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Women's golf rankings a carousel at the top

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08/23/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - As we prepare for yet another week of Phil Mickelson chasing Tiger Woods for the No. 1 world ranking, let's not forget what is happening this season in women's golf, where the top spot has changed hands seven times in the last 17 weeks.

While the Tiger vs. Phil storyline may flood galleries and boost TV ratings, until now it has been Capone's vault: all build-up and no payoff.

The real change is happening on the women's side of the game.

And it's happening on almost a weekly basis.

After Ai Miyazato captured the Safeway Classic on Sunday for her fifth LPGA Tour victory of the season, she assumed the No. 1 ranking for the third time since June.

The 25-year-old Japanese star is the winningest player on a major North American tour this year, and one of three players who have held the No. 1 ranking since Lorena Ochoa's retirement in May.

It's been passed back and forth more often than my Ping 1-iron the last time I threw the old lady in my bag for a round.

A timeline:

On May 3, a day after Ochoa stepped away, South Korea's Jiyai Shin became the No. 1 player following a victory in Japan. She was only the third player to hold the position since the rankings' inception on Feb. 21, 2006, following Annika Sorenstam and Ochoa.

A week later, Ochoa dropped out of the rankings altogether as she settled into retirement and Miyazato took her spot at No. 2.

The real rankings carousel didn't begin spinning until June. And it started with a medical emergency.

Shin missed two consecutive tournaments after having an appendectomy the Wednesday before the State Farm Classic. Miyazato won the second event, the ShopRite LPGA Classic on June 20, and assumed the top ranking the next day.

It was a short-lived stay.

Kerr's record-setting, 12-shot win at the LPGA Championship vaulted her four places to No. 1 on June 28 and she held the position for 21 days until Miyazato slipped past her during an off-week for the tour.

Miyazato's lead on July 19 was just .0006 points over Kerr -- a virtual tie. But it only lasted seven days. Shin regained the No. 1 spot by winning the lucrative Evian Masters in France over one of the best non-major fields in women's golf.

Shin's reign lasted through Yani Tseng's win at the British Women's Open, but Kerr passed her last Monday following another off-week. It was another brief reign, ended by Miyazato's win over the weekend.

So what's the big deal? And who cares about women's golf anyway?

Well, you should. The rankings back-and-forth is good for the women's game, adding the extra drama needed in the wake of Ochoa's departure. It was the second time in less than two years the LPGA lost its biggest star, leaving a vacuum that needed desperately to be filled.

Instead of one player stepping in to fill the void, however, many have risen.

In fact, the LPGA might want to try harder in hyping the battle for No. 1, particularly with so many viable contenders.

If the PGA Tour and its networks can have success in getting fans interested in the FedEx Cup race by keeping a running update of players' positions, why can't the LPGA do the same thing for the rankings?

Consider this: At one point Sunday, Miyazato and Kerr were tied for the lead, with No. 3 Shin one stroke back and No. 4 Suzann Pettersen two strokes behind. Any one of them would have been No. 1 with a victory.

If the same thing happened on the men's side, it would look like this: Woods and Mickelson tied for the lead, with Lee Westwood one back and Steve Stricker trailing by two. A race for the men's No. 1 on the line.

The outcome Sunday was up in the air until Kerr dunked her approach shot into the water on the 18th hole and made bogey. The stroke not only affected the outcome of the tournament, allowing Miyazato to win by two shots with a closing par, it affected the world rankings.

"Kerr-plunk," wrote the dutiful employee who updates the LPGA's Twitter feed. "Unless Ai does something disastrous, that might be the tournament."

And it was. The re-shuffled rankings looked like this on Monday: Miyazato trailed by Kerr, Pettersen, Shin and Tseng to round out the top five. Miyazato's lead for the moment is still only about a half-point over Kerr.

"I think it's going to be back and forth again, because all the top-five players are just playing so good this year," Miyazato said Sunday. "I don't really feel like I'm that far above everyone else, so that's why I think that the rankings will still keep on changing."

The race for the men's No. 1 ranking is exciting, yes, but it hasn't developed into anything more than a race at this point. Woods, despite all his recent struggles, has held the spot for 272 consecutive weeks.

Mickelson enters this week's Barclays only .26 average points behind -- .23 fewer points than last week and almost a half a point closer than he was heading into PGA Championship. But he has yet to step forward to answer the call with a performance befitting the No. 1 ranking.

On the women's side, meanwhile, players can smell blood in the water.

"I'm dying to get into that mix," No. 8 Paula Creamer, the U.S. Women's Open champion, said recently.

Jump right in. The water's warm.

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