NAPLES, Fla. – CME points will mean a lot more starting in 2020. LPGA commissioner Mike Whan announced that starting in 2021, CME points will be used to determine a player’s status for the next season rather than the money list.
“There’s a couple of benefits to that,” said Whan. “I know the PGA Tour went to that a few years ago, and we were tracking both their change and our sort of pseudo-change over the last few years. One of the benefits is while money can be pretty staggeringly different, we didn’t want a second-place finish at the U.S. Women’s Open to be more important than finishing in the top-five all year long.”
Whan told Golf Channel that he’s going to make a push in the offseason to allow non-members who win and then take up membership to have their CME points retroactively rewarded.
Going forward, that would given players like Sophia Popov and A Lim Kim, two players who were non-members when they won majors this season, a spot in this week’s CME Group Tour Championship field.
“I do think that’s something I’d like to see changed for the offseason,” said Whan.
Brittany Lincicome isn’t so sure about that change, calling it a “sticky situation.”
“If you’re a non-member, I don’t feel like you should get the same amount of perks,” she said.
Brittany Altomare said she teeters back and forth on retroactive points for non-members, but she definitely likes the change from the money list to CME points.
“I think it rewards more consistent play,” she said, “and I think the better you do out here, the points reflect that, where I don’t think the money list does.”
Azahara Munoz likes the idea of both changes, saying that one high finish at the right time (like the U.S. Women’s Open) can make a player’s entire year. The points approach, she said, is more fair.
And given how few non-members win in any given season, she has no problem with awarding retroactive points.
