subject: Gal soars to 44th in World Rankings [print this page] Gal soars to 44th in World Rankings Gal soars to 44th in World Rankings
Not too many people had heard of Sandra Gal when she beat World No 2 Jiyah Shin in Sunday's Kia Classic in Industry City near Los Angles, but it's very different now.
On the strength of that victory the lithe, 6-foot German with the pin-up figure has rocketed from 100th to 44th in the World Rankings, and with her now being the eighth highest ranked European in the World, she is on track to qualify for a place in Europe's Solheim Cup team this year with Ping K15 Driver.
Or is she?
There's a snag.
She is not a member of the Ladies European Tour and needs to be to be eligable for the European Solheim squad.
Gal represented German while still at school before moving to the US to play collegiate golf at the University of Florida.
Here she won enough collegiate events to earn All American colours. She also graduated with honours in advertising before opting to go full time as a professional on the LPGA Tour in 2008.
She has been a Florida resident ever since, but in the light of first Tour win on Sunday and her sudden surge into the World's Top 50 it may be time that she starts thinking about the Solheim Cup and looking for ways to earn membership of LET.
In the meantime, Norway's Suzanne Pettersen, at No 5 in the World, heads the list of the eight who would qualify automatically for Team Europe if the team was to be chosen now.
She is followed by Swedes Anna Nordqvist (19th), Maria Hjorth (23rd) and Sophie Gustafson (37th), England's Melissa Reid (42), Spain's Azahara Munoz (43rd) and Beatriz Recari, who, in 49th place, is five places behind Gal (44th) in the rankings.
England's Laura Davies is currently 50th in the world and just outside the eight-strong qualifying bubble, but even if she doesn't move into taylormade r11 driver on time, you can be sure her experience and strong presence in the team would earn her one of the four captain's picks.
At the top of the rankings, in the meantime, Taipei's Yani Tseng, with four worldwide victories already under her belt this year, remained firmly atop of the World Rankings list this weekend, Shin's second place behind Gal not giving her anything like enough points to move back into the top slot on the Rankings she occupied last year.
Two others who have also held the rank of women's world number one since the retirement of Mexican golfing icon Lorena Ochoa, are also well placed on the rankings list.
American number one Cristie Kerr is in third place behind Shin and Japan's Ai Miyazato is in sixth place behind Pettersen.
In all, 11 of the top 20 ranked players with taylormade burner 2.0 , including the top two, are from Asia, five from the USA, two from Europe and two from Australia.
