane Kenyon $97,145.00
105 Michelle Ellis $94,645.00
122 Sarah Kemp $73,391.00
127 Anna Rawson $62,798.00

Nationwide Tour
PGA Tour
European Tour