“tradition” — Europe and the US have always been tied together in golf. the Asian tours are relative newcomers.

Beats me why no one has thought to add an invite at least to the KLPGA this century – but the LET invitation has tradition on its side.

All of those international players you mention made their mark (and the vast majority of their Rolex points) in LPGA events. The LET players who don’t play here are nowhere near the quality of those who do – Samsung just got lucky this year, getting Alfredsson instead of Gwladys Nocera or Bettina Hauert.

If you go by Rolex rankings, the KLPGA players aside from Shin don’t really deserve an automatic bid either – the best Korean players either come here or go to Japan. Those Koreans in Japan plus the locals who stay home make the JLPGA the most likely second-best ladies tour.

But, then, I’m a little biased, as much from family and work ties to Japan as by the fact that I can’t stop covering the JLPGA. The point of my post that Ryan references, though, wasn’t that the Rolex and Golfweek

/Sagarin rankings are biased against the Asian tours (in fact, the top full-time Euros are ranked much lower than the top full-time Asians, and nobody ought to dispute that wins on the LPGA mean much more than any other kind of win in women’s golf), but just that the level of competition on the JLPGA is tougher than it looks from the outside. Sure, Ji-Yai Shin has finished 1-2-2-2 there in her 4 events (and Momoko Ueda has won twice in 7 tries), but Shin has won 5 times on the KLPGA to pull ahead of “old” rival Sun-Ju Ahn and young guns Hee Kyung Seo and Ha-Neul Kim. Yes, the KLPGA pipeline to the LPGA will remain as strong as ever, but only their top 6-8 golfers this season really have the games to make a big impact on the LPGA. It may just be me, but I really think that double that number from the JLPGA could be top 80 players on the LPGA, should they choose to go over. And should the number of JLPGA players on the LPGA reach a critical mass (say, a dozen) over the next several years, we’ll start seeing better performances from all of them than we have from either Miyazato or Ueda.

Although I would love to see Samsung extend invites to the top JLPGA and KLPGA money winners, I’d rather see them replace the LET invite with an invite to the top non-LPGA player on the Rolex Rankings starting next season. The LPGA is plenty international already and the LET is only a few steps above the Futures Tour and Ladies Asian Golf Tour (mainly b/c it’s much deeper, not b/c its best players are all that much better than the best there).

…if Amy Yang had been atop the LET money list, I wouldn’t mind seeing this LPGA rookie get a jump start on a great year next season in the big leagues!

They definitely made a financial sacrifice to do what they did. When you consider that not only could they have gotten in KLPGA events but also LAGT events (Hee Kyung Seo is the leading LAGT money winner in ‘08 so far), you’re talking at least double and maybe even 5x. But given Hur’s problems on Sundays, and the fact that neither Pak nor Choi won multiple times, I’m not sure they’re ready to be top 80 players right off the bat on the LPGA. Vicky Hurst is the only FT star I have any real confidence in, Mindy Kim a bit, as she’s finished ahead of Stacy Lewis in FT events…. When even Song-Hee Kim needed a year of seasoning to really break through this season, top 5 on the FT is no guarantee of anything the next season, but it is cause for some optimism, career-wise.

…she did earn her way in by winning the Evian, which was a dual LPGA-LET event that got her to the top of the LET money list despite having hardly played any other events on that tour. Another testimony to the weakness of the LET regulars—check out how many LPGAers won on their tour this season!

sorry about the Pettersen connection – should’ve just said Scandinavian!