Carlota Ciganda is set to compete from this Thursday in her twelfth consecutive final of the LPGA Tour. It sounds quick. She has been present in all of them since 2013, when it even had a different name than it does now. To play in this tournament, formerly known as the CME Group Titleholders and now the CME Group Championship, you have to qualify, you have to be among the best of the year in the American circuit’s order of merit. In other words, this isn’t given to anyone nor played by decree.
Carlota made it in extremis last week, after finishing fourteenth in The Annika driven, the last regular tournament of the LPGA year. This result allowed her to move up the three positions she needed to finish the year in 60th place in the ranking, just the last spot that secured qualification for the CME Group Championship.
See how difficult it is to be playing the circuit’s final for the last twelve consecutive years, as the Navarre native is the only one who has done it. When she tees off this Thursday at the Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, Florida, she will be the record-breaking golfer, surpassing Anna Nordqvist. The Swede had played in all the LPGA Tour finals since 2010, when it even had a third different name, the LPGA Tour Championship. However, the magnificent Nordic player, assistant and player in the last two Solheim Cup, has not managed to qualify for this edition and has broken her exceptional sequence. She has stopped the counter at 14 consecutive finals. An incredible feat.
Now, Carlota has ahead of her the task of matching or surpassing that record of consecutive finals. To do so, she would need to qualify for the next two or three years as well, a challenging task but within reach for the golfer born in the Valle de Larrainzar. Danielle Kang, who also won’t be there this week, has stopped her count at ten consecutive finals, the same as Brooke Henderson, Sei Young Kim, Charley Hull, Ariya Jutanugarn, or Minjee Lee, the players who follow Carlota in this ranking of golfers with the most consecutive LPGA Tour finals played and who are poised to break all records. They are young and have it within reach, although they still need to be there, play good golf, and complete a good year without injuries or slumps.
The grand final of the LPGA Tour as such began in 2009 with the LPGA Tour Championship. In 2011 it was renamed CME Group Titleholders and since 2014 it has been called CME Group Championship. That is, with the current name only Carlota will have played, when the tournament begins this week, all the editions. In recent years, the top 60 of the circuit qualify, while in previous editions the number varied between sixty and 75.
