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NAPLES, FLORIDA | In a year where nothing was normal, the Vare Trophy, given to the LPGA Tour player with the low stroke average, was no exception. If you looked at the stats throughout the year, it appeared for all the world like Sei Young Kim led the tour in scoring average at just a tick north of 68.6.
Unfortunately for Kim, because she spent a good chunk of the pandemic in South Korea, she failed to meet the minimum requirement of 70 rounds or 70 percent of the rounds for which she was eligible, whichever was lower. That is the requisite number to make the statistics meaningful. So, the trophy went to Danielle Kang, who ended the year with an average of 69.9.
“It feels like a pretty solid accomplishment in 2020 to be honest, to be the low scoring average of the entire tour,” Kang said. “It's not a sudden excitement (like winning a tournament) or something that's been building for a couple days and then you finally did it type of deal. I would say everything is temporary, right? But even a win, that feeling goes away eventually because you want to do well the next week and the following week.
“This one feels like a really good mark in my career. I was able to do it. I accomplished it. I'm able to look back at the 2020 season and just look at the Vare Trophy, to be honest, and that's part of it.”
In a season full of asterisks, there won’t be one by Kang’s name on the Vare trophy. It’ll be etched in the same font as Babe Zaharias, Mickey Wright, Kathy Whitworth, JoAnne Carner, Judy Rankin, Nancy Lopez, Betsy King, Annika Sörenstam and Lorena Ochoa, among others.
“You know, to be part of it with those legends,” Kang said. “I just want to be able to make them proud moving forward, because they left this game for us and they left this stage for us. I hope that I can do that for the future.”
At the end of her career, when (hopefully) the struggles of 2020 are a distant memory, Kang’s name will still be on the trophy. And the LPGA Hall of Fame point that comes with it will still count just as much.
Steve Eubanks