Cristie Kerr's record-setting victory at the LPGA Championship propelled her to the world No. 1 ranking among women golfers.

Kerr went from fifth to first in rankings released Monday. She is the first American to be ranked No. 1and fifth woman to win the top spot.

Annika Sorenstam was No. 1 the first 60 weeks of the ranking and Lorena Ochoa occupied the top position for 158 weeks until her retirement this year. Jiyai Shin took over for seven weeks but was passed by Ai Miyazato last week.

Kerr's move in the ratings was fueled by a 19-under-par 269 total last week at the LPGA Championship at Pittsford, N.Y. Her score was 12 strokes better than runner-up Kim Song-hee, the largest margin of victory for the event.

Kerr's rating point average of 10.45 is just better than Miyazato's 10.33. Miyazato finished third at the championship. Shin is ranked third followed by Suzann Pettersen and Yani Tseng. Miyazato, Shin, Pettersen and Tseng were each dropped one spot by Kerr's jump up the chart.

Anna Nordqvist is sixth, the only woman to keep the same place in the Top 10 as last week. Karrie Webb improved one spot to seventh while Kim went from 11th to eighth. Michelle Wie slipped two places to ninth and Angela Stanford fell one to 10th.

The career specs of Michael Whan, the Ladies Professional Golf Association's surprise choice as its next commissioner, suggests that the three most important issues for the troubled tour are brand, brand and brand. Mr. Whan, a toe-tapping, gung-ho 44-year-old, told The Wall Street Journal, shortly after the Tour announced his appointment Wednesday morning in New York, that his top priority will be to "grow the global brand."

Second, he said, will be "connecting the LPGA brand with other corporate brands in partnerships." And third will be building pride — pride in the LPGA brand: "I want players and tournament owners and staff members to feel even more pride than they already do when they pull out their business cards and say 'I work for the LPGA Tour.'"

Mr. Whan (the name, of Scottish ancestry, was shortened from McWhan several generations ago) has substantial golf credentials. He once worked for the golf division of Wilson Sporting Goods and, in the late 1990s, served as executive vice president and general manager for TaylorMade-Adidas Golf's North American operations.

But functionally his key expertise has always been marketing. His first job after college was at Procter & Gamble Co., the famed incubator both of consumer brands and brand managers. His last job at P&G was director of marketing for oral care products — that is to say, Crest toothpaste. Later he was the chief marketing officer for Britesmile, a teeth-whitening concern. Most recently he was the chief executive of Mission Itech Hockey, an equipment company that expanded rapidly and was acquired last year by Bauer Hockey.

The LPGA has been in crisis mode since July, when a player revolt forced out former commissioner Carolyn Bivens. The top player complaint was the dwindling number of tournaments on the schedule. The number dropped to 28 this year from a high of 34 events in 2008. Some players feared that, with a big portion of the schedule up for renewal, the Tour might not muster even 20 tournaments for next year.

Luckily, the Tour found an able and energetic acting commissioner in Marty Evans, a board member and retired U.S. Navy admiral. She and her staff were able to re-sign several important sponsors for next year. Now LPGA officials hold out hope that the tour may stage as many as 24 or 25 events next year. The final 2010 lineup will be released Nov. 18 at the Tour Championship in Houston. "I promise you, it's going to be a great schedule," Ms. Evans said at the press conference Wednesday via remote hookup from Seoul, where the tour is playing this week.

Ms. Evans and her fellow board members also did a remarkable job of keeping secret Mr. Whan's pole position for his new job. After several early contenders withdrew their names from consideration, including Donna Orender, the former PGA Tour executive and current WNBA president, the final two contenders were thought to be Pete Bevacqua, the U.S. Golf Association's chief business officer, and a dark horse Kohlberg & Co. investment banker named Jonathan Ward.

Mr. Whan's name never surfaced publicly, but he fits the criteria that the Tour laid out even beyond brand building: business experience in golf or a sports company, an ability to build consensus in a high profile environment and a passion for and understanding of the game itself and relationships within the golf industry. Ms. Bivens was generally considered deficient in especially these last two areas.

"It's a difficult job," Dawn Hudson, the LPGA's board chairman, told the Journal Wednesday. "The Tour's revenues are only, what, $50 to $60 million. That's the size of a start-up company or an entrepreneurial enterprise in the second stage. But the skill set that's required by the commissioner is quite wide, and almost disproportionate to size and scale of the business."

The commissioner must successfully negotiate agreements and working relationships between groups with differing primary interests: the players, the tournament owners, the corporate sponsors, the broadcast partners, the media and fans. "We only have a staff of about 80 people, including the field staff.  That's probably 20 percent of the staff the PGA Tour has," Ms. Hudson said.

Mr. Whan's challenge is not just to increase the number of tournaments and the overall purse, but also to create greater "soft" benefits for the players, such as more endorsement opportunities and improved playing conditions, Ms. Hudson said.

"I think he's going to find that suddenly he doesn't have just one wife, but about 200 wives," joked Michelle Ellis, president of the LPGA's player board.

Mr. Whan, for his part, is raring to go, even though he won't officially take over from Ms. Evans until Jan. 4. "I don't take this job lightly. I took this as a personal passion, as a calling more than a position," he said Wednesday.

He grew up in golf, with a father and mother who played avidly, and thinks of the game as a "safe haven." In our conversation after the announcement, he waxed poetic about the emotional bonds that the game creates, the conversations he is able to have on the course with his parents and his three boys (ages 15, 13 and 12) that he is unable to have anywhere else.

It's a safe bet his job won't feel like a safe haven for long, given its inherent pressures. But he said he is inspired to help the Tour promote the game's highest values and integrity on a global basis.

"What you've really got with the Tour is the greatest female worldwide competition going," he said. "At women's golf summits going back for years, we've always talked about finding future superstars from all over the world, not just Europe and the U.S. 

"Today that's actually happening. A young woman in virtually any region of the world now can aspire to be a professional golfer, and in many cases find a role model from right there in her own base. And that's pretty special. In the world of competitive women's sports, it what sets the LPGA apart."