ROGERS -- The race for the No. 1 spot on the LPGA Tour has been between three players the past year.
For the past 52 weeks, Inbee Park, Lydia Ko and Stacy Lewis (Arkansas Razorbacks) have been perched atop the Rolex Women's World Golf Rankings. Park has been in the spot since June 15, the second time she's been there since October and the third time overall.
At a glance
WHEN Today-Sunday
WHERE Pinnacle Country Club, Rogers
COURSE Par 71, 6,374 yards
PURSE $2 million. Winner receives $300,000.
2014 CHAMPION Stacy Lewis
TELEVISION Golf Channel: 10:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. today, 2-5 p.m. Saturday and 4-7 p.m. Sunday.
TICKETS $25 for all-week pass, $15 daily Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Children 17 and younger admitted free with a ticketed adult.
Past champions
2014 Stacy Lewis
2013 Inbee Park
2012 Ai Miyazato
2011 Yani Tseng
2010 Yani Tseng
2009 Jiyai Shin
2008 Seon Hwa Lee
Fight for No. 1
• Inbee Park has been the World No. 1 on the LPGA Tour for the last two weeks, the second time she has been in the position in the last year. Stacy Lewis, Lydia Ko and Park have all had their turn at the top spot for the last 52 weeks. This is the breakdown:
Rank;Country;Weeks No. 1
1 Inbee Park;South Korea;16
2 Lydia Ko;New Zealand;19
3 Stacy Lewis;United States;17
A tour official said this week the rankings won't change no matter the pecking order after this weekend's LPGA Northwest Arkansas Championship at Pinnacle Country Club, but the gap could narrow heading into the next tournament, the U.S. Women's Open, which will be held July 6-12 in Lancaster, Pa.
"It feels like I'm really ready for this spot and my game is getting better and better every day," said Park, who is coming off a five-stroke victory in the Women's PGA Championship earlier this month in Westchester, N.Y. "I feel like I am playing like a No. 1.
"I have been playing good golf the last couple months, and there's very important tournaments coming up [the] next couple months, so it won't be easy to maintain where I am right now."
Park, of South Korea, won the 2013 Northwest Arkansas Championship in a sudden-death playoff over Ryu So-Yeon in between major championship victories at the Women's PGA Championship and the U.S. Women's Open. She maintained her No. 1 ranking for 59 weeks before Lewis overtook her just three weeks before the former University of Arkansas All-American won the Northwest Arkansas Championship for the first time a year ago.
Lewis, who held on to the top spot 14 weeks before being overtaken by Park, said she isn't worried about being No. 1 at the moment. Lewis, 30, is third in the rankings behind Park and Ko, but she said her focus is more on her game and what she has to do to repeat as champion on a course with which she is very familiar.
"No. 1 is way back, way in the back of my mind," Lewis said. "I don't like goals like that because I can't control a lot of what that is. I can control the way I prepare, I can control how I play, but I can't control how anybody else plays. So to get back to No. 1, that takes some help from some other people.
"The immediate goal is to just get back to doing what I do best, get my golf swing in a better place, and winning tournaments. That's ultimately what's going to end up moving you up the rankings and takes care of everything else."
Lewis hasn't won a tournament since last year's Northwest Arkansas Championship when she made a clinching birdie putt on the 18th hole to hold off three others by a stroke.
That group included Ko, who has won four tournaments since that loss in Rogers but missed the cut in the recent Women's PGA Championship. The teenager from New Zealand said being the No. 1 player in the world for 19 weeks after dethroning Park in February was rewarding, but losing it proved she has work to do to regain the status.
"I held the No. 1 ranking longer than I thought I would," she said. "It was a surprise, and it will definitely make me work harder. I had a good week off last week so it was good break. I wasn't tired at Westchester, but it was good to get my game together.
"I played well here last year, so there is a lot of confidence going into the weekend."
A total of 17 of the top 20 players in the world golf rankings are included in this year's field. The entire 2013 USA Solheim Cup team is in Rogers, including Brittany Lincicome, who won the season's first major in April, the ANA Inspiration in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Lincicome's highest finish in Rogers was a tie for 10th in 2011. That tournament was won by former No. 1 and two-time champion Yani Tseng, who is back this year as well as Ai Miyazato, who came out on top in 2012.
"This golf course is a beautiful golf course and it is in really good shape this year as well," Park said. "[It] has been giving me a lot of good results and good memories, so I think it's always good to have extra confidence in yourself going into Friday."
Lewis, who finished in a tie for 13th at the recent Women's PGA Championship, said it's hard to beat the way Park is playing.
"She's always been playing well, but what she's been doing better I think over probably the last six months or so is her ball striking," Lewis said. You look [at] the last year or two, she rode her putter a lot. She would make everything she looked at and [her] ball striking wasn't always that great.
"Now the ball striking's catching up with the putting. That's what you saw especially at Westchester. She hit it really good there.
"She's not really doing a whole lot wrong right now."
Sports on 06/26/2015