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Korea-born players winning every LPGA, LET event in 2015

March 16, 2015

From top left going counter clockwise, Park Inbee, Lydia Ko, Ryu So-yeon and Choi Na-yeon are all part of the seven LPGA and LET winners in the 2015 season who were born in Korea. (AP Photos)

By Brian Han

All eight tournaments on both the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour (LET) this season have yielded seven different winners, but they all have one thing in common.

Every winner was born in South Korea.

Of the five LPGA events in 2015, the top-5 finishers included three to four Korean-born players (3.4 average to be exact).

When you discount the world No. 1 Lydia Ko who identifies as a New Zealander, the number drops to an even three, which is still a daunting figure.

That number drops to a 2.5 on the LET, but it’s important to consider that the LPGA generally attracts a higher level of talent than any other professional women’s tour.

Whether it’s tournament earnings, scoring average, season points, really anything at all, there are at least two South Korean players in the top-5 and even more so when expanding to Korean-born players.

At the moment, there’s no definitive explanation for this phenomenon.

One popular argument is that there’s a rapid influx of South Korean players and that with so many on tour, it only makes sense that the wins are proportional.

The truth is that there are 25 active Korean players on the LPGA tour compared to the 45 from the U.S.

If anything, the ratio only proves that the quality of play from Korean players is notably higher.

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