Who will be Lorena Ochoa's top challengers in the medium and long run?  Sure, it's looking like her peers Jeong Jang, Hee-Won Han, Paula Creamer, and Suzann Pettersen have joined veterans like Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Cristie Kerr, and Mi Hyun Kim as her leading rivals, but what about the Young Guns--the players in the rookie classes of 2006 through 2008?  It's too soon to tell whether Na Yeon Choi, Ya Ni Tseng, Louise Friberg, Hee Young Park, and Momoko Ueda have the staying power to continue challenging Ochoa or whether other rookies will come on strong before the year is out, so let's turn our attention to the Junior Mints and the Super Sophs.  Who are the top prospects in these classes?

Simply the Best

1.  Seon Hwa Lee:  It's not just that, among those in her generation, she has the most wins, winnings, top 3s, and top 20s, is second on the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index and in top 10s, and is third in the Rolex Rankings and in made-cut rate, it's also that she's dominated in match play since joining the LPGA, avoided big slumps, and generally been the model of quiet brilliance.  It's a crime that she's only #9 in Mostly Harmless's latest Best of the LPGA ranking, but once she starts playing well by her standards this season, watch out.  There's a reason I picked her as the third-most-likely golfer on tour to win Player of the Year in 2008.
   
2.  Jee Young Lee: The top-ranked Young Gun in both the RR and GSPI (as well as our own Best of the LPGA ranking) always seems to be on the verge of breaking through for her first win as a LPGA member.  Her game is certainly comparable to Lorena Ochoa's and Suzann Pettersen's.  All she needs is more experience in the hunt.
   
3.  Morgan Pressel:  She's been struggling since late last summer, as the big gap between her RR and GSPI indicates (RR includes the last 104 weeks; GSPI only the last 52), but that first major in her generation and her lead in the top 10 race can't be ignored.  Still, she's dropped to #15 in our latest Best of the LPGA ranking and could easily fall further--that's how close the #5 and the #35 players are on tour this season.
   
4.  Angela Park:  A precision player like Seon Hwa Lee and Pressel, she's been fiddling around with her swing this season, but seems to have started to figure things out.  Although she's still been making cuts at a fantastic rate, she took a long hiatus between being in contention in Hawaii in February and getting back in the top 10 mode in Florida last week.  As a result, she's dropped to #19 in our latest Best of the LPGA ranking.  But she's still on a pace to pass Pressel by September when I next do this ranking.

5.  Ai Miyazato:  Went through a horrific sophomore jinx after a nagging injury incurred during her runner-up finish to Seon Hwa Lee at the HSBC match play event last summer lead to technical difficulties in her swing and confidence issues, but seems to have played her way through it despite a terrible Hawaii swing.  Her average rounds are merely mediocre now and she's shown flashes of good golf again, but she's still in danger of getting passed by a bevy of hot Super Sophs.
   
6.  Eun-Hee Ji:  Has shown the ability to contend from the get-go in her LPGA career, from qualifying for the tour as a non-exempt player while spending most of her time on the KLPGA last season to her most recent top 10 at the Stanford International.  Whether she can sustain this pace playing full-time on tour remains to be seen, but one thing is clear from her T4 at the Safeway International--she gets up for big events.  She's already #24 in our latest MH Best of the LPGA ranking.  How high can she go?
   
7.  Brittany Lang:  She's played her way through the worst slump of her career a little sooner than Miyazato has (although to be fair to Ai-chan Brittany's sophomore jinx hit her earlier, too) and is back to making top 20s at the 4th-best rate of her generation.  Is her T6 at the Safeway International a sign of things to come?  It had better be, because the Super Sophs are coming!
   
8.  Inbee Park:  She's leapfrogged to 3rd in her class after a hot April (probably spurred on by my putting her 5th in her class last month).  Even though inconsistency kept her out of contention at the Stanford International, she's got a great shot to be her class's 2nd player and her generation's 8th player to cross the $1M mark in career earnings.
   
9.  In-Kyung Kim:  She's fallen further behind one Park, been passed by another, and is in danger of getting overtaken by a third.  In fact, she's going to have to tap into that match-play brilliance she displayed this past winter or she'll no longer even be the top Kim in her class next month!  At least she stopped the MC bleeding at the Stanford International last week.  We'll have to wait till the Michelob Ultra to see if that's the start of better things to come for one of my favorite players.
   
10.  Jane Park:  Like Miyazato and Lang, I cut her from our latest MH Best of the LPGA when it became clear including them would open the door for it to become a top 50 rather than a top 30-ish ranking.  I had a great feast-or-famine metaphor in my blurb for her there, but I can't remember it now.  The basic point was that, like those ranked ahead of her in her class, she could easily have been the first to get that first win.  And she still could be.