The premier feminine golfers on the planet will tee off this Thursday on the Evian Resort Golf Membership in France for the Amundi Evian Championship, the fourth of the LPGA Tour’s 5 majors in 2022.
The 12 months’s main winners embody: Jennifer Kupcho (Chevron Championship), Minjee Lee (U.S. Girls’s Open), and In Gee Chun (KMPG Girls’s P.G.A. Championship). The ultimate main, the AIG Girls’s Open, shall be held in early August.
In final 12 months’s Evian Championship, Minjee Lee outdueled Jeongeun Lee6 on the primary playoff gap to seize her first main. Minjee Lee fired a 64 within the last spherical, rallying from seven photographs again to take the title.
Right here’s who to look at this week:
Nelly Korda
Korda, the previous No. 1 and 2021 Olympic champion, has had a 12 months that she would absolutely prefer to neglect.
In January, she obtained Covid-19, which saved her on the sidelines for some time through the low season.
Then, in March, she had surgical procedure to take away a blood clot from her left arm. Korda didn’t return to the LPGA Tour till the U.S. Girls’s Open in early June, the place she completed in a tie for eighth. A few months earlier than, she hadn’t been certain she would make it again in time for that match.
Two weeks later, Korda, 23, misplaced in a playoff to Kupcho on the Meijer L.P.G.A. Basic. In every of her first three rounds, Korda shot 5 below or decrease, however she cooled off through the last spherical, firing an even-par 72. She went on to tie for thirtieth on the KPMG Girls’s P.G.A. Championship in late June. She is ranked No. 3.
With two majors to go, Korda, whose older sister, Jessica, additionally performs on the LPGA Tour, nonetheless has an opportunity to make this 12 months memorable differently.
Minjee Lee
Lee, ranked No. 2, appears to be a think about nearly each main nowadays.
That was the case once more on the KPMG final month, the place she had an opportunity to nab her third main title in below a 12 months.
Trailing by six strokes going into the ultimate spherical, she put stress on the leaders. Lee, nonetheless, missed a pivotal 4-footer on 17, coming away with a bogey. She rebounded with a birdie at 18, however completed in a tie with Lexi Thompson, a shot behind In Gee Chun.
Lee, 26, who made her skilled debut on the Evian Championship in 2014 — she tied for sixteenth at that occasion — grew up in Perth, Australia. She took up the sport on the age of 10, and, in 2012, she received the US Ladies’ Junior championship. Simply two years later, she had risen to change into the No. 1 newbie on the planet.
Lydia Ko
It’s true: Ko had a disappointing exhibiting not too long ago on the KPMG, the place she recorded rounds of 76 and 79 on the weekend to complete in a tie for forty sixth. However past that, Ko, a former No. 1, has been enjoying extraordinarily nicely this season.
Earlier than the KMPG, the New Zealander had completed fifth or higher in 4 of her previous 5 appearances. In 12 begins, the KPMG was the one occasion during which she ended up putting decrease than twenty fifth.
Ko, who received the Gainbridge L.P.G.A. in late January — edging Danielle Kang by a stroke — continues to be solely 25 years outdated. That appears troublesome to think about, given how lengthy she’s been round. Ko was the tour’s rookie of the 12 months in 2014 and participant of the 12 months in 2015, the youngest ever in each instances. That 2015 season was capped by a win within the Evian Championship, her first main title.
Like many prime gamers, she’s had her struggles. After compiling 15 profession victories by way of 2018, Ko didn’t win once more till the 2021 Lotte Championship. Throughout that dry spell, she fell to as little as fifty fifth on the planet rankings; she has now climbed to No. 4.
Atthaya Thitikul
For Thitikul, a rookie this 12 months, the longer term could arrive prior to she thinks. It’d even be right here already.
Solely 19 years outdated, Thitikul of Thailand is now ranked No. 5 on the planet. On the KPMG, she completed fourth, simply two photographs behind Chun. Earlier this 12 months, Thitikul picked up her first tour victory on the JTBC Basic. It most likely didn’t occur in fairly the way in which she would have imagined — she made a bogey on the second playoff gap to defeat Nanna Koerstz Madsen — however a win is a win. With that victory, Thitikul turned the youngest winner on the LPGA Tour since Brooke Henderson in 2016.
“It’s simply loopy in my thoughts proper now,” Thitikul stated afterward. “I can’t imagine that I turned an LPGA winner.”
In 2017, when she captured the Women European Thailand Championship, Thitikul turned the youngest to win on the Women European Tour. She was 14 years, 4 months and 19 days outdated on the time.
Jennifer Kupcho
In June, Kupcho prevailed in a three-way playoff with Nelly Korda and Leona Maguire within the Meijer LPGA Basic.
Kupcho, ranked No. 9, nearly blew it that day, lacking a brief eagle putt on the primary playoff gap that might have ended the competitors proper there. Some gamers might need been flustered after a failure like that. Not Kupcho. On the second playoff gap, she made one other birdie, then pulled out the victory when Maguire missed a brief putt that might have prolonged the match.
Kupcho, who teamed with Lizette Salas to seize final week’s Dow Nice Lakes Bay Invitational, collected her first profession win in April on the Chevron Championship. She had bother on the again 9, however had began the day with a six-stroke benefit.
Over the following two months, she clearly didn’t play her finest, failing to interrupt into the prime 15 in any of her six occasions.
Kupcho had a stellar profession as an newbie, profitable each the N.C.A.A. Participant of the Yr award in 2018 and the primary Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Novice in 2019. She went professional later that 12 months and, in 2021, joined the US gamers as they confronted off towards the Europeans within the Solheim Cup.