Last year, the Korean Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA) Tour was dominated by Lee Ye-won (21-KB Financial Group), who is in her third year on the tour. She started with the Lotte Rent-a-Car Women’s Open in April, followed by three victories at the Doosan E&C Weave Championship in August and the Hite Jinro Championship in October. Lee swept the money list, the grand prize, and the lowest stroke golfer’s honor to overtake Park Min-ji (26-NH Investment & Securities) and officially become a KLPGA Tour regular.
Yewon Lee will look to win the opening event of the season, the Hana Financial Group Singapore Women’s Open (S$1.1 million), which begins on July 7 at the Tampines Course (Par 72-6548) at Tanah Merah Country Club in Singapore. Lee is expected to dominate this season. That’s because her biggest rival, 25-year-old Jin-hee Lim, who won four titles last year, has become a “moojoo gong-san” this year after moving to the LPGA Tour. In 29 tournaments last season, Lee missed the cut just once and recorded 13 top-10 finishes, including three wins, four runner-up finishes and one third-place finish. Lee’s strategy is to attack the greens with his crisp iron shots, which ranked fourth in the world with a 74.88% green percentage.
“This season, I will play hard to show my consistency alongside Da Seung Wang,” Lee said.
Park Ji-young (27, Korea Land Trust) will be looking to defend her title after battling with Lee for the title last year with three wins.
“I’m nervous but excited to defend my title in the first tournament of the season,” Park said, adding, “I want to show a lot of good things as I’ve prepared hard, and my goal is to win my first win of the season as soon as possible.”
Kim Min-byul (20-Height Jinro), who won the Rookie of the Year title for the first time in her career last season, will be looking for her first win.
“I really want to do well, but I’m not going to try to win the title, but I’m going to calmly execute the plays I practiced during the pre-season training,” Kim said.
Bang Shin-sil (20-KB Financial Group), who missed out on the Rookie of the Year honors but was the standout among the rookies last season, is also in the mix. She was 바카라사이트 the only rookie to win two titles and was so popular that she was the No. 1 keyword searched by fans on the KLPGA’s official website last year, ranking first in average driving distance (262.47 yards).
The biggest storyline of the tournament will be the presence of Thailand’s Patti Thawatanakit, 25, who has been on fire early in the season on the U.S. Women’s Professional Golf (LPGA) Tour. Sponsored by Hana Financial Group, she is one of the favorites to win the tournament, having won back-to-back European Ladies European Tour (LET) Aramco Saudi Ladies International and the Honda LPGA Thailand last month.
Following the Singapore event, the KLPGA Tour will continue with the Blue Canyon Championship in Thailand on April 15, followed by the Doosan E&C Weave Championship on April 4 in Jeju Island.
This season’s regular tour will feature 30 tournaments, the largest ever, with a total prize pool of approximately 32 billion won. In particular, the number of tournaments with a total prize pool of 1 billion won or more increased to 19, and the average prize pool per tournament exceeded 1 billion won for the first time ever.