FanHouse Lorena Ochoa

RICHMOND, Texas (AP) -- Michelle Wie is gone, putting all the attention on Lorena Ochoa's player of the year fight with Jiyai Shin at the LPGA Tour Championship.

Wie withdrew from the season-ending event Thursday because of a sprained left ankle, hours after Ochoa shot a 6-under 66 to take a one-shot lead over Reilley Rankin.

The 20-year-old Wie, fresh off her first LPGA Tour victory last week at Ochoa's tournament in Mexico, shot a 72 in the afternoon. She limped through her round on the gimpy ankle that she sprained during the Solheim Cup in August, went for treatment afterward and withdrew about an hour later.

It's golf's offseason, which doesn't really mean much for fans and players alike except there aren't any majors, and the competition dwindles. It also gives media and players a chance to reflect on the bigger picture. Players evaluate their years and see what could be improved, promising to work on that before next year rolls out. Media has the opportunity to hand out awards, evaluate certain tours and find flaws in those tours.

That is where this concept came up, about the LPGA and their struggle to gain identity. You could argue that women's golf is the second most important female sport, behind tennis, but it still seems that women's golf has struggled this decade to resonate with sports fans, even some golf fans. Annika Sorenstam had moments where she became a story bigger than golf, but most of that dealt with a missed cut and a skirt, the latter being more of a Fred Funk prank than anything.

Imagine for a minute Tiger Woods going over five months without winning a PGA Tour event. The world, as golf journalist know it, would stop. We'd be calling for his head, his swing and his spikes. It would be Armageddon, birdie edition.

Well, that was the current situation in the LPGA. Lorena Ochoa, the best female golfer in the world, won her last event in April, at the Corona Championship, and was looking like she might not win again in 2009 until Sunday at the Navistar Classic.

Tied for the lead after two rounds, Ochoa turned her game to red, shooting eight under on the weekend to claim her third victory of the year. Her final 18-under tally was four clear of the second place finishers, Michelle Wie and Brittany Lang, and well ahead of the early story, 14-year-old Alexis Thompson.

It would have been fun.

It would have been fun to see a girl two years shy of earning a driver's license make a run at a professional golf tournament, becoming the youngest player to ever win an LPGA event. That is what Alexis Thompson was trying to do after a first round 65 was followed up with a 3-under 69 on Friday, giving her a share of the lead in the LPGA Navistar Classic. It would have been fun, but this is why 14-year-olds don't normally win professional sporting events.

Thompson, competing in just her fifth LPGA tournament as an amateur, was trying to become the first non-professional to win on the LPGA tour since 1969, when JoAnne Carner took home the Burdine's Invitational. So needless to say, seeing a girl with an asterisk on the top of a leaderboard is pretty rare. On Saturday, Thompson struggled to a 2-over 74, leaving her eight shots back of who else, Lorena Ochoa with 18 holes to play.

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Alexis Thompson's Web site proudly proclaims her as "golf's next big star," and if she keeps up the play she's brought to the first two rounds of the LPGA Navistar Classic, it might just be true.

After a first round 65 that had her a shot back of the leader, the 14-year-old Thompson joined an elite group at 10-under after her second straight sub-70 round, firing a 3-under 69 in her fifth career LPGA tournament. Before Thursday, Thompson had never broke 71, but the amateur continues to play well.

That is the good news. The bad news for Thompson fans is the group she is a part of. Lorena Ochoa and Laura Davies both are in the group of five at 10-under, along with Yani Tseng and Giulia Sergas.

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Last weekend, the PGA Tour concluded with some much-needed FedEx Cup drama. For two years, the PGA Tour's playoff system had failed, basically crowning the winner before the final event had even concluded. Now, for the first time since the PGA Tour went FedEx, we had putts on a Sunday that were for more than just the tournament at hand -- they were for a prize most guys on tour couldn't totally grasp.

So what is the next logical move? The LPGA getting its own FedEx Cup, or so Dottie Pepper thinks. On Tuesday, Pepper wrote on Golf.com that she thinks the LPGA could benefit from a FedEx Cup-style postseason, pointing out the extra exposure for sponsors and such. The problem with Pepper's plan is simple -- the LPGA can't get sponsors right now ... for anything. Why focus on adding something new to the schedule when all the regulars that have been around for years and years are dropping out like bar patrons at 1:58 in the morning.

Here is Pepper's plan.

On Monday came word that 15 LPGA Tour players -- at the time, anonymous -- signed a letter calling for the resignation of commissioner Carolyn Bivens. Golf Digest's Ron Sirak writes that four of the signatures belonged to some of the biggest names in women's golf: Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, Cristie Kerr and Morgan Pressel.

Ochoa is currently the No. 1 ranked player, Creamer is 4th, Kerr is 5th, and Pressel is 24th. It's one thing for the rank and file to be frustrated by perceived managerial incompetence, it's something else entirely when it's the Tour's best players -- and its biggest attractions. (And, yes, the irony of what it means to be an LPGA attraction isn't lost on me. Or Ochoa et al, for that matter.)

Each Wednesday during the golf season, FanHouse will list the top five names in golf and why they're important. Did Barack play 18 with Tiger? Did a certain player do something controversial off the course? Or was just playing golf enough to get the pot stirring? Join us for a weekly feature we call Making the Cut.

5. Ana Ivanovic -- Yep, she plays tennis, but she also is wooing a golf heartthrob away from the AT&T National hosted by Tiger Woods. Adam Scott, who is to the PGA Tour what Erin Andrews is to sideline reporting, has said he will miss the AT&T to go watch Ivanovic at Wimbledon. The word is they're dating, but nothing has been confirmed. I guess here's hoping Ivanovic makes it long enough so that Scott can sport his Burberry on the hallowed tennis grounds.

Each Wednesday during the golf season, FanHouse will list the top five names in golf and why they're important. Did Barack play 18 with Tiger? Did a certain player do something controversial off the course? Or was just playing golf enough to get the pot stirring? Join us for a new weekly ranking feature we call Making the Cut.

5. Peyton Manning -- Courtesy of the PGA Tour Twitter, Manning's Pro-Am round at Quail Hollow with Tiger Woods was apparently pretty darn entertaining. On the first hole, Peyton hit a bomb that was only 10 yards behind Woods. The crowds were reportedly three or four rows deep, which isn't that normal for a pro-am.

Golf tournaments in Mexico are supposed to be relaxing. You are out of the country. The weather is top notch. Hell, it's called the Corona Championship. That was not the case this past week with the LPGA, who had to deal with a golf tournament falling at the same time as fear of an epidemic is sweeping our neighbors to the south.

LPGA golfers were concerned over the swine flu that has claimed at least 103 people in Mexico during their second trip below the border this season in Morelia, Mexico. Lorena Ochoa, the top female golfer in the world, won the event, but the talk seemed to revolve around getting out of dodge as quick as possible.

"It's definitely scary," said Brittany Lincicome, the Kraft Nabisco champion who missed the cut at Morelia, home to the Corona Championship. "It's a very serious situation, and I'm just praying none of the girls gets sick. I feel fine."