Lydia's Best Week Ever!

- How is this for a weekend? You turn 17, you find out you've been named one of Time's Most Influential People, and you win a golf tournament. That was the weekend, in a nutshell, for Lydia Ko, who just won her third LPGA title, and first as a professional. Ko is projected to move to number 2 on the Rolex World Rankings, and now has a complete stranglehold on the Rookie Of The Year rankings.

- Here are the last three winners of LPGA events - Lexi Thompson, Michelle Wie, and Lydia Ko. These three are quickly rising up the top of the rankings, are in the pole positions for Player Of The Year honors, and Wie is the elder of the group at 24. The LPGA is in great hands.

- Speaking of Wie, I am more encouraged than discouraged by her T9 finish at the Swinging Skirts. With all the media surrounding her following her victory in Hawaii, it would have been easy to finish well down on the leaderboard. She didn't let the pressure get to her, and she finished strong.

- If they gave trophies for runner up finishes, Stacy Lewis would have to buy a new house just to put them somewhere. It would be really easy for Lewis to become frustrated with her near finishes, especially now that she just got passed by Ko, and with several other young stars playing so well. Lewis just needs to stay the course and continue what she's doing. They say it's hard to win on the PGA Tour, but it is far harder to win on the LPGA, with so many great players looking for an opportunity to break through. Speaking of bring really good and not winning...

- It's becoming a weekly occurrence that we see Stacy Lewis and Inbee Park near the top of the leaderboard. After all, these are two of the players battling for number one in the Rolex Rankings. They, however, will need to win soon with so many other players playing so well behind them. Top finishes will keep Park ahead of Lewis and Suzann Pettersen (whose return to action was less than spectacular), but it won't keep her ahead of the likes of Ko or Thompson if they continue to win.

- If you're not buying the Hyo Joo Kim stock yet, I don't know what it's going to take to convince you. Kim notched her second straight top 10 finish, and seemed unphased playing in front of all the media who were watching the Ko/Lewis duel. A top 10 gets her into the North Texas tournament next week, but there is no guarantee that she will accept the invitation. Kim, after all, is already exempt into the US Open.

- It seems amazing that Seung-Yul Noh is only 22, since it seems like he's been around forever. The fact is that Noh did turn professional seven years ago, and a victory this week at the Zurich Classic is exactly what has been missing between him and vindication. When he first made the jump to the United States, you would have thought he was going to take the Tour by storm with his history in Asia. After a couple of struggling seasons, Noh is finally playing at the highest level and has a win to show for it, and now we can finally start seeing the Noh that played so well as a teenager.

- Noh is another example as to how the new qualifying system works. Sure, there are some things to work out, such as the playing opportunities for Web.com graduates, but to me, it seems clear that the four tournament playoff prepares players for the PGA Tour far more than the Q-School ever did.

- If you would have told me before the start of the season that a Korean man would have won before a Korean woman (discounting the Korean born Kiwi Ko), I would have called you crazy. Regardless, Noh becomes the first man from somewhere other than the United States and Australia to win on Tour this season, as the Asian countries remain shut out in the LPGA in 2014.