Stacked Field Set To Compete On The River Course
A star-studded field will tee it up on the River Course at Kingsmill Resort this week for the 12th staging of the Kingsmill Championship Presented by JTBC. The group of 144 players includes eight of the top-10 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings and 15 of the top 20. Twenty-seven of the top-30 on the LPGA’s Official Money List will be in action at one of the top-rated stops on Tour by players.
Top-3 Fresh Off Breaks of Their Own
With a return to a player-favorite stop on Tour comes the return to action for the top-3 players in the world. After taking the last two events off, world No. 1 Lydia Ko will return to Williamsburg looking to continue her stellar play in 2016. The 19-year-old leads nearly every major statistical category and year-long races and ranks first in: Race to the CME Globe points, Rolex Player of the Year standings, the Official Money List, putts per GIR, putting average, scoring average, rounds under par and rounds in the 60s.
Ko played well at the River Course in her first two appearances. She has not recorded a finish worse than T16 (2015) and posted a fifth place finish in her debut in 2014.
Rolex Rankings No. 2 Inbee Park will be making her first start since the LOTTE Championship in mid-March after taking three events off due to a left thumb injury. Park has had a slow start to the season – to her standards – and has recorded two top-10 finishes including a season-best runner-up at the Kia Classic in March. The 17-time LPGA winner has seen mixed results in her five appearances at this event, missing two cuts and not finishing outside the top-16 in her other three starts. Park historically peaks later in the season and as the summer months come into view has her sights set on performing well in the Tour’s upcoming 11-week stretch that includes three major championships and the UL International Crown in July.
World No. 3 Lexi Thompson took her talents to the LPGA of Japan two weeks ago and picked up her second worldwide victory of 2016 after she won the JLPGA’s World Ladies Championship Salonpas Cup. Thompson has been consistently solid in her first nine LPGA starts this season and has five top-10 finishes including her seventh career win in Thailand in February. She has recorded two top 10s at Kingsmill in her four career starts including the last two. Her best finish was a runner-up in 2014.
Lee Set To Defend First LPGA Title
Minjee Lee returns to the site of her first LPGA Tour victory where she completed her final round of 65 on Monday due to weather conditions and held off So Yeon Ryu by two strokes. Lee became just the seventh player in LPGA history to win before her 19th birthday.
Lee’s win here last year pushed her to the next level in her career. Last year at this event she ranked No. 60 in the Rolex Rankings. She passed mentor and LPGA and World Golf Halls of Famer Karrie Webb as the top-ranked Australian in the world last July and has ascended to No. 12 in the world. She showed last year’s victory was no fluke and backed it up with win No. 2 last month in Hawaii at the LOTTE Championship. The 19-year-old Perth, Australia native has two additional top-10s this season and is coming off a tie for sixth at the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic two weeks ago.
The Young Just Get Younger
With 20-year-old Ariya Jutanugarn’s victory at the Tour’s last stop in Alabama, it has become clear that the youth movement on Tour is not going anywhere. Through the first 12 events of the 2016 season, the average age of winners is 21.00 years old and not a single winner has been over the age of 23. Three events were won by teenagers (Lydia Ko won twice and Minjee Lee) and six events were won by players 21 years old and younger.
Numbers To Know
- 21.00 – Average age of winners through the first 12 events this year on the LPGA Tour
- 6 – Different countries represented amongst winners this year: South Korea, United States, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand
- 19-under - Tournament scoring record at the Kingsmill Championship set by Annika Sorenstam in 2008
- 62 – 18-hole scoring record set by Jiyai Shin in the first round in 2012
- 5 – Past champions in the field this week: Cristie Kerr, Karrie Webb, Suzann Pettersen, Lizette Salas, Minjee Lee
- 3 – Winners of the event who were Rolex First-Time Winners including the last two champions. Suzann Pettersen (2007), Lizette Salas (2014) and Minjee Lee (2015) all won their first LPGA titles at Kingsmill
- 1 – Only one player has won here more than once: Cristie Kerr has won this event three times (2005, 2009, 2013)
- 8 – Cristie Kerr won her three titles here by a combined 8 shots
- 29 - Combined major championship wins among the winners of this event
- 3 - There have been three playoffs in the event’s 11-year history and the epic nine-hole sudden death between Jiyai Shin and Paula Creamer in 2012 still stands as the longest sudden-death playoff between two players in LPGA history
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