The HSBC Women’s World Championship is set to begin this week as the world’s top talent once again take on the Tanjong Course at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore. Three past champions are in the 66-player field in Southeast Asia, the most notable of which is two-time defending champion Jin Young Ko, and eight of the top 10 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings are set to compete for a share of a $1.8 million purse, including world No. 1 Lilia Vu and Amundi Evian Championship winner Celine Boutier. Twenty-time LPGA Tour winner Lydia Ko is also in the field and will be looking to pick up her 21st victory in Singapore, a win that would earn her the 27th necessary point for automatic qualification in the LPGA Hall of Fame.
Take a look at just a few of the featured groups this week at the HSBC Women’s World Championship using KPMG Performance Insights:
Thursday, 9:32 a.m. – Hyo Joo Kim/Linn Grant/Xiyu Lin
After a T5 finish in her season debut at the Honda LPGA Thailand, 2021 HSBC Women’s World Championship winner Hyo Joo Kim is set to make her ninth start in Asia’s Major this week in Singapore. Kim won the 13th edition of the event by one shot over Hannah Green and has never finished worse than T26 at Sentosa Golf Club, recording three additional top-10 finishes in this event, the best of which is a tie for fifth that came in 2019. Her performance last week saw Kim lead the field in strokes gained around the green and rank in the top 10 in both strokes gained tee to green (8th) and strokes gained putting (10th), according to KPMG Performance Insights. The 28-year-old was arguably one of the strongest players on the LPGA Tour in 2023, winning The Ascendant LPGA benefiting Volunteers of America in June and earning eight other top-10 results, five of which were top-five finishes and one of which was a tie for fourth at the AIG Women’s Open. She also led the LPGA Tour in rounds under par last season with 60, ranked second in scoring average (69.63) and ranked third in total birdies (332).
Sweden’s Linn Grant showed her mettle on the LPGA Tour last year, becoming a Rolex First-Time Winner at the Dana Open and recording six additional top-15 results in 2023, including a tie for 14th at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in her only appearance at the event. Statistically, Grant ended the season ranked fifth in greens in regulation (74.90%), eighth in scoring average (70.02) and 15th in average driving distance (268.53). This week in Singapore marks her fourth start of the 2024 LPGA Tour season, and in her three previous tournaments, she has finished in a tie for 27th at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, a tie for 23rd at the LPGA Drive On Championship and a tie for 65th at the Honda LPGA Thailand, performances upon which she’ll look to improve at the HSBC Women’s World Championship.
Xiyu Lin has been one of the most consistent players on the LPGA Tour the last few seasons, earning 14 top-10 finishes since the beginning of 2022, the most of any player without a victory in that span, according to KPMG Performance Insights. She’s making her sixth start in the HSBC Women’s World Championship this week, and in her five previous appearances in the event, she has recorded two top-12 finishes, tying for third in 2021 and tying for 11th in 2022. Lin has recorded a cumulative score to par of 69-under in the Tour’s Asian events since the beginning of the 2023 season, two better than her next closest competitor in the metric. She’s making her third start of the 2024 season after finishing T6 and T13 at the LPGA Drive On Championship and Honda LPGA Thailand respectively, a solid start to her 11th year on the LPGA Tour as she continues to work on tracking down that elusive first victory.
Thursday, 10:08 a.m. – Jin Young Ko/Celine Boutier/Brooke Henderson
Two-time defending champion Jin Young Ko is looking to do something historic this week at the HSBC Women’s World Championship as she vies for a third consecutive title in Singapore. If she were to defend her title once again at Sentosa Golf Club’s Tanjong Course, Ko would be the first player since Inbee Park captured the 2013, 2014 and 2015 KPMG Women’s PGA Championships to win three straight tournaments on the LPGA Tour and just the sixth player to win an event three or more times since 2000. Considering she gained over three strokes per round on the field in the 2022 and 2023 editions of the HSBC Women’s World Championship and considering she’s a combined 34-under in her two previous starts in the event, according to KPMG Performance Insights, Ko should be more than able to match Park’s impressive feat this week in her title defense. This is her sixth appearance in the HSBC Women’s World Championship, and in addition to her two wins at Sentosa Golf Club, she has earned two other top-10 finishes, tying for sixth in 2018 and tying for third in 2019. This is her second start of the 2024 season, and she comes to Singapore fresh off a T20 showing at the Honda LPGA Thailand.
As round one of the @HWWCGolf is underway, here are the numbers that could make a difference. #KPMGInsights pic.twitter.com/x13yCtqxVB
— KPMG Golf (@KPMGGolf) February 29, 2024
The HSBC Women’s World Championship will be Frenchwoman Celine Boutier’s third LPGA Tour start of 2024, and she’ll be looking to improve upon her T16 and T49 results that she recorded at the LPGA Drive On Championship and Honda LPGA Thailand this week in Singapore. Last season saw Boutier take home four titles on the LPGA Tour, including her first major championship, which she won in her home country at The Amundi Evian Championship in Evian-les-Bains, France. She made $2,797,054 in season earnings and finished second in the Race to the CME Globe, coming up just short of earning Rolex Player of the Year honors, which ultimately went to Lilia Vu. This is her fifth start in the HSBC Women’s World Championship, and in her four previous appearances at Sentosa Golf Club, she hasn’t finished worse than T35, earning two top-15 results in 2021 (T14) and 2023 (T11). Boutier has a chance to ascend to No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings in Singapore this week and is projected to do so if she secures a victory and current No. 1 Vu finishes solo 26th or worse at the Tanjong Course.
While she didn’t have a “dream start” like she did in 2023 with a victory at the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, Brooke Henderson has shown up in a strong way in her first three events of the 2024 LPGA Tour season, finishing solo third at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, tying for 16th at the LPGA Drive On Championship and tying for ninth at last week’s Honda LPGA Thailand. This is her seventh start in the HSBC Women’s World Championship, and she has recorded five T15 or better results in her six previous appearances, the best of which is a tie for second that came in 2018. She has carded 10 rounds in the 60s at the Tanjong Course since the event was moved to those 18 holes at Sentosa Golf Club in 2017, firing a tournament-best 7-under 65 on day three of the 2018 HSBC Women’s World Championship en route to her runner-up performance.
Thursday, 10:20 a.m. – Patty Tavatanakit/Minjee Lee/Lydia Ko
Patty Tavatanakit wowed her home-country crowd last week in Thailand with a one-shot win over Albane Valenzuela that saw her pick up her second consecutive worldwide victory in as many weeks at the Honda LPGA Thailand. It was Tavatanakit’s first win on the LPGA Tour since she went wire-to-wire at the 2021 Chevron Championship as a rookie and backed up her win at the Aramco Saudi Ladies International on the Ladies European Tour the week prior, a tournament that she won by a whopping seven shots over Germany’s Esther Henseleit. According to KPMG Performance Insights, Tavatanakit led the Honda LPGA Thailand field in strokes gained off the tee and strokes gained tee to green last week, also ranking third in strokes gained around the green, and it was that combination of statistics that helped lift her to her winning performance at Siam Country Club’s Old Course. While winning three weeks in a row rarely happens, Tavatanakit will look to do just that this week at the HSBC Women’s World Championship as she tries to once again ride her hot hand into victory lane in Singapore.
Minjee Lee is making her season debut at the HSBC Women’s World Championship and will be hoping to recreate some of the magic she found last year as she readies herself for her 10th season on the LPGA Tour. The 2023 season saw the Australian pick up two playoff victories in the fall as she defeated Charley Hull with a birdie on the second extra hole to take home the Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G title in September and then beat Alison Lee in a one-hole playoff just over a month later to win the BMW Ladies Championship in October. She led the Tour in strokes gained approach in 2023, according to KPMG Performance Insights, gaining 1.53 shots on the field with her approach play, and she has led a tournament field in the same metric nine times since the beginning of the 2022 season, five more times than her next competitor in that span.
History is once again on the line for Lydia Ko as she works to capture her 21st LPGA Tour victory and earn the 27th point necessary for her to automatically qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame this week at the HSBC Women’s World Championship. Ko’s victory at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in January put her within one point of the Hall early in the 2024 season, and she nearly accomplished her goal the next week at the LPGA Drive On Championship. Ko ultimately lost in a playoff to Nelly Korda at Bradenton Country Club in a bid to win in back-to-back LPGA Tour starts for the first time since 2016, a year that saw her win the JTBC Classic presented by Barbasol and take home her second major title the very next week at The Chevron Championship. This is her 10th time teeing it up in the HSBC Women’s World Championship, and in her nine previous appearances, Ko has finished T15 or better seven consecutive times from 2014 to 2021, the best of which was a solo second that came in 2015. The event was not contested in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For a full list of tee times, please click here. All times are local.
)
)
)
)
