Competitive field gathers in Surrey for final major of LPGA season

Ko Jin-young competes in the Evian Championship at Evian Resort Golf Club in Evian-les-Bains, France on July 27. [AFP/YONHAP]

The AIG Women’s Open — the season’s last LPGA major — tees off Thursday at Walton Heath Old Course in Surrey, England with world No. 2 Ko Jin-young joining the 144-strong field as she looks to win her third major and reclaim the No. 1 spot.

Ko held the No. 1 spot on the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings earlier this year after securing two titles at the HSBC Women’s World Championships in March and the Cognizant Founders Cup in May.

She has not managed a single top-10 finish since her last victory, however, and failed to make the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open last month.

Those results forced her to cede the No. 1 spot to Nelly Korda last week.

The AIG Women’s Open is a chance for Ko to secure his first major of the season and third major title. Her last major victory was at the Evian Championship in 2019.

She may be able to reclaim the No. 1 spot with a victory at the AIG Women’s Open and extend her own record for the most combined weeks spent in the top spot to 164 weeks — the record came to an end at 163 weeks after she broke the previous record of 158 weeks by former golfer Lorena Ochoa.

“Yeah, I had two wins already, and I had a couple of more chances for a win,” Ko said during a pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday. “And I have a lot of tournaments left, so if I’m playing well, I think it will be a winner again in the future hopefully.”

Top-ranked golfers as well as this season’s winners will be competing alongside Ko to win this season’s last major.

No. 1 Nelly Korda of the United States will be joining as she looks to maintain her position and claim her first title of the season. She has managed seven top-10 finishes this season, with her best being runner-up at the Women’s World Championship in March, where Ko won the trophy.

No. 3 Celine Boutier also joins the tournament looking to ride her momentum from the past two consecutive events — the Amundi Evian Championship and the Freed Group Women’s Scottish Open — where she was crowned champion.

Even Ko sees her as a big competitor and is wary of her current form.

“Yes, Celine plays really, really good right now,” Ko said. “We are really close friends because we live in Texas, and then we are same practice for the club in Texas. So when we golf, we meet every day in the golf club. Yeah, I'm really happy she made wins the last two weeks, and yeah, but we have a lot of great players on the LPGA Tour, including me.

“So yeah, if I'm playing really well this week, I have a chance, but I don't want to make stress from the golf, especially from the wind. Well, I want to win the major, but I don't want to make a lot of stress at the same time.”

If Boutier wins the AIG Women’s Open, she will become the golfer with the most titles this season at four — her first victory was at the LPGA Drive on Championship on March 26.

The remaining top-10 ranked golfers will all be in the field: No. 4 Ruoning Yin will also be competing alongside No. 5 Lydia Ko, No. 6 Lilia Vu, No. 7 Kim Hyo-hoo, No. 8 Allisen Corpuz, No. 9 Brooke Henderson and No. 10 Minjee Lee.

Yin and Vu are also multi-winners this season with two titles apiece.

Lydia Ko, Kim and Lee are the three top-10 golfers who have yet to secure a trophy despite showing a good performance.

Kim has shown the second-best performance by a Korean golfer this season after Ko Jin-young, having managed seven top-10 finishes, including finishing the Women’s Scottish Open as runner-up last week.

Ko Jin-young still remains the only Korean to have won a title so far this year.

Alongside Ko and Kim Hyo-joo, 13 other Korean golfers will compete in the AIG women’s Open: An Na-rin, Chun In-gee, Ryu Hae-ran, Choi Hye-jin, Ji Eun-hee, Kim A-lim, Kim In-kyung, Kim Sei-young, Jenny Shin, Shin Ji-yai, Amy Yang, Lee Jeong-eun6 and Lee Mi-hyang.

Kim In-kyung and Shin Ji-yai are the only two Koreans to have won the tournament among the Korean competitors this year, Kim In-kyung in 2017 and Shin in both 2008 and 2012.

The AIG Women’s Open is the third of four events on the LPGA's European swing. The tour will head next to Northern Ireland for the ISPS Handa World Invitational on Aug. 17.

The tour will be back in North America the following week, before it heads to Asia in October.

Korea will also host an LPGA event this year, with the BMW Ladies Championship set to take place at Seowon Valley Country Club in Paju, Gyeonggi on Oct. 19.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]