“This is my favorite time of the year, playing in Europe. Some big events.”
Between two major championships and the first tri-sanctioned tournament in the northern hemisphere hosted by the LPGA, Ladies European and European Tours, there are plenty of reasons that Georgia Hall loves the European swing. It’s a stretch that continues in Northern Ireland with the inaugural ISPS Handa World Invitational presented by Modest! Golf Management from July 29—August 1.
“A very different event, which is always nice to change it up a bit,” said Hall, a major champion at the 2018 AIG Women’s Open. “And to be playing on the same courses as the men, even though we are not competing with them, I think it’s still a great event.
“It is fantastic, having equal prize funds. Not something that we get a lot of or are used to. It’s fantastic what Modest! Golf has done for this tournament. I missed it a couple years ago [when it was hosted by the Challenge Tour and featured a women’s invitational], so quite keen to play. It’ll be a great success.”
Hall has found her own success at a similar event. In 2016, she won the ISPS Handa Vic Open, a jointly sanctioned event by the LPGA Tour, Women’s Professional Golfers’ Association of Australasia (formerly ALPG Tour), European Tour and ISPS Handa PGA Tour of Australasia, when it was known as the Oates Victorian Open and hosted by the ALPG Tour. It was the fifth year the men’s and women’s competitions were held concurrently.
“We’re playing two courses [Galgorm Castle and Massereene] like at the Vic Open, and I really enjoyed that type of format,” Hall said. “Great memories from a very similar event quite a few years ago now. I hopefully can take that into this week and have a good result.”
Combined with a tied for sixth performance just a few days ago at Evian Resort Golf Club in the Amundi Evian Championship and Hall has the base to continue her upward trend on the links.
“I was 12-under total on the weekend, so I had a good weekend altogether and managed to hole some good putts. I really enjoy Evian. I always feel very happy there, very happy in Europe in general,” said Hall. “I’ve had a couple top-10s at Evian in previous years, so I was quite confident going in. Hopefully I can continue that here in Northern Ireland.
“I’ve had some good results the past couple months. Good major championship at KPMG and the week before [at Meijer LPGA Classic] finishing in a share of sixth. Yeah, I feel pretty good at the moment.”
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