- I wonder if Stacy Lewis will ever play the Reignwood Classic again. A year after being beaten by the most incredibly/lucky shot of the 2013 season, Lewis has a chance entering the final round to lock up the Player Of The Year and the CME Globe races. Instead, she struggles late, and not only does she not win, but she finishes behind her closest competitor Inbee Park to open the door for a late season charge. Beijing has not agreed with Lewis in the last two seasons, and it may be wise for her, moving forward, to spend an extra week in the US before entering the Asian Swing.
- What Mirim Lee managed to do in the toughest conditions of the week was nothing short of superstar quality. As players around her struggled, Lee fired a final round 69, which was the third best round of the day. Since the Women's British Open, Lee has three top 10's with two victories and no missed cuts. Entering this season, you probably didn't think or Mirim Lee as one of the best Koreans on the LPGA Tour, but she is tied with Inbee for the most victories this season, and her Rolex Ranking has skyrocketed up to 29th. One victory could be a fluke. Two is a trend.
- Koreans have now won six of the last seven tournaments on the LPGA Tour. I wonder if golf writers are still going to be discussing how great of a season this was if Koreans continue to dominate.
- Don't look now, but Lydia Ko no longer has the Rookie Of The Year award locked up. While it is highly unlikely, Mirim Lee still has an opportunity to overtake Ko for the award. All Mirim will have to do is win a couple more tournaments and hope Ko doesn't have any top 10's between now and the end of the season. Again, highly unlikely, but it is great to see that there is another rookie playing well after Ko grabbed a stranglehold on the award. We may be looking back on 2014 as one of the best rookie classes in a very long time.
- How has Caroline Hedwall never won an LPGA Tour event? It seems baffling to me that last year's Solheim Cup hero is still looking for her maiden victory on Tour. She played well this week, and looked poised to finally enter the winner's circle, but tough conditions coupled with Mirim's stellar final round prevented that from happening.
- I mentioned that Mirim Lee's 69 was the third best score on Sunday. The best? That would be Mi Hyang Lee's 67 to vault her from 23rd into a tie for sixth. Lee won the LET's New Zealand Open back in February, but has had minimal success on Tour thus far. She's been playing on Tour since 2012, but her only two top 10's have occurred this season. Other than that, I know nothing about Lee other than she's a Symetra Tour product and she's sponsored by Volvik. Apparently you can't Wikipedia your way out of everything.
- I know everyone thought that the low Chinese player this week was going to be Yanhong Pan. Defending champion Shanshan Feng had a disappointing week, finishing T49, and promising rookie Xi Yu Lin didn't fare much better, finishing T41. To be fair, Pan's good performance doesn't completely come out of thin air. She is the leader of the Chinese LPGA Order Of Merit by a rather large margin, and won twice on that tour this season. Still, for Feng, who has won three times on the biggest tour including a major, it has to be disappointing to at least not be the low Chinese golfer.
- There are comebacks, and then there is what Oliver Wilson pulled off this week. Wilson, who had nine runner-up finishes on the European Tour and was on Europe's Ryder Cup team in 2008, had to rely on a sponsor's exemption to enter this week's Alfred Dunhill Links tournament, one of the biggest events on the schedule (and, personally, my favorite). Wilson had dropped to 792nd in the world, but he held off some ferocious charges by some of the biggest names on the European Tour to win his first ever victory. Good on ya, Mr. Wilson!
- Hangover from the Ryder Cup was the only thing that prevented Rory McIlroy from seizing the Dunhill Links, as he was absolutely on fire for the final three rounds of the tournament. It would have been an amazing story to see Rory, fresh off of helping Europe win the Ryder Cup, charge in and take the Dunhill Links the same week he was named PGA Tour Player Of The Year, but Oliver Wilson's victory made for a much better story. Besides, I'm sure this Rory guy has a win or two left in him.
- Brooks Koepka has his PGA Tour card for the 2014-2015 season, so I wonder if he's going to play at all on the European Tour next year. Regardless, he finished with a top 10 this week, and will now play in the Frys.com Open next week, which is where he finished T3 last season. His confidence has to be through the roof. I'm calling it now - Brooks Koepka will be a winner on the PGA Tour this coming season.
- Congratulations to Teresa Lu who continues to have a great revitalization of her career by winning the Japan Women's Open, one of the most prestigious events on the JLPGA Tour. Lu famously turned down membership to the LPGA after winning the Mizuno Classic last year, and it appears to have been the right move, as this is Lu's second win of the season, though her biggest victory by far. We will see Lu defend her title in a few weeks.
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