2000 Player Rankings

In each of the first five years that Karrie Webb played on the LPGA Tour (1996-2000), she was a legitimate Player Of The Year candidate. In 2000, Karrie was the clear choice for that award. She won seven tournaments that year including the Kraft Nabisco and the US Open. Annika Sorenstam won five times but did not win any of the majors. Juli Inkster took the LPGA Championship and Meg Mallon won the du Maurier Classic, the final time that event was classified as a major.

Here are the Top 30 Players of 2000:

1. Karrie Webb
2. Annika Sorenstam
3. Juli Inkster
4. Meg Mallon
5. Pat Hurst
6. Lori Kane
7. Mi Hyun Kim
8. Dottie Pepper
9. Laura Davies
10. Rosie Jones
11. Michele Redman
12. Se Ri Pak
13. Janice Moodie
14. Sophie Gustafson
15. Cristie Kerr
16. Sherri Steinhauer
17. Charlotta Sorenstam
18. Brandie Burton
19. Wendy Doolan
20. Betsy King
21. Marianne Morris
22. Rachel Hetherington
23. Lita Lindley
24. Alison Nicholas
25. Kelly Robbins
26. Grace Park
27. Cindy Figg-Currier
28. Jenny Lidback
29. Nancy Scranton
30. Catriona Matthew

Retro Hound Dog Awards:
Player Of The Year – Karrie Webb
Rookie Of The Year – Grace Park
Fluke Victory Of The Year – Laurel Kean

Just like in 2001, we have a disagreement on ROY – the Rolex winner was Dorothy Delasin. This one is not as one-sided as the Meunier-Lebouc/Han contest, but Grace had the better season. Their stats side-by-side:
Park – 25 starts, 17 cuts made, 1 victory, 1 second-place, 4 total Top 10s, 19th in money, 72.31 scoring average.
Delasin – 29 starts, 19 cuts made, 1 victory, 2 total Top 10s, 25th in money, 72.59 scoring average.

In both of these cases, the player who won the Rolex award started more events and made more cuts than the player I rank higher. While I don’t have the breakdowns for Rolex Rookie Points (Why do they keep these things such a secret? So we can’t look at the method and pick it apart? Probably), I do know that each player gets points for their finishing positions in each tournament. Ergo, a player in more events is more likely to accumulate more points. So Grace Park missed out on ROY because of the rib injury she suffered in August, which kept her out of action “for five weeks and hampered her play throughout the end of the season”, to quote her bio page on lpga.com. Of course I am biased, but so is Rolex’s methodology. At least they made this injustice up to her eventually by becoming one of Grace’s official sponsors!