Kim looks for season win No. 2 as Tour pays tribute to founders

This time last year in Phoenix, as the LPGA Tour paid tribute to the past, one of its future stars emerged on the scene.

Nineteen-year-old Hyo Joo Kim, the 2014 Evian Championship winner, fired a final-round 67 at the JTBC Founders Cup to edge Stacy Lewis by three strokes and kick off what would be a masterful rookie campaign. Kim went on to finish 13^th on the LPGA money list with nearly $1 million in earnings on the strength of nine top-10 finishes, ending up as the runner-up to Sei Young Kim in the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year race.

If her triumph in Phoenix a year ago was a nerve-racking experience for Hyo Joo Kim, she didn’t show it outwardly.

“It’s impossible not to feel a little pressure or nerves, especially when your playing partner is playing so well,” Hyo Joo Kim said through a translator after the win. “If anything, I think the situation on hole 10 helped because, after I went through there and got a bogey, I just realized there’s no time to feel pressure or feel afraid. I’ve just got to go out there and play.”

And play she did. Hyo Joo Kim’s 21-under-par total was just two strokes off Lewis’ tournament record from 2013, and she carded four consecutive rounds in the 60s en route to the victory.

This year at Wildfire Golf Club at JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa, the Republic of Korea native will have to contend with Lewis and a slew of other talent if she is to successfully defend her title. Kim won the season-opening Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic in the Bahamas and has cashed checks in her other three starts in 2016.

The world’s 12^th-ranked player, Hyo Joo Kim will tee it up along with the likes of world No. 1 Lydia Ko, second-ranked Inbee Park, two-time 2016 winner and money list leader Ha Na Jang, ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open champion Haru Nomura and past JTBC Founders Cup winners Karrie Webb (2011, 2014) and Yani Tseng (2012). Amy Yang, Brittany Lincicome, Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer, Anna Nordqvist and Shanshan Feng are just a few other players fans can enjoy watching inside the ropes at the $1.5 million event this weekend.

LPGA founders like Shirley Spork and Marilynn Smith, as well as a host of pioneers and legends will be in Phoenix for the one-of-a-kind tournament, giving fans a rare treat of seeing some of the game’s greatest players in one place. It will be Who’s Who of stars at the four-day event, and Golf Channel will be there all week to chronicle the festivities.

Can Hyo Joo Kim or one of her countrywomen make sponsor JTBC – a nationwide general cable TV network and broadcasting company – happy by winning for the fourth time in six events this season, or will another player rise to the occasion to hoist the trophy? We will know in 72 holes.