Ko Jin-young leads competitive field at Evian Championship

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Ko Jin-young leads competitive field at Evian Championship

Ko Jin-young plays her shot from the 11th tee during the final round of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club on June 26, in Bethesda, Maryland. [AFP/YONHAP]

Ko Jin-young plays her shot from the 11th tee during the final round of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club on June 26, in Bethesda, Maryland. [AFP/YONHAP]

 
Ko Jin-young returns to the golf course for the first time in a month on Thursday as she enters the fourth major of the LPGA Tour, the 2022 Amundi Evian Championship, as the top-ranked player.
 
This week, the LPGA Tour jets off to Europe to make its first stop at Evian-les-Bains, France, for the 2022 Amundi Evian Championship. The next four tournaments will all be played in Europe.
 
Topping the 132-player field that represents 39 different countries is world No. 1 Ko Jin-young of Korea, followed by No. 2 Minjee Lee of Australia and No. 3 Nelly Korda of the United States, all three being LPGA title holders this season.  
 
Minjee Lee enters this year's Amundi Evian Championship as the defending champion after having overcome a seven-stroke deficit to win in 2021, shooting a bogey-free 64 in the final round and winning a one-hole playoff with 54-hole leader Lee Jeong-eun of Korea.
 
It was Minjee Lee's first LPGA Tour victory in two years and three months, her previous win being the LA Open in April 2019.
 
Minjee Lee has been in exceptional form this season, having since added a second major trophy to her cabinet. In June, the Australian won the 2022 U.S. Women's Open at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in North Carolina.
 
With the 2020 edition of the Amundi Evian Championship cancelled due to Covid-19, the winner of the event before Minjee Lee was Ko Jin-young, who pulled off a come-from-behind victory to take the title in 2019.
 
Ko Jin-young overcame a three-stroke deficit after 54 holes to earn a two-stroke win in 2019, beating out three golfers tied for second including countrywoman Kim Hyo-joo. That win was a huge moment in her career, adding her to the short list of golfers to win two majors in one year — she had earlier won the ANA Inspiration — and propelling her to No. 1 on the Rolex World Ranking, a position she held until Korda unseated her just a few weeks later.  
 
This year, Ko Jin-young enters the event as the top golfer in the world. After competing in nine events this season, Ko Jin-young has one win at her first event of the season, the HSBC Women's World Championship, and four top-10 finishes.  
 
Ko Jin-young will be looking for her 14th career title as well as her third major. Both her major titles are from 2019, when she won the ANA Inspiration and the Evian Championship.
 
Ko Jin-young will tee off alongside Lydia Ko of New Zealand and Anna Nordqvist of Sweden.  
 
Alongside Ko Jin-young, Kim Hyo-joo also threw her hat into the ring at the fourth major of the season. In 2019 when Ko won the event, Kim Hyo-joo had tied for second.  
 
That second-place finish in 2019 was par for the course for Kim Hyo-joo, who has always excelled at the Evian Resort.
 
Kim Hyo-joo herself has experience winning the event back in 2014. That win also saw her set the tournament 18-hole scoring record at 61, a record that still stands to this day.
 
Chun In-gee plays her shot from the first tee during the final round of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship golf tournament at Congressional Country Club. [USA TODAY/YONHAP]

Chun In-gee plays her shot from the first tee during the final round of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship golf tournament at Congressional Country Club. [USA TODAY/YONHAP]

 
Chun In-gee, winner of the 2016 Evian Championship and the most recent major winner on the LPGA Tour, will be looking to join Ko Jin-young in that exclusive two-majors-in-one-season club at Evian-les-Bains this week.
 
Chun snapped a four year dry spell on June 26 when she won the Women's PGA Championship, the most recent major on the Tour. Chun is a prolific major golfer, with three of her four career wins coming at the landmark tournaments. She has had good form at Evian-les-Bains, having won the 2016 tournament by a big four-stroke margin.
 
There is one KLPGA golfer in the Korean contingent this week, as KLPGA favorite Park Min-ji vies for her first-ever LPGA title. Park Min-ji qualified for the event as the money winner of the 2021 KLPGA season.
 
Kim Hyo-joo putts on the sixth green during the final round of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club on June 26 in Bethesda, Maryland.  [AFP/YONHAP]

Kim Hyo-joo putts on the sixth green during the final round of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club on June 26 in Bethesda, Maryland. [AFP/YONHAP]

Park Min-ji tees off on the first hole during the first round of the the Daebo hausD Open at Seowon Valley Country Club in Paju, Gyeonggi on July 8. [KLPGA]

Park Min-ji tees off on the first hole during the first round of the the Daebo hausD Open at Seowon Valley Country Club in Paju, Gyeonggi on July 8. [KLPGA]

 
Alongside Ko Jin-young, Kim Hyo-joo, Chun In-gee and Park Min-ji, 16 other Korean golfers — Chella Choi, Ji Eun-hee, Ryu So-yeon, Kim In-kyung, Hong Yae-eun, Lee Jeong-eun5, Park Sung-hyun, Kim Sei-young, Kang Hae-ji, Amy Yang, An Na-rin, Kim A-lim, Jenny Shin, Lee Jeong-eun6, Park In-bee and Choi Hye-jin — are teeing off Thursday.  
 
The Amundi Evian Championship is the first of four consecutive LPGA Tour events to be played across Europe. The LPGA Tour next heads to Scotland for the Trust Golf Women's Scottish Open at Dundonald Links in Ayrshire, Scotland. The season's fifth and final major will see the first women's competition held at the famed Muirfield in Scotland, followed by the ISPS Handa World Invitational at Galgorm Castle Golf Club and Massereene Golf Club in Northern Ireland.

BY YUN SO-HYANG [yun.sohyang@joongang.co.kr]
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