Our friend, The Constructivist of Mostly Harmless, has put together his Best of the LPGA rankings.

A lot has changed since April's Best of the LPGA ranking: a new commissioner, a new strategy (at least on the domestic front), and a new Big 6 on the LPGA. Now that Hound Dog's new Top 70 has just come out, it's time to mix in results from this week's Rolex Rankings, Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, and LPGA Official Money List, stir, bake, cool, and voila! I present Mostly Harmless's latest Best of the LPGA ranking. It goes well with yesterday's look at 6 generations' worth of top LPGA careers, don't you think?

This is the 1st time since I began doing these rankings that I can confidently state that the world #1's chase pack has her in sight and in their sights. Here's the LPGA's Big 6 I was referring to above.

1. Lorena Ochoa: #6 money ($768.3K), #1 RR (12.61), #1 GSPI (68.98), #1 HD. Ochoa is still the world #1 by a sizable margin, but so far this season Ji-Yai Shin beat her to a million dollars, Cristie Kerr has pulled slightly ahead of her in scoring average, and Michelle Wie is making more birdies per round than she has been. 9 players are going under par with more regularity. 5 players have more rounds in the 60s. She's no longer one of the very best on tour off the tee. And her putting is nowhere near what it was in 2006 and 2007. So not only is her stranglehold on the Player of the Year award loosening, but if any of the Big 6 actually were to get hot in the 2nd half of the season and she continued to struggle, we could well have a new #1 before it's over, as well.

2. Ji-Yai Shin: #1 money ($1.08M), #3 RR (8.27), #4 GSPI (69.44), #2 HD. Shin is the winningest player on the LPGA and in the world of women's golf over the past calendar year. In her short time competing on tour, she's racked up as many wins and majors as Suzann Pettersen. And she's just getting started. I wonder if she'll take a rest after the Women's British Open, or head over to the JLPGA, where she's a member by virtue of her 2 wins on that tour last season? Last season she played in almost 40 events around the world!

3. Cristie Kerr: #2 money ($1.04M), #4 RR (7.76), #2 GSPI (69.22), #3 HD. Kerr is #1 in the Player of the Year race, 9 points up on Shin, and less than $40K behind her on the money list. After the active Hall of Famers (Inkster, Webb, Pak, Ochoa), she has the most career wins on tour. And while she has let 2 golden opportunities to win a major slip through her fingers already this season, she's been the most consistently excellent of anyone on tour over the past calendar year. In fact, you have to go back to 2003 to find a year when she failed to win a million dollars or more on tour. She's already done it this season, her 6th in a row, a feat only Ochoa can match (Paula Creamer and Jeong Jang are going for their 5th in a row).

4. Ya Ni Tseng: #4 money ($875.5K), #2 RR (9.20), #9 GSPI (69.88), #4 HD. Last week's missed cut at the U.S. Women's Open was only the 2nd of Tseng's career on tour. She's averaging 3 top 20s out of every 4 starts and has put herself in contention close to a dozen times. So it's no wonder she finally broke through for her 2nd career victory earlier this season. She's the closest to Ochoa in the Rolex Rankings, the closest to Kerr in total birdies, and the longest driver on tour. Yet she's stuck at #4 on this list for the 2nd time in a row. What'll move her up? More wins!

5. Paula Creamer: #8 money ($667.6K), #5 RR (7.57), #3 GSPI (69.26), #5 HD. Creamer hasn't gotten a win yet this season, but she's had the most physical problems to deal with among the Big 6, from her early-season intestinal difficulties to her recent thumb injury. The layoff couldn't have come at a better time for her, as she struggled to hit fairways and greens until the final round of the Open, losing her huge lead in GIR this season in the process (from that event alone, she dropped from hitting close to 80% of her greens to just over 75%--not good). Still, I'm looking for her to get hot in the 2nd half of the season.

6. Suzann Pettersen: #7 money ($732.9K), #6 RR (6.86), #5 GSPI (69.53), #7 HD. Yes, Pettersen hasn't won since that burst at the end of 2007, but in the intervening years she's convinced me that she's really made a quantum leap. Her scoring average is down and birdie rate up from last season and she's well on pace to get her 3rd straight million-dollar year. She seems fully recovered from the virus that forced her out of the LPGA Championship and poised for a great European swing.

After the jump, check out the rest of TC's list!

There are 2 players itching to turn the Big 6 into a Big 8, but I'm still not convinced that they're not just riding hot streaks. Have they really made the quantum leap to contend week in and week out for wins and top 10s? Are they really capable of consistently grinding out top 20s without their A game?

7. Angela Stanford: #9 money ($631.0K), #7 RR (6.35), #7 GSPI (69.69), #6 HD. Stanford has already won once this season and is a threat to do it again every time she tees it up. Yes, she missed the cut at the Open, but she's dealing with a lot right now, what with her mom being diagnosed with breast cancer and all. She's consistently been one of the best off the tee on tour, but has improved all aspcts of her game in the past year or so, so it's no surprise that she leads the tour in percentage of rounds under par, is behind only Kerr in top 10 rate, and is a legitimate contender for the Vare Trophy (for lowest scoring average) this season.

8. In-Kyung Kim: #3 money ($957.7K), #8 RR (6.04), #8 GSPI (69.78), #8 HD. That quantum leap that I predicted for Kim before the start of the season may just have arrived. She's averaging as many birdies per round as Ochoa, is right behind Creamer in greens in regulation, and ranks among the game's elite in just about every other performance measure. She's averaging just over 250 yards off the tee, so it's not like she's bunting it around, either. Kim was the player I was rooting for to win the Open (what with Moira Dunn not entered, Seon Hwa Lee withdrawing, and Ai Miyazato out of contention), but how well she plays in the European swing will determine whether she succeeds Angela Park as the best player in her rookie class or whether Open champion Eun-Hee Ji will regain the top spot.

Stanford and Kim have put a little bit of distance between themselves and the large group with a top 10 in at most 2 of the 4 systems and/or top 20s in at least 3 of the 4.

9. Eun-Hee Ji: #5 money ($832.9K), #11 RR (4.88), #15 GSPI (70.43), #9 HD. Speaking of Ji, she's in a great position to avoid the Open curse that struck fellow Junior Mint Inbee Park (which she's only just recently started recovering from). She's a much more accurate driver than Park ever has been and a much more consistent player overall. She's won in different ways, too--going low at the Wegmans and chasing Pettersen down, while grinding it out at Saucon Valley and chasing Kerr down. There's no reason she can't keep winning. If she makes the cut at Evian, she'll cross the $2M barrier in career winnings in only her 47th start on tour. That puts her in the company of players like Paula Creamer, Seon Hwa Lee, and Ya Ni Tseng (Na Yeon Choi will have to come on strong to join them). So enough of the comparisons to Birdie Kim and Hilary Lunke already, ok?

10. Song-Hee Kim: #11 money ($576.4K), #12 RR (4.60), #12 GSPI (70.30), #10 HD. Among those on tour without a win as an LPGA member, nobody's playing better lately than Kim. This Junior Mint has been learning how to put herself in contention in the big leagues after dominating the Futures Tour. She's among the very best putters out there and is averaging close to 260 yards off the tee, so it's no surprise she's threatening to finish the season averaging more than 4 birdies per round.

11. Na Yeon Choi: #14 money ($474.5K), #15 RR (3.95), #10 GSPI (70.15), #11 HD. With a 42-event made-cut streak which dates back to the beginning of her rookie season last year, this Super Soph is at the top of my list of players due to break through for her 1st LPGA member win. I saw her play a few holes at the Wegmans and came away impressed. She's definitely among the best ball-strikers on tour. What's held her back last year and this one is her putting--that 1.83 PPGIR rate needs to go down and fast if she wants to move up this list. Still, she's on pace for her 2nd-straight million dollar season.

12. Michelle Wie: #17 money ($435.2K), #28 RR (3.09), #6 GSPI (69.60), #14 HD. I'm neither a Wie fanatic nor a Wie-basher, so believe me when I tell you that her comeback is for real. I had predicted that Shin, Stacy Lewis, and Shiho Oyama would have better rookie seasons, but Wie has already exceeded my expectations by a mile. Her ability to bounce back from a disappointing LPGA Championship and disastrous final 9 in Open qualifying with a top 10 at the Wegmans and a top 3 at the Farr, on courses that I didn't think suited her game, was the tipping point for me. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I really think she's ready to win on the LPGA. Let's see how she handles the pressure of trying to qualify for the Solheim Cup (or at least play well enough at Evian and the WBO to justify a captain's pick).

13. Ai Miyazato: #18 money ($433.9K), #27 RR (3.16), #17 GSPI (70.55), #13 HD. OK, Ai-chan is my favorite player, but I pretty much nailed my preseason prediction that she'd return to her rookie form in this, her 4th season as an LPGA member. She is back to driving the ball and making birdies like the Ai-chan of old, even though she hasn't had a fantastic year on the greens. If she can get her putter going and put together 4 good rounds in a row, she may well be the 1st among Kim, Choi, and Wie to get that Rolex for being a 1st-time winner on tour.