Some Thoughts on Struggling LPGA Players

If you're watching the HSBC Champions event online, you'd know that Vicky Hurst is DFL.  Compare that to a fantastic performance in her first start at the SBS Open.  The drastic change in performance is further proof that pros go through cycles like you and I do.  For Hurst, it is likely the learning curve of becoming a LPGA pro and traveling thousands of miles to play in Singapore.

How about Ji Yai Shin, who isn't faring so well this week?

The Constructivist takes a look at players that are struggling this week, or emerging from slumps.

You can read about those in the slump in his great post.  Since it's Friday, though, I'll leave you to consider these slumpbusters.

But you know what? Everyone goes through rough patches and slumps. Just ask Brittany Lang, who endured a terrible sophomore season, began to come back in '08, and is now fighting to keep a 7-event top-10 streak alive this week. Or Song-Hee Kim, who couldn't translate Futures Tour domination into LPGA success until her own sophomore season. Or Ai Miyazato, whose tailspin began with a minor injury incurred during the 2006 HSBC Women's World Match Play (where she lost to fellow Senior Standout Seon Hwa Lee in the finals) and whose comeback began later in 2008 than Lang's. Hey, if it can happen to a Hall of Famer like Se Ri Pak more than once in her career, losing your game for awhile can happen to anyone. The point is to bounce back. Which is why it's so great to see all these golfers playing well again this week.

And why it's so gratifying to see Mi Hyun Kim finally making birdies in bunches again like before her knee surgery last winter, Juli Inkster and Hee-Won Han making nice moves today, Karrie Webb and Suzann Pettersen bouncing back from early triples on Thursday, and Seon Hwa Lee hanging in there despite cooling off from her bogey-free -6 start over her 1st 14 holes (before a rain delay and a monitor lizard knocked her out of the zone) during her last 14 (although that bogey on the 11th hole to begin her next 14 is a troubling sign). There's a reason, after all, why they're among the Best of the LPGA.

Just remember, things are darkest in a tunnel before you get to the light on the other side.  That is, unless you're in a one way tunnel, don't know it, and are just forging ahead to an even more frightening dead end.